From a personal viewpoint I really like the sound of that
(modularity), it seems like an innovative approach which will help P2 stand out from the crowd.
I think what this means is that Pandora 2 will be a top-spec regular Android phone,
perhaps re-cased and pre-release, paired with an iCP2, and running both the Pandora OS and Android.
It will sort of stand out from the crowd since iCP is not a common phone accessory; but it might not be as distinctive as the Pandora 1.
On the whole I think it's a good approach. We can upgrade the guts of it just by plugging in any new rooted android phone.
It will be good to have the cell device, and other regular smartphone features such as gps, compass, gyro and all that.
PC hardware wins over mac and other custom hardware for the same reason, it's an open standard with parts available from many manufacturers.
Even mac is based on PC hardware now, although admittedly it's locked down and tweaked up with some "special" Apple stuff like retina display.
All the alternative computing platforms such as Amiga, Atari ST, Acorn, SGI, Sun have died. (Consoles don't count!) So modular is good.
Assuming I am on the right clue here, I have some suggestions for the dev team:
1. We all like the
2x SD card slots and full-size USB of Pandora, but no phone has or will have this.
So, let's put these necessary features in the bottom controller part;
Can we put a USB hub and full-size port, and the 2x SD card slots, in the bottom iCP2 part of Pandora 2,
and plug the phone in to this using a very short microusb cable? I don't mind if the cable is exposed.
This would I suppose be a variation from the normal iCP2 device.
2. We all like the Pandora's
peerless awesome audio, it is better than any phone and almost all portable media players.
Can we maintain this excellence in audio with Pandora 2? We would need to make sure the phone part gives a nice clean signal,
and put an amp with hardware volume control in the controller part.
3. We like the Pandora's
battery life. Can we put a big battery in the iCP2 and pump up the phone over the usb link I mentioned above? Can we do this efficiently so that we don't waste power with charging the phone battery unless it's really needed? I.e. just feed the power from both batteries into both devices?
4. I like that the Pandora's screen is
firmly attached to the base / controller! So I suggest we keep the option of a full clamshell / hinge for Pandora 2, and also the mini-clip as used in iCP2.
I don't want to see the Pandora 2 losing any of these great features we love about the first Pandora.
I would also like to request that we use a phone part with a nice screen.
I don't care about the resolution, but the following are necessary:
5. it absolutely must be
matte, not glossy
6. it must do
60Hz without ghosting
7. I think the top phone part should be
styled with brushed metal to match the controller part. It really looks awesome
8. A
3D screen would be awesome, but it's not a must. There are phones with 3D, so why not?
Damn, I hope it's not too late to get it right and do this stuff.
