Technology
Product design 3/4
Motorola is working on its own
modular phone concept
called Project Ara
questions whether consumers would
embrace the design.
"With the ambition of consumers
to have the latest, sleekest, smallest,
thinnest phones on the planet, it's a
question of how to deliver a Phoneblok
concept in that environment," he adds.
Rice says he remains to be convinced
that the so-called 'lego phone' will be
widely accepted but does think the
concept of extending the life of a phone
is an extremely worthy one.
"In 2008, when we first started on
our mission to aspire to be a UK
sustainability leader, we talked about
marketing and identifying a 'green'
or sustainable phone and we had seen
other companies do that in the past.
Without naming names, manufacturers
who have produced green phones and
operators who have promoted them
have come up against barriers to market.
The problem is that when the phone
comes out it looks like a green phone,
it smells like a green phone and it is
a green phone, but they do not look
the way most people who are buying
phones want a phone to look," he
explains.
Rice says O2's philosophy has always
been not to try and make a 'green
phone' but to try and make "all the
phones greener".
This is the basic principle behind O2's
eco rating initiative which is driving
sustainability across its supply chain
to improve the environmental and
social impact of its phones. "If we do
that it works across the whole of our
portfolio and not just niche products
for a niche market. We can show all
our customers that the phones are
getting better," adds Rice.
However, one major mobile phone
firm, Motorola, is pushing the modular
phone concept with its own Project
Ara. Led by Motorola's Advanced
Technology and Projects group, Project
Ara is developing a free, open hardware
platform for creating "highly modular
