03-04-2019, 08:54 AM
(03-02-2019, 02:58 PM)wood Wrote: I think I'm starting to see some of the errors in my reasoning: A phone serves a "mission critical" function (communications), trying to add other features would result in a less reliable platform. In retrospect, adding GPIO outputs (for example) exposes the device to potentially damaging conditions. If needed at all, that kind of stuff is better served by using a USB device to allow better isolation of the signals from the phone hardware.
A modular phone is an alluring idea, but carries too many expenses/risks. The original Phoneblocks concept had promise, until Google Ara demonstrated how it shouldn't be done... The balance between modularity, cost, performance, reliability and supportability is crazy hard.
I do, however, still think a dedicated USB host port and support for an external antenna would useful. Whether it would be useful enough for enough users to warrant the effort and cost is another question.
Bottom line is that phones are not easy. The more complex a phone the more things you need to accommodate and plan for. For a first, security oriented, Linux (and *BSD!) phone from PINE64 its quite important to keep it a relatively simple device, which delivers in the few key aspects you'd want/ expect it to.
