“Even today, the interchangeable-lens cameras and high-end cameras have their fans, so demand for these monsters still exists. But for how long?” Om Malik writes for The New Yorker. “We don’t know the digital-camera industry’s own answer to that question, but as of Wednesday the time frame certainly shortened. That was the day Apple announced its new iPhone.”
“While in most ways the device launch was predictable, the iPhone 7 Plus, with its souped-up camera, made a big impression on serious photographers. The iPhone 7 Plus, which retails for seven hundred and sixty-nine dollars (or higher) has two lenses—a 28-mm.-equivalent, 12-megapixel lens and a 56-mm.-equivalent, 12-megapixel telephoto lens,” Malik writes. “Apple has managed to pack a lot of premium features—longer exposures, better aperture, and the ability to shoot digital negatives, which professionals call DNGs. A DNG is, essentially, a photo file that captures all the visual information possible for further manipulation, such as enhancing shadows or removing highlights. The new iPhone uses circuitry, software, and algorithms to create images that look and feel as if they came out of high-end cameras.”
“Apple isn’t the first phone company to reach the market with dual-lens systems… But Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus is the first major phone to marry the dual-lens system to immense computing capabilities,” Malik writes. “This is terrible news for companies making compact cameras—Olympus and Nikon’s compact-camera sales in the most recent quarter had already nosedived by twenty-five per cent and forty-five per cent, respectively. The new iPhone 7 Plus drives a stake through the heart of these mass-market devices.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We can’t wait to get our iPhone 7 Plus units and put those camera through their paces!
As Malik notes in his full article, the also-ran iPhone knockoff outfits, with their slim or not profits, cannot afford to keep up: “The distinct business advantage that Apple has achieved thanks to its hardware is the sheer volume of iPhone sales, which justifies the big spending on the specialized chips that make that hardware so powerful. The new image processor is a perfect example. It can spread the cost of that investment in chips over hundreds of millions of iPhones.”
SEE ALSO:
All of Apple’s Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus models are sold out, shipments slip to November – September 9, 2016
With the iPhone 7 Plus, Apple makes dual cameras the new normal – September 8, 2016