[gpm]

Neither - it's a triumph of our ability to do increasing complex things in both software and hardware. An earbud should be able to make good use of the extra computing capacity, whether it is to run more sophisticated compression saving bandwidth, or for features like more sophisticated noise cancelling/microphone isolation algorithms. There are really very few devices that shouldn't be able to be better given more (free) compute.

It's also a triumph of the previous generation of programmers to be able to make interesting games that took so little compute.

[buildbot]

Plus there’s actually less waste, I would imagine, by using a generic, very efficiently mass produced, but way overkill part. vs. a one off or very specific, rare but perfectly matched part.

[echelon]

There are enough atoms in that earbud to replace all of the world's computers.

We've got a long way to go.