Why toss out a perfectly good mobile phone? Or donate it or trade-in for peanuts? Or try to find some child who doesn't already have a tablet or phone hand-me down? Or repurposed for a exercise mp3 player? Google bought into Project Ara, as others have kickstarters for PhoneBloks and Nexpaq. Will they work together to be truly interchangeable and have a common standard? The big issue here is probably with standardizing to the cellular carriers to have a cellular chip implementatio that they would approve. It also probably cuts into their margins in the fact consumers will spend less upgrading. And it also frees up people to have freedom to switch carriers since you bring your own device (an outright pre-purchase in full to a third party entity that's not a cellular company) which is also a threat since they can't lock people down for 2 years. laughably, AT&T Next program is the worst by renting your phone with a full purchase price with 0% financing over 12-18-24 months but payments are spread for 6 more months than the upgrade in order to keep the customer (fish, sheeple, ahem) hooked into their ecosystem and captivated and fearful of jumping out with the big scary balloon payment to actually own your phone at the end of the contract. AT&T wants to scare and entice customers to upgrade and hand over their phone for the next latest and greatest shiny device. The smart customer will pay out the terms of the contract monthly and then own the phone and upgrade someone in the family with a lesser device (slower, less memory, tiny screen, etc.) or "EBay" the device after requesting a free IMEI unlock to move to another carrier. Possibly, AT&T is nervous at Cricket nipping at its heels and introduced a $40 plan to combat slippage of customer retention.
Or do we go to a full independent core stick (just the brains, memory, battery, wi-fi, BT, and wireless video to a touch screen (with its own battery and mic, stereo jack, volume controls). This way we could pair the "core" stick with any display we want, when we want to. Say I'm on the road. I would use my "core" with a 5" display and act like a phone. If I'm in the car, the "core" would link to the auto's infotainment system and run the show. If I'm commuting, I would link the "core" to my tablet sized screen for reading articles, watch video, visit web pages and play games in 10-14" glory. When I'm home, and I want to kick back and relax in the living, I can link the "core" to my TV (LCD/LED/OLED, etc.) much like the auto experience but with a richer UX/UI in 36-80" (I can dream 100+") and my handheld display device of the tablet (10") or phone (5") pad can act as the remote with a split UI and / or mirror the big screen (extend as a 2nd screen like Windows (or Linux) can for example or clone). TV's need to be built in the future with the docking port to supply power and the HDMI connection simply with a standard to the "core" stick. Also, a hard-wired video interface connector should be available to dock the "core" to the handheld tablet or phone pad.
I want to mention this nit: every mobile O/S should have built in networking to mount uPNP devices already! Why do I need install drivers or an app to get SAMBA, DLNA connectivity when these devices are broadcasting. I have a Seagate WirelessPlus Drive, a Plex Server, an uPNP Windows Media Server, an iTunes media server, a NAS with uPNP support, and the list goes on. I want to host my own cloud; I don't want to relegate or give up ownership and then have to rent my media. This is just extra money grabbing from corporations to lease stuff to us and leech monthly payments. Back in the day we had free TV reception and AM/FM reception. Now we have to be spoiled and subscribe to cable TV for hundreds of channels to surf? Or need to pay monthly fees to Spotify, iTunes Beats, Rdio, Rhapsody, Pandora, Google Music, Amazon for the luxury and not even owning anything at the end of the day? Surfing through ads and playlists and trying to find an artist or a song is cumbersome with these apps. I want to do a search and start playing. If I want to tag music to a playlist, I just tap a button and link it to an existing or start a new playlist that fits my mood and build my own.
In the end, it's all about the control and consumption of media. Even your texts belong to a third party and can be gotten without your permission. Think about that! All these people posting photos to Instagram! Or think SnapChat really deletes your photos and won't spy on you! That should be a good example to shake them down and prove it. Guess law enforcement won't like that (and you can trust SnapChat; they don't have a back door that funnels the images elsewhere to another third party!)
Oct 2015: Microsoft introduces the Lumia 950/950XL
Pro: SD card support
Cons: Runs ARM instruction set so Windows 10 Continuum is basically Windows RT all over again. Only Universal Apps can run and not full blown Win32 Legacy Apps.
There is a portable dock unit to allow more USB ports to attach external storage devices, HDMI and / or displayport monitors, Bluetooth keyboard & mouse.
However, is OneDrive cloud service worth anything? Will Microsoft rifle through your files that you store on OneDrive and report to law enforcement upon subpoena? If using a Windows Live account for Windows 10 does that mean there is backdoor synchronization of local files to OneDrive that cannot be opt-out (the whole Telemetry argument)?
Future: Multi-SIM phones; the ability to roam on multiple LTE/4G/5G/etc. networks regardless of carrier. All the cellular carriers become aggregated and bandwidth is negotiated by a third party overseer. Users pay into the collective with one price for data / voice usage (text messaging unlimited is status quo by now with any data plan just because at this point its small beans). Phones scan the collective networks and lock on to whatever carrier is broadcasting with available bandwidth and negotiates the traffic. The third party overseer / aggregator collects fees and distributes money to carriers for bandwidth served. End of worrying about wireless dead-spots and fault tolerance in case one network is shut down or if new carriers want to come in to the game and provide more bandwidth. Will this make tracking users easier with LE Agencies? Getting IP addresses for a particular SIM for when and where? What data was sent over the line? Note the stingray device; does it require to know the cell phone carrier to track the SIM or does it even care? I doubt it matters as its a huge siphon and uses the middleman attack vector acting like an invisible agent. Our digital privacy is moot unless cell phone makers (along with the modem makers) introduce encryption without backdoors so no one can eavesdrop for MITM attacks. But the governments of the world will probably not allow that as they always appear to want the keys to the digital kingdom. Do governments inspect and log everyone's letters sent via snail mail? Imagine taking x-ray images, opening and scanning the contents, then sealing it closed so the recipient does not suspect tampering. If this is done without a warrant, then it's an invasion of privacy and according to U.S. law a breach of a citizen's rights (unless of course the sender or recipient is not a U.S. citizen - got to love that slippery slope excuse). Think of PRISM with it's capabilities of capturing and collecting metadata of who the sender and receiver is with the telltale signs of the addresses of each phone or email. There is no way to obscure the receiver. There are a few ways to fake out the sender email, but requires a VPN service to ensure that the IP address is obscured from the originator. Email and texts are sent via plain text, stored on servers in plain text (so anyone can use discovery and read everything easily). Just like voice is carried and intercepted as native audible data. Why isn't voice "data" encrypted end to end? It is all could be controlled by the carrier; request it be implemented by modem chip manufacturers and then enabled by the cellular carrier. Why doesn't Joe Citizen demand encryption so he is safe from search and seizure? I wonder how good the iCloud service encrypts photos and texts from iPhone users if LFA want to dig in without the original device? They claim if a user backups their iCloud account with encryption on then they are safe from intrusion unless the password is discovered, as well as getting into the iCloud account.
Which brings me to security of fingerprint sensors. So far there are clever tricks to deceive the detection of an authentic print to only allow the proper authorized user. However, if you're asleep, someone could unlock your device by trying out all your fingers and, bingo!, there are in. Since you cannot change your fingerprints, that biometric data that has been captured and seized from you by LFAs can be used against you to unlock your device with modern technology as well without your consent. A court doesn't have to require you to unlock your own device when they can impound it and just hack away until they find a method to beat the fingerprint sensor. This is not the same with a combination lock or password. Safes with combination locks can be bypassed as well by experts and agents with sufficient funding and tools, or just drilled into or hinges blown off, and neither requires one to be compelled to testify against oneself to open the safe. Password cracking can be done and usually takes longer so that encrypted hard / flash drive might be safer for awhile, but at least so far people are compelled to incriminate themselves by divulging their password. Fingerprint scanners are for convenience and about as useful as a 2 digit (not even alphanumeric) password. After all, every has to sleep sometime so they confiscate the device, wait for the subject to pass out and fiddle away with fingers on the device until it unlocks. The one saving grace is powering off an iPhone completely so upon starting up it requires the passcode. Hopefully you have a sufficiently long alphanumeric passcode that defies cracking for your lifetime or the statute of limitation.
Modules needed:
1. Upgrade your cpu - Samsung Exynos or Apple ARM variant or Qualcomm's Snapdragon or Intel's ULV
2. O/S allowed? Android or Windows mobile or Apple's iOS
3. Core memory for running O/S and apps
4. Main eMMC memory for storing O/S, apps and data
5. Wi-Fi/BT/Cellular (need proper GSM / CDMA band to support network for Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, U.S. Cellular, Cricket, MetroPCS, etc.
6. Battery
7. Touch Screen
8. Stereo jack, Mic, Micro USB (To-Go) / Power port
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