Not really impressed with the battery of the brand new smartphone you recently bought? Finding a mobile phone that matches your expectations completely could be tough, unless you are willing to shell a huge amount to bag that dream phone. When the camera is great the processor is not good, when the processor is good the camera might disappoint, and when the camera as well as the processor are exceptional the battery might bail out on you. We are destined to compromise on one aspect or other. It would have been fun and convenient if we could have picked up and assembled parts of our choice to craft that ideal equipment that we would have dreamed of. Well, with technology not failing to impress us, we are heading right there.
Yes, I am talking about modular phones. This post will cover the patent aspects of certain modular phones offered by entities like Google. Back in 2011 news surfaced that Google has acquired patents related to Modular design from Modu, an Israeli company, and we straightaway knew that the next-gen mobile phones are in the making. Google’s ‘Project Ara’ is an initiative aimed to create highly modular mobile phones. However, in the recently concluded Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016, LG managed to beat Google by introducing LG G5, the smartphone that comes with a slide out battery, which is considered as first step towards a world of modular mobile phones.
But like I said, it’s only the first step, and there is a long way to go. To spice up things further, Google secured two US design patents (D750618 and D750619) for their project Ara smartphone. These patents reveal no details other than the designs given below.
(Design from D750619)
(Design in D750618)
These patents were filed in 2014. Last year, Google acknowledged that launch of the Project Ara smartphones was delayed as the phones failed a drop test. So we are not sure if these design patents offer any fix for that issue. But even if they don’t, we know it’s only a matter of time Google find a solution to this issue. Yes, this is the future of smart phones. We will keep you posted.
Authored by Naveen KM.
Image Source / Attribution here, governed by Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0
