[mryan]

> How would these compare to an Amazon micro compute unit

Poorly.

Do you mean a Beowulf cluster of mobile phones? It seems like it would be woefully inefficient to say the least.

- each node in the cluster has an expensive screen attached to it, which would presumably be permanently disabled to reduce cooling/power costs. This is a waste of money. Same goes for bluetooth, accelerometers and anything else that is not directly contributing to the cluster. The cost of the screen etc. could have purchased more processors instead.

- temperature management would be incredibly inefficient. How would you cool a rack of 1000 phones/tablets? Server chassis are designed with this in mind. Phones/tablets are not.

It's an interesting idea to think about, but nobody is going to produce a cluster powered by iPhone 6s which is capable of competing (financially or computationally) with a cluster powered by servers designed for this purpose.

[hcrisp]

Someone did put together a Beowulf cluster of Raspberry Pi units [1]. [1]http://www.zdnet.com/article/build-your-own-supercomputer-ou...

[neilxdsouza]

I thought this would be pointed out. Yes, one could knock out the battery, screen and sensors. Maybe even android - and just leave the bare linux in there. You would probably reach a raspberry pi as the sibling comment has pointed out.