Phonebloks: Phone of the Future or Just Another Phony?

Image source: http://www.newintech.net/

Having a hybrid of a phone may not be far off from now especially for those who are tired of changing them every time an upgrade comes out the market. In an era where communication comes with a hefty price tag (not to mention an incredible amount of rubbish), this might be what we all just need.

Phonebloks is a visionary phone concept created by the Dutch designer, Dave Hakkens, as a response to the increasing amount of electronic waste brought about by rapid technological advancement. It has made waves through the social media ever since its first Thunderclap introduction way back 2011 and has now gained over 900 thousand supporters (plus a partnership with Motorola!).

Image Source: https://phonebloks.com/

According to CNN news, people all over the world dispose a total of 20 million to 50 million tons of 'e-waste' annually (now, that's enough number of trash to stretch all around the world!) and a large amount of it is made up of our old cellular gadgets. This is often because our smart phones are pretty much impossible to repair and the upgrades that come with it are often limited as well.

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Hakkens also stated three more reasons why people get enchanted with the idea of buying a new phone every now and then. First is because all of us are consumers and we technically have the buying power. Second is because of practical reasons: phones are just not made to outlast a human being's average lifespan. Third (and perhaps, the most underrated) is because of psychological reasons. This is how our 'taste gets connected to trends' and how we want to be tagged along with the affirmation that comes with our purchase.

To answer this dilemma, Hakkens thought of setting up a modular platform that can significantly reduce the amount of e-waste with the addition of having the satisfaction to personalize our items to fit our own specifications. Hence, he designed each phoneblok to come with a handset made up of detachable modules--much similar to legos--which he then called bloks. The idea is, if one blok happens to deteriorate, or if the owner for example, decides to have a faster processor, a better camera, or a new component for his smart phone, all that needs to be done is to remove the faulty blok and replace it with a new piece. This way, he gets to keep the rest of the functioning bloks without throwing away the whole unit altogether.

  

Image Source: http://thenextweb.com/gadgets

Despite its promising marketability, the future phone concept is not without a handful of criticisms; one of which came from John Brownlee (a writer for the business media website known as the FastCompany) who called the idea nothing but impractical and a 'pipe dream' for several points:

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1. "SMARTPHONES ARE INTEGRATED FOR A REASON." One thing that makes an iphone similar to a sandwich is that it works best with all its parts clustered together. The synergy of parts is actually what makes data transfer faster and more efficient. Breaking your phone into tiny 'Franken-pieces' may not just directly take a toll on its speed, but it will surely make it consume more power giving way to a bulkier device that requires more expensive sockets to avoid such compromise.

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2. "PHONEBLOKS WOULD INCREASE E-WASTE, NOT ELIMINATE IT." Phones break and that is a fact. May it be through an accidental slip or an unfortunate flush, human error is one of the most common reasons why we have to replace them.

The Phonebloks concept would take the human error factor that ruins so many smartphones and multiply it with every module. As users constantly pry modules off, replacing them and switching them around, there's just a million ways a Phonebloks smartphone could break that an integrated smartphone is not susceptible to (Brownlee, 2013).

  

3. "PHONEBLOKS: NOT A PREDICTION OF FUTURE SMARTPHONES". Phonebloks may lessen the guilt we humans have towards the rest of the planet since the start of the industrial revolution. Not to mention its Lego look brings us back to the old days of childhood nostalgia. But that seems to be the farthest this phone can get, practicality-wise. It might be good to visualize it as a goal and nothing more like a prediction that might need a great deal of 'magic' to function.

Whichever side you are on, the emergence of this future phone concept just proves that we are becoming more responsible as we start to think in account for the future. Humans have gone a long way from pigeons, to snail mail, to dinosaur phones, up to the current ultra-chic touch phones in the market; so much that we can't deny how all the 20 million tons of rubbish is the price we pay for being social animals. Yes, phonebloks definitely has its pitfalls and it may take years to actually develop a successful prototype, but the impact left by the idea such that it created a ripple of other ideas on how immediate the issue of planned obsolescence in communication should be addressed, is perhaps, the real gauge of its success--and with that, I congratulate Dave Hakkens.



Just in case you are wondering, here is the latest progress made by Motorola as of October, 2013. I must say, not so much of a pipe-dream now, wouldn't you agree? :)

Image Sources: http://mashable.com/2013/10/29/motorola-project-ara/ and http://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/

Sources:

Brownlee, John. (2013). Why lego design principles don't work on smartphones. FastCompany. Web. http://www.fastcodesign.com/3017409/why-lego-design-principles-dont-work-on-smartphones. Date Retrieved: December 29, 2013.

McNicoll, Arion. Phonebloks: The smartphone for the rest of your life. (2013). CNN: BluePrint. Web. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/19/tech/innovation/phonebloks-the-smartphone-for-life/. Date Retrieved: December 29, 2013.

Phonebloks Team. What is phonebloks? (2013). Web. http://news.phonebloks.com/post/66725983279/what-is-phonebloks. Date Retrieved: December 29, 2013.

Phonebloks Team. What is planned obsolence? (2013). Web. http://news.phonebloks.com/post/70397678723/what-is-planned-obsolescence-here-at. Date Retrieved: December 29, 2013.

Schroeder, Stand. (2013). Project Ara Motorola makes your smartphone modular. Mashable. Web. http://mashable.com/2013/10/29/motorola-project-ara/. Date Retrieved: December 30, 2013