First, we had bespoke computer systems where the hardware and software were tailored to solve specific problems. Then, as computers became commoditized, the hardware was more standardized and software interacted with it through an abstraction layer. Now, we're circling back to heterogeneous hardware where software and hardware are tightly coupled for the best performance and power efficiency. Of course there's always a trade-off. In this case, it's flexibility.

The smartphone does not consist of just one processor, it's a collection of dedicated processors, each running custom algorithms locally. Sure, there's software running in the application layer, but it's playing more of a coordination role than actually doing the work. Just think of sending a packet over the internet and how different it is between a smartphone and a computer, how much more complex a cellular modem is compared to a network card.

It's less about software now and more about hardware accelerated modules. Even CPUs run primarily on microcode which can be patched after the fact.

These patterns are cyclical. It will take a number of years before we return to standardized compute again, but return we will. Eventually.