GoKawiilDigital-to-Analog Converters, long-range radios, LED arrays, mini projectors, and air sensors. Click around in the Community Innovation Program forum of Finnish mobile company Jolla, and you’ll find all manner of weird and wonderful ideas for swappable back covers for its upcoming Jolla Phone. Enough to make even the wildest MagSafe accessories look a little safe and boring.
It’s also the return of an old idea, which might now be bang on time—the company originally introduced “The Other Half” (TOH) modular back covers for the Jolla Phone in 2013. Like Jolla, smartphone makers are increasingly teasing modular phone concepts at trade shows like Mobile World Congress, which suggests we may be on the cusp of a mini mobile revolution.
We've seen modular accessories come and go in the smartphone world over the past two decades. Google's much-hyped Project Ara modular phone may never have made it out of concept land, but Motorola's Moto Mods pushed the bar with magnetic camera modules, projectors, and speakers, though the company only stuck with the idea for about four years.
Apple has been the most successful with its MagSafe magnetic accessory system since the launch of the iPhone 12 in 2020. The company hasn't been as creative with its own first-party accessories, but there's a wealth of third-party mods you can slap to the back of the iPhone, from camera grips and mini tripods to notepads and power banks.
Other than improving wireless charging speeds, Apple hasn't advanced the technology past its limitations—for example, in larger data-transfer capabilities—but MagSafe has sparked renewed interest in accessory-level modularity. “MagSafe is a good technology for wireless charging and low-bandwidth connections like NFC, but too difficult to support high-speed use cases,” says Jeff Fieldhack, a research director at Counterpoint. That might be changing.
Magnet Evolution
What's emerging now might help expand on what MagSafe introduced—accessories that attach externally and expand what the smartphone can do with data transfer, not just magnetic strength, according to Eric Co, director of global product management at accessory maker Belkin.
He points to the modular concept phones we saw at the Mobile World Congress 2026 conference in Barcelona earlier this month: magnetic camera modules, batteries, and gaming accessories that snap onto thin smartphones. Co says it “suggests the industry is exploring modularity again, but this time through accessories rather than replacing core hardware."
Something like Tecno’s 4.9-mm concept phone design at MWC is perhaps more likely to remain vaporware. But it uses both magnets and pin connectors for connecting the phone to add-ons. It’s designed to work with 10-plus modules, including a game controller, and pushes further into Moto Mods territory than souped-up back covers.