Your Colors Aren’t Enough to Customize My Smartphone

People love to customize their phones.

2013 in particular has been the year of variety for those buying a new device. The Moto X ditched top-of-the-line specs in hopes that the two-thousand possible color combinations would personalize its way to popularity. And Apple, a company with famously little variation in the phone market, introduced its first wave of multicolored options for the 5C.

Clearly, then, walking down the street should be a constant surprise in what phone you’ll see next. No longer will black slabs be the norm as finally consumers have the choice to make the unique handset that only they could have.

But that isn’t the case. Black slabs are the norm, and always will be. Samsung, Apple, Nokia, and others will always sell their same few basic colors — colors whose hues won’t go to extremes — and the Nike iD’s of mobile phones will remain in the fringe. And to understand why, actually take a look at the phones people are carrying. The variation comes from aftermarket accessories: cases, sleeves, stickers, etc. The hardware itself is rarely the point of personalization even for the adventurous.

This fact is one phone makers haven’t yet realized. It’s not that consumers don’t want to customize their handsets. They just want to minimize the commitment. A two-year contract is the harsh reality that factors most into the average phone-buyer’s decision. Why tamper a phone’s hardware when a case is both cheaper and temporary?

But as of the last month, “phone customization” has new meaning. First came the story of Dave Hakkens’ Phonebloks concept — a sort of fantasy idea advocated as something to fight for fruition. The idea is Lego for handset components: the screen, battery, camera, etc. are all individual blocks that can be swapped out on the main board. This allows one to piece together the make-up of their device based on usage. People who value photography can invest in a better camera. Or people who need a larger battery can sacrifice the camera for a larger one.

Then last week, it turned out Hakkens wasn’t the only one thinking about modular phone hardware. Motorola’s Project Ara was publicly revealed as a similar project to that of Phonebloks. Thus, the two have teamed up, and are working on prototyping the idea.

So again: people love to customize their phones. And also again: People want to minimize the commitment. Phonebloks/Ara is a common ground of these two ideas. And though its naysayershave virtually proved it impossible, the idea of personalization based on usage is something device companies need to pay attention to. When buying a car, the color is the least important choice you make. The real decisions are in the features and how they interact with the owner’s practicality. The hardware company that gets this idea first will have truly cracked phone customization.