3 ms·

Let’s take apart your phone

39 points by bookofjoe 3mo ago

jimnotgym 3mo ago
I came here hoping to hear stories of the more intricate machines people have held. I held a baby. Does that beat a phone?
- bluejellybean 3mo ago
  Beats it for sure, humans are by far the most complex machines, a true marvel of the world. By comparisons, humans make phones look like simple toys.
  - FartyMcFarter 3mo ago
    I don't know, it's different. Humans are analog wonders, phones are digital wonders, both impressive in one of those categories.
    - nayuki 3mo ago
      Humans have a bunch of digital components at their core: DNA, RNA, and peptides. It's not all analog. Likewise, phones have numerous analog components: microphone, speaker, camera, screen, radio modem, power regulation. Please don't equate the word "digital" to the notions of being electronic, man-made, or modern. Digital is simply an agreement between a sender and receiver that information is finite and perfectly copyable. (By contrast, analog information is infinite and cannot be copied perfectly.)
- jollyllama 3mo ago
  Spectrum analyzer might not be baby-tier but it probably is more intricate than a phone. Not that I've held one.
- dylan604 3mo ago
  Puts a new spin on designed in California, built in China
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- nonameiguess 3mo ago
  Any animal beats an engineered machine. Heck, the bacteria in your hand are probably more intricate than a phone.
  - vablings 3mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War Battle tested too!
- E-Machine 3mo ago
  I put a lot of thought into that problem: So a baby, a seed, any living thing (or even a chunk of something that was once living I suppose) is more complex, which I why I went with 'machine' to exclude those. I also toyed with saying 'own' rather than 'held', but a modern electric car is basically a beefed up phone with a bunch of driving stuff too, so they wouldn't pass that test. There are some edge cases: someone upthread held a classic inertial guidance system, and a modern GPU is arguably more intricate, though much more single-function, and good luck getting your hands on one of those anyway!
- TMWNN 3mo ago
  >Where can you find another non-linear servo-mechanism weighing only 150 pounds and having great adaptability, that can be produced so cheaply by completely unskilled labor? —Scott Crossfield, 1954 <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/02/01/computer/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/02/01/computer/>
- II2II 3mo ago
  Given the context, most people would consider a machine as something designed and built by people. With respect to babies: we cannot do the former (yet) and I think most people would consider the latter to be a bit of a stretch (growth and development is a bit different from the common notion of building, even if it is a biological process occurring within a person). While someone can probably cite a more intricate machine that can reasonably be held within a hand, the assemblage of features in a phone certainly makes it one of the more complex machines of its size. Especially when you consider how many fields it draws upon. Digital electronics is sufficiently different from RF electronics, the RF spectrum behaves differently (from an engineering standpoint) from the optical spectrum. That accelerometer may be packaged like an IC but MEMS are quite different from a CPU or solid state memory. The list could go on.
- kccqzy 3mo ago
  I once had an interview where the interviewer asked me, if you had to be alone on a remote and uninhabited island that somehow had food and water, what would you bring. I answered the phone and began to explain how it was an intricate machine that showed the technical prowess of humankind and tethered me back to the ingenuity of humans. I saw the interviewer roll her eyes and glaze over my explanations. Apparently some people don’t appreciate the fact that anything mass-produced could be interesting enough.
- __MatrixMan__ 3mo ago
  I have seen babies do that, yes.
CapitalistCartr 3mo ago
The most intricate machine I've ever held was an inertial guidance system, back when they were hugely complex. My phone isn't even close.
- codeduck 3mo ago
  I was thinking earlier that a traditional spring-based pocket watch seems far more intricate to me than a wodge of glass and silicon. I know the phone is far more complex, but intricate? Nah.
matherial 3mo ago
What an odd website. It explains everything in incredibly childish terms ("The display you’re reading this on is an absurd grid of exactly [wrong number] tiny, multicoloured light bulbs, known as pixels."), has lots of needless word-salad LLMisms ("Electricity made light effortless. The torch in your phone made darkness optional."), and all in all, feels like a wasted concept because it doesn't really say anything that isn't patently obvious: a phone has a screen and a camera and a CPU... okay? Not exactly mind-blowing. It doesn't really even do anything to support its thesis that it's the "most intricate machine you've ever held". I don't know, I'm holding a Thinkpad laptop right now and I'm pretty sure it's a superset of what's inside a phone.
- londons_explore 3mo ago
  You're absolutely right. I guess this website isn't ready for primetime yet. Let me rewrite it all only to still have most of the same issues it used to have, and a few extra ones too.
- Retr0id 3mo ago
  I think a phone does beat a thinkpad, but not by much.
  - matherial 3mo ago
    How so? They have the same radios, the laptop has more human input devices (touchpad, trackpad, keyboard, pen), quantitively better almost everything (more RAM, much better CPU / GPU, much higher pixel count, faster and higher-capacity SSD, better audio, etc)... laptop cameras are the only thing that's obviously worse.
    - Retr0id 3mo ago
      The density of components on a phone logic board is significantly higher, which is how I define intricacy.
- E-Machine 3mo ago
  Fair dos on the LLMisms. I'm still working on keeping my human voice despite being able to plug any words in to get a smooth AI version. I'd push back on the childish terms. It is firmly pitched to a general audience, but I think it stands up in both depth and breadth. If you have better examples I'd love to see them. I'd also square up on the thinkpad. It has larger and more powerful versions of some of the components, but it's also missing a lot of phones ones: the accelerometer, gyroscope, linear resonant actuator, magnetometer, barometer, multiple cameras, probably one with OIS; all in a much smaller device. Very keen to debate, tell me about your laptop!
Retr0id 3mo ago
Not enough tokens for some diagrams/illustrations, too?
- E-Machine 3mo ago
  We're both rubbish at drawing unfortunately
E-Machine 3mo ago
Author here, thanks for sharing. The idea is that the smartphone is an incredible entry point to the history of technology for a general audience. A huge range of human needs were met by increasingly sophisticated tools over millennia, then collapsed into a single device over the last 30 years. I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes, I'd be grateful if you'd let me know any you spot.
nayuki 3mo ago
> Petrol stores 50 times more energy by weight, but it needs to be exploded. A doughnut stores around 15 times, but it needs to be digested. You left out a very important fact: Combustion requires external oxygen, which is not counted in the denominator when energy-by-mass is typically considered.
- E-Machine 3mo ago
  Ah that's a really good point, so it reduces the x times for both petrol and doughnuts. I'll recalculate thank you!
sandcat_ 3mo ago
Been expecting this. An AI slop equivalent of the likes of https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/ https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/ etc. A similar style or approach in theory, but without any of the care or attention to detail or humanity as what they’re mimicking. No interest in teaching, or accuracy, just prompt out the slop, get the views, move on. > I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes, please shout them and I'll fix! Depressing.
mzajc 3mo ago
This is essentially just LLM output listing common smartphone components and various vaguely related trivia. Most of the "navigation" section isn't even about machine navigation for crying out loud, and the 10 second/week drift figure seems completely hallucinated.

39 points by bookofjoe 3mo ago

I came here hoping to hear stories of the more intricate machines people have held. I held a baby. Does that beat a phone?

bluejellybean 3mo ago
Beats it for sure, humans are by far the most complex machines, a true marvel of the world. By comparisons, humans make phones look like simple toys.
- FartyMcFarter 3mo ago
  I don't know, it's different. Humans are analog wonders, phones are digital wonders, both impressive in one of those categories.
  - nayuki 3mo ago
    Humans have a bunch of digital components at their core: DNA, RNA, and peptides. It's not all analog. Likewise, phones have numerous analog components: microphone, speaker, camera, screen, radio modem, power regulation. Please don't equate the word "digital" to the notions of being electronic, man-made, or modern. Digital is simply an agreement between a sender and receiver that information is finite and perfectly copyable. (By contrast, analog information is infinite and cannot be copied perfectly.)
jollyllama 3mo ago
Spectrum analyzer might not be baby-tier but it probably is more intricate than a phone. Not that I've held one.
dylan604 3mo ago
Puts a new spin on designed in California, built in China
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
nonameiguess 3mo ago
Any animal beats an engineered machine. Heck, the bacteria in your hand are probably more intricate than a phone.
- vablings 3mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War Battle tested too!
E-Machine 3mo ago
I put a lot of thought into that problem: So a baby, a seed, any living thing (or even a chunk of something that was once living I suppose) is more complex, which I why I went with 'machine' to exclude those. I also toyed with saying 'own' rather than 'held', but a modern electric car is basically a beefed up phone with a bunch of driving stuff too, so they wouldn't pass that test. There are some edge cases: someone upthread held a classic inertial guidance system, and a modern GPU is arguably more intricate, though much more single-function, and good luck getting your hands on one of those anyway!
TMWNN 3mo ago
>Where can you find another non-linear servo-mechanism weighing only 150 pounds and having great adaptability, that can be produced so cheaply by completely unskilled labor? —Scott Crossfield, 1954 <https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/02/01/computer/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/02/01/computer/>
II2II 3mo ago
Given the context, most people would consider a machine as something designed and built by people. With respect to babies: we cannot do the former (yet) and I think most people would consider the latter to be a bit of a stretch (growth and development is a bit different from the common notion of building, even if it is a biological process occurring within a person). While someone can probably cite a more intricate machine that can reasonably be held within a hand, the assemblage of features in a phone certainly makes it one of the more complex machines of its size. Especially when you consider how many fields it draws upon. Digital electronics is sufficiently different from RF electronics, the RF spectrum behaves differently (from an engineering standpoint) from the optical spectrum. That accelerometer may be packaged like an IC but MEMS are quite different from a CPU or solid state memory. The list could go on.
kccqzy 3mo ago
I once had an interview where the interviewer asked me, if you had to be alone on a remote and uninhabited island that somehow had food and water, what would you bring. I answered the phone and began to explain how it was an intricate machine that showed the technical prowess of humankind and tethered me back to the ingenuity of humans. I saw the interviewer roll her eyes and glaze over my explanations. Apparently some people don’t appreciate the fact that anything mass-produced could be interesting enough.
__MatrixMan__ 3mo ago
I have seen babies do that, yes.

CapitalistCartr 3mo ago

The most intricate machine I've ever held was an inertial guidance system, back when they were hugely complex. My phone isn't even close.

codeduck 3mo ago
I was thinking earlier that a traditional spring-based pocket watch seems far more intricate to me than a wodge of glass and silicon. I know the phone is far more complex, but intricate? Nah.

matherial 3mo ago

What an odd website. It explains everything in incredibly childish terms ("The display you’re reading this on is an absurd grid of exactly [wrong number] tiny, multicoloured light bulbs, known as pixels."), has lots of needless word-salad LLMisms ("Electricity made light effortless. The torch in your phone made darkness optional."), and all in all, feels like a wasted concept because it doesn't really say anything that isn't patently obvious: a phone has a screen and a camera and a CPU... okay? Not exactly mind-blowing. It doesn't really even do anything to support its thesis that it's the "most intricate machine you've ever held". I don't know, I'm holding a Thinkpad laptop right now and I'm pretty sure it's a superset of what's inside a phone.

londons_explore 3mo ago
You're absolutely right. I guess this website isn't ready for primetime yet. Let me rewrite it all only to still have most of the same issues it used to have, and a few extra ones too.
Retr0id 3mo ago
I think a phone does beat a thinkpad, but not by much.
- matherial 3mo ago
  How so? They have the same radios, the laptop has more human input devices (touchpad, trackpad, keyboard, pen), quantitively better almost everything (more RAM, much better CPU / GPU, much higher pixel count, faster and higher-capacity SSD, better audio, etc)... laptop cameras are the only thing that's obviously worse.
  - Retr0id 3mo ago
    The density of components on a phone logic board is significantly higher, which is how I define intricacy.
E-Machine 3mo ago
Fair dos on the LLMisms. I'm still working on keeping my human voice despite being able to plug any words in to get a smooth AI version. I'd push back on the childish terms. It is firmly pitched to a general audience, but I think it stands up in both depth and breadth. If you have better examples I'd love to see them. I'd also square up on the thinkpad. It has larger and more powerful versions of some of the components, but it's also missing a lot of phones ones: the accelerometer, gyroscope, linear resonant actuator, magnetometer, barometer, multiple cameras, probably one with OIS; all in a much smaller device. Very keen to debate, tell me about your laptop!

Retr0id 3mo ago

Not enough tokens for some diagrams/illustrations, too?

E-Machine 3mo ago
We're both rubbish at drawing unfortunately

E-Machine 3mo ago

Author here, thanks for sharing. The idea is that the smartphone is an incredible entry point to the history of technology for a general audience. A huge range of human needs were met by increasingly sophisticated tools over millennia, then collapsed into a single device over the last 30 years. I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes, I'd be grateful if you'd let me know any you spot.

nayuki 3mo ago

> Petrol stores 50 times more energy by weight, but it needs to be exploded. A doughnut stores around 15 times, but it needs to be digested. You left out a very important fact: Combustion requires external oxygen, which is not counted in the denominator when energy-by-mass is typically considered.

E-Machine 3mo ago
Ah that's a really good point, so it reduces the x times for both petrol and doughnuts. I'll recalculate thank you!

sandcat_ 3mo ago

Been expecting this. An AI slop equivalent of the likes of https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/ https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/ etc. A similar style or approach in theory, but without any of the care or attention to detail or humanity as what they’re mimicking. No interest in teaching, or accuracy, just prompt out the slop, get the views, move on. > I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes, please shout them and I'll fix! Depressing.

mzajc 3mo ago

This is essentially just LLM output listing common smartphone components and various vaguely related trivia. Most of the "navigation" section isn't even about machine navigation for crying out loud, and the 10 second/week drift figure seems completely hallucinated.