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There is little doubt that today's smartphones offer room for improvement. Ubiquitous and beloved though they may be, the portable devices are fragile, offer limited choice, and generate a growing mass of e-waste that's been called nothing short of a "global time bomb."
毫無疑問，今天的智能手機依然存在改進的空間。盡管如今手機無處不在，深受人們的喜愛，但它們十分脆弱，且選擇有限，還產生了越來越多的電子垃圾，可謂不折不扣的“全球定時炸彈”。
Google's Project Ara aims to change all that. With a modular, open-source approach to smartphone design, Project Ara phones will be based on a structural frame -- dubbed the "endoskeleton," or "Endo" -- on which to attach smartphone modules of the owner's choice, such as a display, keyboard, camera, or even specialized components such as a glucose monitor. In other words, you design the phone you want, and don't pay for parts that you don't care about.
谷歌（Google）推出的Project Ara項目目的就是要改變這種現狀。這個項目采取模塊化開源方式設計智能手機，在手機的結構框架——即所謂的“內骨骼”——上附加用戶自己選擇的智能手機模塊，比如顯示器、鍵盤、攝像頭，甚至還有葡萄糖監視器等專門部件。換句話說，用戶能自行設計自己想要的手機，無需為自己不想要的部件浪費錢。
The concept is notable for its customizability and overall do-it-yourself appeal, but modular phones are also anticipated with much enthusiasm for the reductions in replacement costs and e-waste they could bring. Fry a component? No need to exchange or throw out the whole phone -- just replace the part that's broken. The result, as some have suggested, could be that the modular smartphone is "the only phone you'll ever need."
這個概念引人注意的是可定制性以及自己動手的吸引力，此外，模塊化手機令人翹首期待之處還在于，它能降低重置成本，同時減少隨之產生的電子垃圾。更換某個部件？無需更換或扔掉整部手機，只需更換出了問題的部分。正如某些人所說，模塊化智能手機可能將成為“大家需要的唯一一部手機。”
That's the thinking, anyway. The reality, however, is that modular phones have a long way to go. The first Project Ara phones are expected in January for around $50, but a lot has to happen first. And even if the pieces do fall into place -- so to speak -- it's not at all clear that consumers are ready.
至少這是谷歌的想法。然而，現實情況是，模塊化手機還有很長的路要走。Project Ara的第一款產品將于明年1月面世，售價預計在50美元上下，但中間還有很多工作要做。而且就算谷歌一切準備就緒，消費者們也不一定已經做好了準備。
'People are sick of throwing out their phones'
‘人們不愿換手機’
Google's modular approach may be the best-publicized so far, but it's not unique. The Chinese manufacturer ZTE offers the quasi-modular Eco-Mobius. And preceding the October announcement of Project Ara was the launch of the Phonebloks project, led by Dutch designer David Hakkens. Created to address the e-waste problem, Phonebloks envisions an "app store" of sorts for hardware through which users can buy new and used components as well as sell their old ones.
谷歌的模塊化手機項目可能是媒體報道最多的一個，但它并不是獨一份。中國手機廠商中興（ZTE）就推出了準模塊化的Eco-Mobius手機。而在去年十月Project Ara項目公布之前，荷蘭設計師大衛o哈肯斯就牽頭推出了 Phonebloks項目。后者設想建立一個類似“應用程序商店”的硬件交易平臺，用戶能在這個平臺上買賣全新和二手部件。項目的宗旨是解決電子垃圾問題。
Phonebloks has since thrown its support behind Project Ara. Before that, it conducted an online campaign on "crowdspeaking"platform Thunderclap, where it garnered more than 950,000 supporters and attained a social reach of more than 380 million people.
Phonebloks表示支持Project Ara項目。此前，Phonebloks在“大眾演說”（“crowd speaking”）平臺Thunderclap上舉行了線上宣傳活動，聚集了95萬多名支持者，覆蓋的受眾人數超過3.8億。
"We didn't know what the demand for this was -- that's why we did an online campaign," Hakkens told Fortune. "Turned out quite a lot of people are pretty sick of throwing out their phones every couple of years."
哈肯斯告訴《財富》（Fortune）雜志：“我們不清楚市場對我們項目的需求有多大，因此我們舉行了這次線上宣傳活動。結果我們發現，原來許多人很不情愿每隔幾年就換一次手機。”
'Manufacturers aren't interested'
‘制造廠商不感興趣’
There has been no shortage of critics for the modular concept. (A taste: the writer John Brownlee, who penned a piece for Fast Company shortly after Phonebloks' launch entitled, "Why Lego Design Principles Don't Work On Smartphones.")
但是，模塊化概念的批評聲也不少。【比如：Phonebloks推出后不久，約翰o布朗利就在《快公司》雜志（Fast Company）上撰文《為什么說樂高設計原則不適合智能手機》。】
Hakkens admits there are significant market challenges to such a phone.
哈肯斯承認，模塊化手機面臨極大的市場挑戰。
For one, "current phone manufacturers aren't really interested in this phone," he said. "Currently, they are in charge and decide which components are in the phone. They prefer to see an open market where they can sell straight to the consumer."
哈肯斯表示，首先，“目前的手機廠商對模塊化手機不感興趣。目前手機廠商決定著手機中有哪些部件。它們更愿意看到一個開放的市場，一個它們直接面向終端消費者的市場。”
With regard to Ara, there remains a lack of clarity around the project since Google sold much of Motorola to Lenovo in January 2014. "Who's going to do it?"asked Ramon Llamas, a research manager for mobile phones at IDC. "Is it a Motorola thing? A Google thing? This has Google's fingerprints all over it, but with Motorola heading to Lenovo, there's reason to question. Does Google want to get into the hardware business again?"
而最初由摩托羅拉發起的Ara項目本身也存在較大的模糊性，因為谷歌于2014年1月將摩托羅拉（Motorola）的很大部分賣給了聯想（Lenovo）。IDC公司手機行業研究經理雷蒙o拉馬斯反問：“這個項目到底應該由誰來推進？它是摩托羅拉的工作？還是谷歌的事情？這個項目可謂充滿了谷歌的烙印，但隨著摩托羅拉投入聯想的懷抱，人們有理由產生質疑。谷歌到底是不是愿意再次涉足硬件業務？”
Even if it does -- which is unlikely -- it will need an ecosystem of partners to make modules for the phone, said Peter Semmelhack, founder and CEO of Bug Labs, which makes a "Lego-like" hardware platform of its own for digital devices. "Every module is a product with its own life cycle and road map," he said. "It becomes a geometric problem."
Bug Labs公司創始人兼首席執行官彼得o賽莫哈克表示，這一點不大可能。退一步說，即使谷歌有意涉足硬件業務，它也需要眾多合作伙伴來為它手機制造部件。Bug Labs公司運營著一個“樂高式”的數字設備硬件平臺。賽莫哈克說：“每個模塊都是有著自身生命周期和路線圖的產品。它成了一個幾何學問題。”
'The countervailing problem will be cost'
‘關鍵問題在于如何控制成本’
As for retailers and carriers, a modular device could -- albeit briefly -- offer a modicum of much-needed differentiation, Llamas said. But the investment required could be significant.
拉馬斯稱，模塊化設備可以為零售商和運營商提供急需的差異化（盡管只是暫時的）。但所需的投資可能十分巨大。
"Think about training your sales force, how much inventory you'll have to carry, all the different colors and designs you may have to have," he said. "The last thing you want is to hang onto inventory that's just not moving."
拉馬斯說：“想想訓練銷售隊伍，想想將需要準備多少庫存，將需要采購各種顏色和設計的部件。人們最不愿看到的就是庫存積壓。”
And then there's the question of whether such a device is feasible from an engineering perspective.
還有一個問題就是，這種設備從工程角度而言是否可行。
"I'm not an engineer, but I know if you take two objects and slide them on top of each other again and again, eventually they won't lock as well as they used to," Llamas said. "For this to really come together, the parts have to be able to withstand shock, drops, the elements, and that's a huge thing for me."
拉馬斯說：“我本人不是工程師，但我知道，如果你把兩個物體一次次組合在一起，天長日久，組合就會變得不那么順暢。要使部件組合得天衣無縫，各個部件必須能經受沖擊和跌落等情況。我認為，這絕對不是一件容易的事。”
One of the most compelling arguments? Cost. The inability for consumers to service their own devices today is hardly an oversight; it takes a variable out of the equation.
而最關鍵的問題則在于成本控制。如今消費者不能定制手機并不是因為缺乏相應的理念；而是客觀條件還不完全具備。
"I have a soft spot in my heart for what they're trying to do," Semmelhack said. "They're trying in essence to provide consumers with what they're missing right now, which is choice." At the same time, "the countervailing problem will be cost. Modularity comes with a lot of complexity on the hardware level, the software level, the mechanical design level -- even aesthetics. In a mass market, cost is probably the most important factor, and the only way to get the price down is to make the same thing in large quantities."
賽莫哈克說：“我很認同模塊化智能手機的設想。這類項目本質上是嘗試給消費者提供更多選擇，而這正是消費者所缺乏的東西。”與此同時，“存在的問題是成本控制。模塊化在硬件、軟件、機械設計乃至美學層面都十分復雜。在大眾市場，成本可能是最重要的因素，而降低價格的唯一辦法就是大批量生產同一種產品。”
With the modular approach, Semmelhack said, "you lose that scale."
賽莫哈克說道，而模塊化就意味著無法實現規模化生產。
'Moto tried this before'
‘摩托羅拉曾經進行過嘗試’
The modular concept isn't without precedent, most notably in the PC category.
模塊化概念并非前無古人，特別是在個人電腦領域。
"We're seeing, through Ara, an attempt to make smartphones much more like PCs in the sense that when you go to Dell or HP or Lenovo, you get to tell them what to put in -– processor, memory, disk, display, etc.," said Jack Gold, principal of research firm J. Gold Associates. "Ara is an attempt to take this model down to smartphones and probably tablets eventually."
研究公司J. Gold Associates負責人杰克o金說：“Ara項目旨在使手機效仿個人電腦。大家購買戴爾（Dell）、惠普（HP）或聯想的電腦，都會告訴廠商你需要哪些配置——處理器、內存、硬盤、顯示器等等。Ara嘗試把這種模式帶到手機行業，最終帶到平板電腦生產領域。”
Will consumers bite? Llamas said it's too early to tell.
這個模式到底能不能獲得消費者的認可？賽莫哈克稱目前還無法判斷。
"It's hard to build demand when there's no product currently out there," he said.
金說：“沒有做出產品之前很難創造需求。”
Gold said appeal could be generational. "Being able to offer a 'customized' phone, particularly to twenty- and thirtysomethings, could be enough of a differentiator to make it very popular," he said. "Of course, Moto tried this before, with marginal success, albeit with far less customization."
金表示，模塊化智能手機可能對某些年齡層的消費者頗具吸引力。“特別是對二三十歲的年輕人而言，能‘定制’這一點就足夠特別，足夠獲得極高的人氣。當然，摩托羅拉曾經進行過類似的嘗試，結果差強人意，盡管它的定制化程度要低得多。”
Semmelhack sees potential in certain industries, rather than the broader consumer market.
賽莫哈克認為，模塊化生產在某些行業具有潛力，但并不是在整個消費市場都可行。
"There's all this emphasis in mass-market solutions to try to find 'the killer app,'" Semmelhack said. "There are some out there, but there's also a category of lesser killer apps within communities and subcategories -- medical is a great example."
賽莫哈克說：“眼下，大眾市場解決方案強調開發出“殺手級應用”。這樣的應用確實存在，但還有一類在特定社區和子類別中如魚得水的熱門應用，比如醫療領域就是一個很好的例子。”
With a modular approach to smartphones, he said, it would be more feasible to address users with diabetes or juvenile asthma, for example, in economical ways. "Say there are 100 markets with idiosyncratic needs," Semmelhack said. "That isn't economically feasible to serve in a mass-market way."
賽莫哈克表示，舉例來說，采用模塊化方式生產的智能手機將幫助糖尿病和青少年哮喘患者以更經濟的方式滿足特殊需求。他說：“假如有100個存在特殊需求的市場，從經濟角度而言，我們無法以服務大眾市場的方式來服務這些市場。”
Done right, it can make economic sense for Google or any other phone-maker. "Instead of selling 10 million of one thing, from Google's perspective, you sell a million of 10 things," Semmelhack said. "You can do it economically because you have invested in the platform."
如果處理得當，就經濟角度而言，這個模式對谷歌或其他手機制造商來說將是可行的。賽莫哈克說：“從谷歌的角度而言，是從同一種產品賣出1000萬件變成10種產品每種賣出100萬件。因為投資于（模塊化生產）平臺，所以能夠以經濟可行的方式實現這個轉變。”（財富中文網）
