Hacker News Reader

Comment by hilbert42 | Hacker News Reader

"Because the population of people that would actually use that functionality rounds to approximately 0."

How can you say that, where are your figures/stats/evidence?

For starters I'm 1 person, so the market is not O. And I know of others, and I know I'm not alone. Clearly you don't work in test and measurement.

Moreover, this article alone has raised the matter of additional features.

Anyway, it's only a matter of time until some (likely small) manufacturer breaks the boring mold and steps out. That's inevitable because the market is already saturated with phones that all have exactly the same features.

View on HN

> And I know of others, and I know I'm not alone.

Children who play Fortnite on the go are a much bigger market and will always be. Smartphones are content consumption devices.

"Smartphones are content consumption devices."

The point I put forward is what I and a small select section of the market wants as features—NOT what's on offer from manufacturers now.

The argument people are putting here is that manufacturers would not serve that market. These are two separate issues. Isn't that clear?

When someone makes what I want then I'll buy it. BTW, I've not suggested anything that cannot be made now with existing technology.

Instead, manufacturers are removing important features such as not including FM radio and 3.5mm headphone sockets. These are the first two specs I look for on a phone before I buy it. If they're not included I'm not interested. Full stop!

In brief, the lowest common denominator is NOT what I want. The market has to be more diverse. That in part is what the article is about and why I commented.

The tiny minority of people who want this do not form a market large enough to bear the amortized engineering and manufacturing cost of adding those niche features.

Imagine somebody asking for phones that have a built-in Swiss army knife because there is a (tiny) segment of the market who would benefit from it.

Before it makes sense to integrate these features to the phone, you would expect to see a thriving ecosystem of third-party external dongles providing the same, for example.

The market is not more diverse because there is no money to be made by making it more diverse. You underestimate the cost just as much as you overestimate the size of the market segment that wants those features.

"The tiny minority of people who want this do not form a market large enough to bear the amortized engineering and manufacturing cost of adding those niche features"

I beg to differ, Fairphone thinks it's economically viable to make phones that are upgradeable by changing modules. The company is doing it now!

All I want is a spare slot inside one of these phones that I can insert a specialized module. There would be no problem in getting specialized manufacturers to make those modules, witness the fact that there are already thousands of small modular devices on the market already.

If Fairphone were to provide a slot I'm damn sure there'd be call to use it. Think Raspberry Pi and all its ports, just transfer the concept to a phone that's almost suitable now.

> I beg to differ, Fairphone thinks it's economically viable to make phones that are upgradeable by changing modules. The company is doing it now!

Fairphones devices are, frankly, bad value and not particularly interesting. Being able to “upgrade” components is not very useful, if those components are already years behind. Also, fairphone doesn’t allow this! You just can replace components with the same kind… which just makes repairing easier.

> All I want is a spare slot inside one of these phones that I can insert a specialized module. There would be no problem in getting specialized manufacturers to make those modules, witness the fact that there are already thousands of small modular devices on the market already.

You have one. It’s called the USB-C port. Make whatever you want with it, it’s widely supported and compatible.

> For starters I'm 1 person, so the market is not O. And I know of others, and I know I'm not alone

Of all the people you interacted with in any way, shape or form this year, what percentage of those would benefit from this?

It rounds to 0, assuming you’re not a shut-in

If they're a shut-in it definitely rounds to zero

Everything rounds to zero on a big enough scale.

Wouldn't any percentage below 50% round to zero?

No, obviously not.

It does, to -2 decimal places :)

The point you are making is irrelevant as it has nothing to do with my point which is what I want as features on my phone. Whether manufacturers make them or how many other people may want the same as I do is a separate issue.

What phone do you use now and are you satisfied with it?

Tell me that and I may be able to then figure where you are coming from. BTW, read my comment to f6v.

You asked:

> How can you say that, where are your figures/stats/evidence?

I responded with:

> just look outside in the real world?

That’s totally relevant to you asking why no mass-market phones support increasingly niche features that ~0% of the population need or want, and you expanding on this by saying “me and one other person I know want this”…

Read my reply to david-gpu.

I can't make it any clearer, sorry I don't speak Klingon.

> The point I put forward is what I and a small select section of the market wants as features

> “Because the population of people that would actually use that functionality rounds to approximately 0."

> How can you say that, where are your figures/stats/evidence?

Pick one

> For starters I'm 1 person, so the market is not O. And I know of others, and I know I'm not alone. Clearly you don't work in test and measurement.

I said approximately 0, when compared to smartphone sales… which it is. I don’t need a survey to know that, since the vast vast vast majority of people using phones don’t even know what an oscilloscope, a DAC, or an ADC is. If you think that’s untrue, I’d suggest widening your horizons a bit.

Also, I’d think that you don’t work in test and measurement. I use test equipment in my day job and I wouldn’t trust the output of a phone if I’m doing actual production work. You need calibrated equipment for that. Maybe okay for debugging, but there’s tons of cheap measurement equipment that works just fine for general purpose debugging and has a much better UI than anything you’d get on a touch screen.

To expand upon that point: a new feature for smartphones that really takes off has to fall in one of two categories:

1. so incredibly convenient to always have with you, that everyone's willing to overlook shortcomings compared to dedicated equipment. Prime example: camera.

2. Offer a new type of use that is widely considered desirable. Example: mobile access to Internet.

Most use cases either cater to too few people and/or fall into the category "those who'd really care, already have dedicated equipment which is better". With flagship phones costing more and more, that equipment is probably also cheaper - or, at least, is price tag is not that outlandish.

Even replacing laptops probably won't catch on, simply because companies can easily provide a good laptop for half the price of a flagship phone (if not less). So they're not going to facilitate that. And if the boss isn't on board, would you want to use your own private phone as your primary work laptop?

Does it have to take off though?

The GP seems to be basically saying the same thing as many others have expressed. They want their phone to basically be a PC. Whether that involves upgrading, installing your own OS, or otherwise just being able to use it for an arbitrary workload.

I don't know why the market is such, that expensive phones remove features, such as extra sim card slots, sd card slots or head phone jacks. It doesn't seem impossible that Samsung could find room in their lineup of 8000 phones to have a ruggedised phone, with some kind of standardised interface on the back.

especially, as increasingly you go to a restaurant and the waiter has a phone/ tablet. and I'm sure there are many other industries that could do with basically a phone, that does one extra specialised thing, be that an rfid scanner, or a bore scope, or a label printer.

Why have these features built in if you can have a usb back case/device with them?

There are many back cases for specialised functionality like PoS, Ir camera etc.

Also, with many cases you can have devices connecting wirelessly via bluetooth - e.g. I bought a bluetooth trichiscope recently.

Making a specialised phone instead of a plugin is a way more expensive option. And in risky if the market is so small that nobody did a plugin first.

There were I think two companies that tried to build a modular phone where you could eg replace camera with a module of your own design - the issue was that they were bulkier and more expensive than a regular design - you can’t cheat physics.

Also, how much more would you be willing to pay for such a phone? Could you pay 2-3x the price and be happy with upgrades every 3-5 years, and the phone having electronics that are 1-3 years behind the top of the line ones on the start? Because that’s the reality of production with niche products.

I agree with you except for one point:

> Even replacing laptops probably won't catch on, simply because companies can easily provide a good laptop for half the price of a flagship phone

You’re comparing top of the range phones to low end laptops. A low to mid range phone can be bought from a reputable manufacturer (Samsung) for about £200 and it has plenty of processing to do email, video calls, PowerPoint, and basic spreadsheets. My wife works for the government and I’m pretty sure one of those phones would be about as responsive as the hunk of junk they provide her with, and for half the price.

Phones are also often paid for too. If you had a keyboard + screen + battery and could just clip your phone in that would feel like a pretty nice setup.

Bonus there is that it's one place for all your data.

Alternatively, on the data side I've been shocked at how cheap storage is now. I bought a 256gb usb stick shipped for £10. I've got tiny 4tb external drives. You can get terabyte microsd cards! It'd be pretty nice to have a setup where the device is intended to be blank and you just pop your data card in. I know it's more complex but not that complex for what would to me feel like a fairly sci-fi thing.

You're right about phones also being provided. With that in mind, I'd say: if your company and other places of business you tend to visit all go for this concept, I think it could work. But as long as the boss expects you to work on a laptop, this'll remain a niche application.

Honestly, I'd love to be surprised and see everyone switching to docking setups everywhere. But I just think the positives over current working modes are too small to gain the needed traction. And that's before considering downsides other than investment costs/overcoming network effects.

"Also, I’d think that you don’t work in test and measurement"

I've worked in one of the prototype laboratories of one of the biggest electronics companies in the world where we actually developed communication equipment.

Using bench type instrumentation has nothing whatsoever to do with what I'm talking about. At no time did I ever say that my portable device was a substitute for professional test equipment. The idea is preposterous.

Given your comment, one has to ask what you do and at what level.

Conflating ideas and 'reading' stuff that isn't actually there is the single biggest problem with the internet. .

> Using bench type instrumentation has nothing whatsoever to do with what I'm talking about. At no time did I ever say that my portable device was a substitute for professional test equipment. The idea is preposterous.

>> Of course not everyone needs these features but the smartphone stands out as an ideal device for use in instrumentation and measurement and data collection (of the other kind).

Your words, not mine. Without more context (which you didn't provide) it's unreasonable to expect me to understand what you mean (you, in fact, advocate I don't 'read stuff' that isn't actually there) outside of replacing actual test and measurement equipment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com