Sib64 thanks for tagging me in this post. There’s a lot to unpack here lol.
I’ll start with the Essential Phone. I think this was the best way to approach “modularity” along with what Motorola did with their Moto Mods. What these companies were able to do was build extensions to your devices in essences making them modular. Unfortunately these devices weren’t big sellers and weren’t widely available so the idea didn’t catch on the way we all had hoped but they were amazing pieces of tech for their time and we’re great ways to expand on an already amazing experience they gave us with their smart phones.
With repairability, that all went out the window once it became normal for devices to be water and dust resistant. Back in the days, phones were easy to fix because they all had removable batteries, most of them were made with plastic backs that would easily pop off. LG made the most reparable devices. Everything on the inside seemed very modular and easy to replace. I miss those days. Now, with how small devices have become, and how tightly packed all the chips are, and again, with the water proofing and dust resistance, repairing a phone is extremely difficult. Here’s a picture of my old Nexus 5 that I opened up to fix.
One main issue that I see with modularity in devices that people tend to overlook is the software side. Optimization and a fast smooth user experience will go out the window with this. In order for a company to sustain the software for a modular phone they would have to make the phone cost a lot more than people would be willing to pay. I think the best way to go, the most sustainable way to go with modularity would have to be the same way Essential and Motorola did it and give us a small sense of modularity in the form of hardware extensions.
