Concept: Phone That Never Goes Obsolete

Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to get a new phone every two years (or less)? When the current fads fade and new exciting breakthroughs come out in the phone industry, would you like to be able to just install it directly into the same phone?

Our friends at Yanko Design have been wondering the same thing. They’re tired of having to get new phones all the time. Why not build a phone that is never, ever obsolete? Designer Will Orrock shows off his idea of a “infinite sustainable” phone.

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Will bases his design off two components: layers and upgrade.

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The concept incorporates four different layers: battery, OLED screen wrap, high-strength polymer housing and printed circuit board. The idea is that each of these layers can be tackled individually so as to switch them out whenever necessary.

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The second of the two components is upgrade. The hardware AND software of the phone will be upgradeable to match current trends and the latest tech. Any discarded parts will be recyclable.

Will also envisions the specs the phone would start off with:

Not a bad feature set for any phone! And the 360-degree screen intrigues me. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine in today’s terms how an upgrade would be necessary, but 3-4 years down the road some of these specs will indeed be obsolete and we will want to replace them with nicer features.

Ironically the pics show the phone with Windows Mobile. This is ironic since Microsoft announced at MWC that no existing phones would be upgradeable to 6.5, which would completely defeat the purpose of an infinitely upgradeable phone.

A bit of a flaw indeed. If this phone were to become reality its ability to upgrade would be limited by something as simple as the OS. What else would limit the ability to upgrade the phone?

Time to sound off — what do you think of the idea?

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via Yanko Design

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Posted on 23 Feb 09 - Filed in Software&Services, Wireless - Comments - Written by bradmolen

  • It sounds like this is in need of a decent upgrade system, where one can easily access upgrades of different kind and also deal with the disposal/recycling of the outdated parts (no gain from the recyclability if the parts end up in the landfill). With that said, the same system may also offer different kind of phones (if one f.ex. realize after a few months touchscreen ain’t as convenient as a qwerty, one can get another phone) so I imagine a monthly fee for a phone that is always up to date, but not to have the same phone (or plastic shell, or any one part of the phone) - a transition from a product to a product service system.
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