If this thread proves anything it’s that there is huge demand for customizable phone designs. Currently, there is total reliance on economies of scale to make standardized SKUs affordable.
Imagine if you could figure out a way of manufacturing a phone with design on demand… imagine a configurator website where you adjusted sliders and tickboxes. Headphone jack here, screen size slider all the way to the left, battery size all the way to the right, pick your color, oops you can’t have IP68 because you selected the pop-out camera…
Like variable fonts, but for hardware.
Frankly I’ve no idea how you would do it.
But that’s the level of innovation required to unlock this market.
> If this thread proves anything it’s that there is huge demand for customizable phone designs.
I think it just proves what we already know -- there is a vocal minority (but strong emphasis on minority) who would like a customizable phone. The market largely doesn't seem to care. And it may even actively discriminate against customizable phones by ensuring they had no resale value. The more custom you want it, the fewer people who want to buy that particular device.
You really only get to have one obscure requirement. If you want a small phone, the mini exists. If you want a phone with a headphone Jack, those exist. Once you start stacking up two, three or four odd requirements, you’ll never get what you want.
The problem with targeting small markets is almost everyone in the group wants absolutely everything the way they expect. There isn’t a “small phone market” there is a “small android phone with removable sd card and 3 cameras” market and a “small android phone with one camera but a replaceable battery at $400” market.
And then it just becomes literally impossible to make work so we have mass market products only.
It’s not even close to possible. Phones are likely the most advanced items in human history. So far beyond anything else you’d interact with. It’s only possible through hundreds of thousands of people working on mass production and research.
You could make customisable phones but they wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as mass market phones.
Imagine if you could figure out a way of manufacturing a phone with design on demand… imagine a configurator website where you adjusted sliders and tickboxes. Headphone jack here, screen size slider all the way to the left, battery size all the way to the right, pick your color, oops you can’t have IP68 because you selected the pop-out camera…
Like variable fonts, but for hardware.
Frankly I’ve no idea how you would do it.
But that’s the level of innovation required to unlock this market.