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How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

lemire.me

31–40 of 202 posts

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#31

In terms of usefulness and end user experience, I find no difference between the iPhone X (A11, 4 billion transistors) and my current 14. Seems to me that all that extra processing power is still looking for a use case.

Machine learning is that use case, it'll eat up as much processing power as you can throw at it.

LLMs on your phone are a few hardware generations out, but they are coming.

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#32

It’s funny, but you’d figure as sophisticated as the manufacturering standards are they could give an exact number. Or couldn’t they?

I'm sure the chip designers at Apple know the exact number, but that doesn't mean Apple's going to share it

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#33
post #28

In terms of usefulness and end user experience, I find no difference between the iPhone X (A11, 4 billion transistors) and my current 14. Seems to me that all that extra processing power is still looking for a use case.

Even if you didn't change anything about the software, the newer CPUs would still give you better energy efficiency and thereby longer battery life.

But the software devs will always more-than use up any extra efficiency, so it'll still barely last a day, and will die early when it gets heavy use...

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the false sense of security.

What is false about it? Are you arguing that we are less secure against nature while sitting in climate controlled buildings with food stores in them, and a global industrial complex raised to keep these trains running?

I have never lived in a world where there was not the existential threat of nuclear annihilation in every minute of every hour of every day of my life.

But you're right: I'm not going to get lost in my own city - or yours - because I have an iPhone in my pocket. I may never really learn my city and all its hidden little secrets you find only by wandering around, but I'll be efficient getting to the bar in a "climate controlled buildings" where I'll just stare at the iPhone some more and not really talk to anyone, as that's what everyone is doing, too.

"It is a world suited for monomaniacs obsessed with the idea of progress - but a false progress, a progress which stinks. It is a world cluttered with useless objects which men and women, in order to be exploited and degraded, are taught to regard as useful ... Whatever does not lend itself to being bought or sold ... is debarred" –Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is more amazing that we went from the Wright brothers in 1903 to landing on the moon in 1969.

And we haven't been back in 50 years, despite all the incredible technology improvements. The Apollo guidance computers had "several tens of thousands of transistors"[0], we now have 19 billion in our pocket! 0: https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/apollo-11-mank... .

I think “For All Mankind” is a great “What If” show about what things would be like if we had kept pushing forward.

The thing about the series though was that NASA was self funded and didn’t have to justify spending billions in taxpayer money.

Also, do we really have better propulsion technology to make space travel more efficient?

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#36
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this hasn’t resulted in people being more happy. It’s quite the paradox. What are we doing all this for? https://news.gallup.com/poll/505745/depression-rates-reach-n... I don’t post that to be negative, because I agree with what you are saying about a unique time to be alive and have done the same Atari to Xbox Series X glow-up and I marvel at the improvements there. But I do think happiness (and decrea…

Bread is a great invention and a staple for many across the world. People have grown better at the process of developing grass into ever more productive wheat crops, transforming the inedible into something people find comfort in. But yes, there’s also an element of bread and circuses. Technology is not enough. It is not orthogonal to happiness, as you point out, but having the best bread doesn’t fundamentally make t…

Some technology does and some doesn't.

A washing machine is a fantastic piece of machinery you could even build on a small scale that saves hard labor

A patent by Sony that forces the TV viewer to stand up and lift their hands and say "McDonalds!" to continue watching TV, is not

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#37

In terms of usefulness and end user experience, I find no difference between the iPhone X (A11, 4 billion transistors) and my current 14. Seems to me that all that extra processing power is still looking for a use case.

Well that says more about you than about the iPhone. One example: User experience regarding camera processing improved tremendously between X and 14. Only with the bigger processing power they could optimize images in a fraction of a second after taking them. The photonic engine as we have today, would not be deliver the same experience on an iPhone X.

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we haven't been back in 50 years, despite all the incredible technology improvements. The Apollo guidance computers had "several tens of thousands of transistors"[0], we now have 19 billion in our pocket! 0: https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/apollo-11-mank... .

I think “For All Mankind” is a great “What If” show about what things would be like if we had kept pushing forward. The thing about the series though was that NASA was self funded and didn’t have to justify spending billions in taxpayer money. Also, do we really have better propulsion technology to make space travel more efficient?

Imagine if all of the worlds armament budgets were instead rerouted to science and space travel...

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#39

In terms of usefulness and end user experience, I find no difference between the iPhone X (A11, 4 billion transistors) and my current 14. Seems to me that all that extra processing power is still looking for a use case.

I would say consider yourself lucky that you don’t use questionably-coded apps. I have an iPhone se 2020 (a generation newer) and some apps have a noticeable and annoying lag. A local transport app (9292) is a particularly notorious offender.

Re: How many billions of transistors in an iPhone processor?

#40

In terms of usefulness and end user experience, I find no difference between the iPhone X (A11, 4 billion transistors) and my current 14. Seems to me that all that extra processing power is still looking for a use case.

Photo/video processing
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