iPhone 17

Out of curiosity I compared the highlights and features of iPhone 17 with the Pro 15 (the one I use). They are (almost) identical. The only difference is the telephoto lens - offering 4x magnification (vs 3x in the 15 Pro) and 48 megapixels (vs 12 in the Pro 15). The higher resolution allows for a quite effective crop, which results in the 8x option advertised by Apple.

I primarily bought the iPhone for the photography features. And they are great. The long exposure low light is something not achievable by real cameras. I mean, considering the pocketable nature of the phone and the fact it can shoot steady 3s exposures handheld, 10s with a simple support (say, resting your hand on a tree while holding the phone), and 30s when really steady (a simple lightweight tripod is fine for that). There is a great sensor fusion at work plus it stacks multiple exposures into one, with the result being fairly low noise ultra low light photo.

The unfortunate thing is, that despite all the advances in computational photography, the small sensor coupled with small lens just fall short from a true camera. I remember presenting the New Zealand trip photos (iPhone) to a group of friends and then we skipped back to the Kyrgyzstan trek, where I carried the Nikon DSLR, and everybody went "wow". The photos were projected on a fairly old (by today's standards) HD projector, yet the difference was very clear. The Nikon's photos were strikingly better. The problem is that the iPhone is 200g and the Nikon with lens 10x that. So it matters on treks but it also matters on less extreme trips.

As of now the most advanced photo accessories I could imagine for the iPhone are the Fjorden grip and the Moment lens. With them iPhone becomes a better camera, but still far from perfect. Several years ago Yanko design presented the magsafe camera lens concept. They exist, (Sony QX series was introduced 12 years ago), but have none of the integrated computational photography features offered by iPhones today.

I'd say: Apple - follow the Yanko design concept and make it Micro Four Thirds (MFT / M43) compatible. I'd offer half of the princess and the kingdom for this.