Other Half: Concept Ideas To Jolt The Imagination!
Twitter user Caprico has posted some rather inspiring visual concepts on what could be done with the Jolla phones ‘limited by the imagination only’ prospect – AKA: the other half.
For you @JollaHQ
Ideas for The Other Half! Who knows, maybe in the future we'll see something like that
#unlike http://t.co/5gdfzVzfHI—
Caprico (@capricotwi04) September 26, 2013
The other half opens the doors to any 3rd party manufacturer to take advantage of the many different connectivity options available to be utilised, including NFC; Power In/Out and I2C data connectivity.
So the doors are open for any entrepreneurial engineering types out there and Jolla have confirmed via a tweet that it is open to whomever whether you are a bedroom electronics tinkerer or a fully fledged electronics manufacturer:
@faenil That's the idea, to enable building your own half.—
Jolla (@JollaHQ) September 23, 2013
So let the imagination run wild and feel free to take some inspiration from some of the concept ideas as shown below in which we can see other half modules in the forms of: a camera; windscreen mount; xtra battery/storage; HWKB; gamepad.
The Other Half: Sky’s the limit!
I’m personally loving some of these concepts and really really love the modular design principles that make the Jolla phone a future proof device with potentially limitless hardware upgrades in terms of feature add-ons.
On the subject of other halves, the HWKB (and the gamepad) renders in the image above look decidedly fetching and I’m seriously getting QWERTY-ITIS all over again (sorry guys!) – but seriously is there anyone who doesn’t think it would add so much functionality to the Jolla handset when you need that extra tactile power?
Jolla have once again confirmed (what we already knew), which is that the floodgates are indeed operable and open for getting a HWKB other half released – we’re assuming that the I2C connector would be utilised to great affect in this instance! If anyone has already started work on this please contact me at your earliest convenience – I’ll be more than willing to be a guinea pig volunteer beta tester! ;-)
@deshipu Yes, we need to finish Jolla and Sailfish first. Physical keyboard is possible as an other half already.—
Jolla (@JollaHQ) September 24, 2013
So get inspired, go create and come back here when you’re finished… and like I said we are available as guinea pig beta testers if you need some real world testing/reviews done and will happily waive the usual fee for our services!
I generally hate mobile phones with bulky lens bulges (N8, 808 etc) but that camera other half concept looks a load better than Sony’s QX10/QX100 camera modules.
One of the things I was thinking of was that with Jolla moving the lens to a central location, it makes building an other half with a secondary lens or lens mount much easier. Sure, not the *best* way to add a new lens but it could be quite fun and better than things like the olloclip. If someone’s whipping up a 3d printed micro-4/3rds mount, count me in; I’ve a pile of olympus, lumix & leica lenses.
A way to utilise existing lens systems (Nikon/Canon/Pentax/Micro 4/3 etc) via the other half would indeed be awesome!
Pentax K mount for me please!
Indeed, such a camera other-half would be fantastic (even though it would be bulkier than my concept picture). I really wonder what other-halfs we’ll see… Some, with the right knowledge, will love to create an own second-half (yeah to 3d printers) but manufacturing such quality pieces costs a lot and needs a high customer-demand.
Well now that Nokia won’t sell smartphones anymore, they could start producing some nice camera lenses & software for Jolla phones
And a physical QWERTY(Z) keyboard wouldn’t be bad neither…
I’m also loving the windscreen mount – especially if it could be manufactured to utilise wireless charging, have an NFC tag to start up easy car-related app screen (satnav/music) and perhaps even have an inbuilt FM transmitter to boot…. I don’t ask for much!
Very interesting things would be possible when 3D printers were avaliable for a massive public.
You could make and redesign your own other half at home.
Jolla need to release the .STL file for the rear of the phone so people can start drawing up modeling their own other half ideas!
would love to see a multi-media OtherHalf for connectivity and presentations. With fullsize SD-Card slot, HDMI port, laser pointer, IR-blaster, USB and all the good stuff that makes connecting a pleasure.
But the problem is… to a non-technical guy like me, how can I know what to do to build my OtherHalf?
Start learning technical stuff. Doesn’t get more basic than that
Not everyone is expected to build a custom Other Half just as much as not everyone is expected to write their own custom application. But for those who don’t like what is available or would like something unique to themselves, the opportunity will be there. If you wanted to build a breathalyzer or a radar detector or an IR port with FM transmitter, that is possible for the intrepid.
I’d love to see an e-ink screen …
The other half could consist of a tablet, which has a compartment on its rear, into which you insert the Jolla phone. Like the Asus Padphone concept. The tablet half could consist of a 1920 x 1080 screen of 7 or 10 inches, HDMI connector, big battery, extra mass memory, and stereo speakers. On the tablet you could use the same Sailfish OS and applications as on the phone – actually most processing and memory operations would be run by the phone. Considering that the Jolla people will be busy making the first phone model, this dream of mine need not be created before 2015. Although not yet topical, perhaps this could be taken into account when writing the other-part-interface specifications.
After seeing the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b2cBk558ug video about an ealy concept of the “other half”, I must admit that tablet half would be a “third half”. It would not make sense to remove the other half just for the insertion of the phone to the tablet. Well, if the other half would be thicker than the halves in the video, it might be necessary to remove the other half first. A Qwerty half would be such a thick half, and would be removed first, unless the slot in the “tablet half” would be deep enough for the phone + Qwerty half. For such a combination, there should be interfacing connectors on both sides of the other half: a connector for the phone, and another connector for the “tablet half”. Complicated? Yes, some dreams tend to be complicated.
Physical keyboard is not only about tactile feedback, its about having a keyboard that is useful at all. I’m seriously freaking out regularly trying to type text on the Nexus 4. I have lost countless amount of typed text because something happens in a webform making it going to another page or so. Simply put, touch keyboard is not a stable input method for longer messages. It is also slow and painful. I utterly despise the touch input method.
Jolla is the ONLY possible savior out there.
I want other-half gamepad!!!
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