I do think at this point, both phone manufactures and networks aren't interested in ideas like this though; the whole industry is too heavily built around the idea of consumers changing their phones around every two years and would have to be restructured for an idea like this to work for them.
It would be interesting to see someone from a more independent standpoint try and develop an idea like this and bring it to market, but they'd need a hell of a lot of money for development and to stand a chance of commercial viability. Also I can't help but think that something like this would be much much more technologically challenging than the concept images let on, especially seeing as the components of a modern smartphone aren't exactly separated into neat little blocks, and I dare say it would be a major engineering challenge to allow you to pull out, change or upgrade any component on a whim...
Its a great idea, and its been explored in various different concepts (including ones that look a lot more consumer oriented than that), but so far no one seems to have been able to make it either electronically or commercially viable .
I do think at this point, both phone manufactures and networks aren't interested in ideas like this though; the whole industry is too heavily built around the idea of consumers changing their phones around every two years and would have to be restructured for an idea like this to work for them.
It would be interesting to see someone from a more independent standpoint try and develop an idea like this and bring it to market, but they'd need a hell of a lot of money for development and to stand a chance of commercial viability. Also I can't help but think that something like this would be much much more technologically challenging than the concept images let on, especially seeing as the components of a modern smartphone aren't exactly separated into neat little blocks, and I dare say it would be a major engineering challenge to allow you to pull out, change or upgrade any component on a whim...