Phil Schiller on the new iPhone:
It used to be the way you take better pictures is you learn to be a better photographer. You get bigger cameras, bigger lenses, you learn about all the techniques of light meters and gels and filters, and you can spend your lifetime learning how to take advantage of this and make it work for you. For the people who want do that, that’s great. For most of us, we just want to take a picture, and have the iPhone take a better picture for us.
I reckon for most of us, we use the camera to capture the fleeting moments we want to remember. For us, this means taking out the phone from the pocket and snap the scene spontaneously.
We are using these pictures to create a permanent memory in the archive. A scene where we may or may not revisit in the future. What we want as a casual photographer is not about taking a perfect picture. It’s about having a tool good enough to achieve our desire to capture life’s small, beautiful moments.
Little snapshots form the puzzles to our story. That is why we are attracted to lifestyle pictures of people we don’t know. We want to take a peep at what others are doing. And we don’t want to see pictures taken by professional DSLR cameras. We prefer pictures taken by smartphones that depict the everyday situation we find ourselves in.
These days, there are heaps of improvements and advancements in the capabilities of smartphone camera. They are more than capable replacements for most compact cameras in the market. In the near future, I believe the pro-consumer and compact camera sector would be rendered obsolete.
It’s not to say the smartphone camera will be the tool of choice for everyone. They won’t be. But we would be seeing the hobbyists in us using the iPhone for casual photos and another segment investing in high-end cameras for more professional shots.