Rumour: Modu To “Soft Launch” This Wednesday
The zany modular phone platform known as Modu is allegedly set for a Wednesday launch with a price tag starting around $US130.
Unfortunately, Modu founder Dov Moran appears to be backtracking mightily from remarks he made when we first learned about Modu more than a year ago.
If you’ll remember, Modu was once billed as a modular phone with dozens of “jackets” that could do everything from GPS to play MP3s. Additional hyperbole included the promise that the phone would be an experience that could turn the “one-size-fits-all” smartphone market “on its ear.”
Now, however, Moran is talking only about the low cost, simplistic nature of the modu.
“Don’t forget that billions of people are still using 2nd-gen devices and a lot of them don’t need much more. People just want a small, light device that’s easy to dial and send text messages. If you want an Iphone with a camera that makes coffee and can transform into a kite, and you’re ready to pay thousands of Shekels for it – well, you have a big choice to pick from.”
Yeah, but wasn’t this thing advertised as the phone that could quickly and easily transform into whatever you desired? I kind of got the impression, ironically, that a phone turning into a kite was a Modu trick, not the iPhone. Guess that changed during focus group testing. [Calcalist via Mobo]
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@Summermodoin'_GitEmSteveDave: yes i did. I though rumormodu was just Jack getting all fancy with some french or something
ha
and why ENTER form my post is interpreted as P tag??? try BR tag, looks better/shorter
the ideea is cool, but the implementation...
maybe if there was independent devices...
let's say: a phone, a mp3 player, a PDA, a keyboard
so the phone+mp3Player will transform in a phone with mp3
phone+pda=smartphone
and so on...
and NO jackets... more like wii motion plus kind of way to go...
hope not ruin the product launch...
Did anyone else read the headline as "Rumormodo"?
In theory, one could just have a few different phones and switch the SIM card. I've heard this is popular with "the Europeans" but I have yet to see one of my friends actually buy a second handset.
It seems like the advantage here is that it would be cheaper to buy additional "jackets" than additional phones. I would love a small phone for going out, a jacket with big screen and buttons for playing a game on the subway and a third jacket with a physical keyboard.
Also, isn't Nokia owning the non-smart phone market now and reaping the 66%-profit-loss rewards of that move? Have at it Modu, sounds like a juicy piece of market share.
It's like Transformers that have no form until they shift into a car for the first time.
For 20$ a Jacket - i say ... Let them come ...
I saw the presentation here in Israel (the first "pilot" is in "Cellcom" company in Israel) and it seems like a pretty nice trick .. it will cost very cheap and the jackets are cheap too... i cant stand that "Brick" in my pocket anymore....
Nirtaz
@The Lab: People in my school used to do this. I remember a couple years ago someone traded their Razr with someone else's and they thought it was so cool.
This is an the US, though.
meow-mixer
@Violent Pacifist: Good to know. Sometimes you hear people talk about the behavior common to a continent and it is really only their friends. These are also the people who talk about Europe like it is one big country.
modo, basically a large sim card, except when you lose this sim card, your in for a good game.
timbit6002
@The Lab: As a "european", I can promise that very few people do this. I know of people with duel sim phones, but most people with more than one phone have it only because we have a higher reliance on Pay as you go, so can easily take a sim out and swap it into a new phone when we feel like it.
Violent Pacifist