Structure of a Smartphone

You may have the illusion of control.

A typical smartphone has at least three independent computer systems inside it, each running its own operating system and each one of them programmed by a different community of developers working in a different segment of the industry.

As a smartphone user, you may have the illusion that you control your phone. In reality, the functions of your phone are controlled by the software in these three computer systems, only one of which is directly accessible to you.

How did it get like this? Historically, we started with “feature phones”, which had a baseband processor and a SIM and a very simple microcontroller running a keypad and screen. Then, in a separate line of evolution, we had PDAs. Remember PDAs? The smartphone is a fusion of these two products, and there is still a very clear line between the “phone” part (baseband + SIM) and the “PDA” part (application processor).

Typically, this processor runs Google Android or Apple iOS. It is the only processor where you can directly install software yourself, in the form of “apps”. The other processors are completely locked down, even in a “rooted” or “jail-breaked” phone. From a telecom standpoint, the application processor is an add-on accessory hosting a collection of dubious software from unknown…

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