Why Have Modular Smartphones Failed?

What do Project ARA, LG G5, Moto Z and Fairphone have in common? None of them were very successful. Why? - The Story Behind Episode 17

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[TheRegalstreak]

EVERYONE NEEDS A GIRLFRIEND LIKE YOURS.

[hubblebublumbubwub]

You forgot the lack of marketing. I wasn't even aware of these things being on the market.

[WataruTakagii]

I think the most important reason why modular smartphones died is that it would stop the trend of buying a new smartphone every other year. Companies like Apple, Samsung, Google are making tons of money by selling you a slightly improved version of their flagship smartphone every year. If they would start selling modular phones, people wouldn’t need to buy a new smartphone every year because they could just buy a new modul for the desired improvement. So the companies make less money after all.
On addition to this users could start buying cheap moduls from third party manufacturers so that the smartphone manufacturers could even lose more money after all.
I mean just think about it, if you were a CEO of a smartphone company right now, would you rather put tons of money to develope a modular phone even if it means losing money or would you just keep selling a new smartphone every year while increasing the price?

[ledukeofbacon]

Henry Ford can summarize easily what happened: "The customer can have the Model T in any color he wants, as long as it's black."

[zerix]

I didn't even know modular phones could be bought! I thought they were still in development. I say the problem was shit advertising.

[KoMdoN]

These project were cancelled because they were aware that the customers could buy those components from third parties for much less money. Plus its more profitable to sell you a new phone instead of just on piece of it.

[manishsinghbisht]

if you can't change the core components (SoC, display etc.) then this whole concept of modularity was useless...

[monkeyman]

Bad advertising, considering. Didn't even know the existed.

[johnsharhynes]

I own the Moto Z. Watched a movie in bed on the projector mod as I feel asleep last night. Woke up and took my kids to school with my phone connected to the car dock mod. Now I'm watching this video on my phone connected to the JBL speaker mod. Lenovo mods are actually considered a success and garnered much more money than expected and they have 11 new mods coming out by June.

[lilied]

For starters, I hadn't even heard of them until today, june 2018.

[pdfbrander]

Modular Smartphones failed before I even knew they existed,

[ahmadjabareen]

LG 5's removable battry was so dope
I would remove the battery just for fun and pretend its a rifle mag

[BrokenCurtain]

You should at least be able to replace a phone's battery.

[keving]

If Apple tried it they would change the connectors every year

[marcusxe]

Why even bother with modular phones when MAJORITY of ppl don't even change their default wallpapers??

[andyle]

apple first modular product for their iphone: the iHeadPhoneJack

[ratelslangen]

Wait they launched already?

Perhaps its failed because there was literally no marketing for it?

[FergusWyrm]

I really hate the push to make phones more thin and leak. It's a performance neutral upgrade at best. Users barely even notice since they put the phone into cases anyways. Thinness is just easily quantifiable so engineers can brag that they've "improved" a phone by making it 0.1 mm thinner. Nobody needs that. The engineers are just working themselves into a corner when they could be focusing on cooler stuff like this.

[overbyte]

It’s ironic to me that the generation that is known for social and eco consciousness still chooses aesthetics over saving their environment. Fairphone is such a good product. I just hope that they can get the specs to where they need to be; then they can start working on delivering the ecosystem that their product promises

[hassanjamil]

every single smartphone is modular if your jerryrigeverything