With the iPhone event and IFA in the same week, Phonebloks shows how we need innovation in the mobile market. With the slight revamp in processor and the slight change on the design of smartphones, Phonebloks has a completely new idea on how a phone should work.

Looking at the growing pile of electronic waste and the way people throw away phones rather than getting them repair, designer Dave Hakkens had an idea to make a smartphone completely customisable, with a blocky design.

Phonebloks allows users to build a phone right for them, with larger blocks for features that interest them the most and different size screens, different sized boards and unique third party components that could solve major problems in the mobile industry.

The idea is currently only crowdsourced, Hakkens wants to get the message out to the people that can make it happen. To do this, he needs support on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr and has already met his goal twice, with almost 200,000 supporters.

Some question if the idea and concept will actually work in practice, this is what they said when Dell started making custom built PCs. Essentially the user is not paying for a smartphone every two years, they’re paying for the components they need when the time is right.

This new concept is not only more environmental friendly, it is cheaper and allows component manufacturers to deal directly with the consumer, offering the very best without having to sell to the mass market. Customisation is only the first step Phonebloks could make possible and Dave Hakkens wants to create an online tool to make access to Phonebloks easy.

The end goal is to have lots of third party developers making blocks that can then be manufactured by partners. This could be anything from solar powered batteries to high-speed PC-like CPUs, but for now, the Phonebloks goal is to have a running website with multiple blocks to choose from – but Hakkens has not given dates, since he needs supports.