The people I know who program super computers do it to
* simulate nuclear explosions
* model the internet [1]
[1] http://phys.org/news/2009-09-scientists-successfully-boot-mi...
Neither of which, nor similar activities, I need to do on the train.
* simulate nuclear explosions
* model the internet [1]
[1] http://phys.org/news/2009-09-scientists-successfully-boot-mi...
Neither of which, nor similar activities, I need to do on the train.
What sort of example might benefit you as an individual?
I don't need a render farm, I don't have complicated delivery schedules to calculate, I don't even want to use a spreadsheet solver very often away from my desk - and I study computational logistics.
* search/compare/cross-correlate DNA data
* simulate chemical reactions, folding of proteins, ...
* simulate materials, crystals, etc.
But again it only reinforces that I don't want to be doing those things in my pocket.
The "supercomputer in your pocket" discussion is somewhat disingenuous - an iPhone6 from 2014 wouldn't even have made the top 10 in 1993 over 20 years earlier. A million-fold increase in transistor density and it still wouldn't rank as a supercomputer.
There are a lot of fascinating things you can do with more computing power, but it's not really clear that doing so on a power- and heat-constrained mobile device brings a competitive advantage in a highly-connected environment.