[jasonlmk]

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts about how technically feasible this actually is (under a single discussion thread).

[1] Sirkneeland states that it's going to be tough to engineer the antenna

[2] nwh states that "Any extendability it has will be stunted by the bus abatable to it; you won't get an external screen or upgraded processor on a flimsy usb-alike connector"

Any other thoughts?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6632641 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6632597

[rkangel]

I love the concept, but I can't see how you're going to avoid losing out majorly on size and/or battery life.

As I understand it, one of the major size reduction wins in the modern mobile phone is packaging - taking the major components and packing them in such a way as to lose as little space as possible. The battery shape can be designed to go with whatever packaging is chosen.

In this scenario, the packaging decisions are already made - or rather, there isn't much flexibility. Each device has to be a cuboid, placed next to each other. The same is true of the battery. The packaging of the blocks is going to cost you some space (connectors, case), but you're also going to waste space in a block as it's unlikely the given chip is going to be exactly as big as the package. The same is true of the battery - rather than fitting in a customised space, it's another cuboid.

All of these little inefficiencies of space will add up, so that either you've got a very big phone, or one with a very small battery.

[rkangel]

In terms of the bus, I don't think that's a problem. You're right, no one bus technology is going to work for everything, but a couple of different ones might, between them, work for everything.