BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

What if you're walking thru your garden and see an unusual beautiful bug that would be good to get a picture for looks or to send to a bug guy to see what it is. Do you tell the bug to hold on whilst you run to the car to grab the camera?

It doesn't have to be a bug, could be a rare bird, a 12 point buck, a beautiful neighbor lady streaking naked thru your yard. You can miss a lot with a strange, anti-cell attitude.

This ignores the other 100's of other uses, like movie camera, mp3 player, radio that get most stations in the country (IHeart Radio), podcast player, magnifying glass, flashlight, list keeper, calculator, calendar, clock. compass, level, controller for smart locks, lights, thermostats and on, and on, and on. All these apps are free and cost nothing to use.

Very hard to imagine everyone can't find a good number of uses for a cell phone beside just as a camera. You're only cheating yourself.

Lou Razzano Loc: Miami, Florida

I must admit that your photos are great and many would be surprised that you took them with a cell phone camera. I myself have been a serious photographer for the last twenty years, starting after I bought my first good digital camera in early 2000--a Nikon Coolpix 990 -all of 3.2 megapixels (i still have it saved--it will be a collector's item someday). Before that, I was always a shutterbug of sorts, since my early teens; I was always one of the few people that always had a camera with me, even if it was a small, cheap, one-button camera. Once I went digital, and got my first computer and had a girlfriend who was learning Photoshop and taught me the basics (and let me copy her Photoshop 7 disc, which, believe it or not, I am STILL using) I began to be a serious photographer. That was in 2000 when cell phones were just beginning to have camera functionality and few people used their phones to take pictures. Then, after the iPhone was available and cell phone cameras improved I noticed that little by little, more and more people were snapping photos with their cell phones--which annoyed me whenever I was on a paid assignment as the official photographer at an event and they started getting in my way. Now, I must admit that the images that are possible with cell phones are impressive and I myself find myself taking more photos with my cell phone than ever before (not when I am hired as a photographer--then I use my digital DSLR. The good thing about using a big digital camera (besides the obvious limitations of cell phone cameras) is PERCEPTION: people see me as a serious photographer when I'm using my DSLR to take photos. I wouldn't dream of using my cell phone to take pictures at a wedding, Bar Mitzvah, retirement dinner party, or for special large family events, even if the lighting was perfect and I didn't need to use flash or zoom in on subjects. (I don't have any desire to buy a mirrorless digital camera, by the way.) I want to be seen at those events as a PHOTOGRAPHER, not just the average Joe with a cell phone camera. Now, I must admit that the technology that goes into cell phone cameras today is truly impressive--I have often thought that Nikon, Canon, Sony, etc. should have a special setting on their cameras labeled "AI" or something like that - a setting that uses the technology of the new cell phone cameras with the larger lens and larger sensor of a DSLR (or mirrorless). Wow! Imagine that! Now, most of the time I would still use the aperture priority setting as I usually do (and Manual for certain shots) but, instead of using, say "P" when I am lazy or need to get a shot when I don't have the time to carefully adjust my camera, if I could turn the function dial to "AI" and get all of the benefits of the amazing technology that allows a cell phone to capture a perfect image with such a tiny lens and sensor with the large lens and sensor of a DSLR--imagine!

Lou Razzano Loc: Miami, Florida

Please see my reply to "genocolo."

genocolo Loc: Vail and Gasparilla Island

For the mobile phone deniers, I suggest you at least consider what Ken Rockwell says in his review:

“The iPhone 12 Pro Max camera does the best job I've ever seen of any camera at capturing things exactly as they looked to my eyes.

From daylight to indoor light to moonlight, from soft light to harsh contrasty light, the iPhone 12 Pro Max is astonishing at how it captures things as they looked. No other camera, not from Nikon, not from Canon, not from Sony, not from Fuji and certainly not from LEICA just captures highlight, shadow, tone and color the way it looked to my eyes on the first shot. All the other "real" cameras require too much fiddling as light conditions change to get what I want, while my iPhone just nails it every time.

Unlike traditional cameras which are still making single exposures much the same as we did 175 years ago, the iPhone is capturing images continuously at several levels of exposure as you're looking at the live image on your screen. When you press the shutter button all it's doing is using all of Apple's multi-billion dollar magic and HDR to craft and save a perfect image from whatever frames it's already captured so it looks exactly as it did to your eye.”

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Still it's best to quote the message to which you're responding. The original message was 13 pages ago and not many remember, and don't want to go back searching for what you are referring. It's common sense, no effort required and courteous.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

Do schools even teach ten-finger typing any more? All I see are people texting with the two-finger (or thumbs) method of the old reporter-journalists. But real typing would take a full sized keyboard... that is why I prefer emails (for speed). I admit I don't send (or receive) letters any more. Does your 4-year-old granddaughter know the alphabet and spell words?

Perhaps a lot of people don't text or use a cell because nobody calls them anyway--like me. Sometimes I call businesses or doctors' offices, but usually that can be handled online without voice, text, email, or post. Can you even text Amazon or Macy's? Can you post here on UHH by texting?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Yup. Agreed.
I didn't remember. I always hit the "(=>)" link.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Back in 2009, when my job provided me with an iPhone 3GS, my wife made fun of it. She didn't understand why I liked it so much. The camera was 3.2 MP. The iOS was primitive then. AT&T was mediocre then. (She used Verizon on her Nokia).

BUT, it was good enough to make travel reservations, change flights while standing in lines at the airport waiting to change flights (!), check the weather, rent cars, reserve hotels and meeting spaces, navigate anywhere, find the best local restaurant bargains, maintain my contacts directory, do impromptu six-way conference calling, and many other things I once needed secretaries and administrative assistants to do. Our training department and sales department and management team ran our business lives on iPhones.

Fast forward to 2021: My wife has two iPhones (one for work), an iPad, my old iMac, a PC, and a Kindle. She bought the iPhone 12 Pro Plus just for the camera. When I worked for the Census last year, they provided us supervisors with a secure iPad and a secure iPhone 8 to do everything. The entire 2020 door-to-door enumeration was done on iPhones!

I differentiate between smartphones (iPhone iOS, and all brands of Androids) and dumb "cell" phones (phones with just talk and text and maybe a directory and calendar and a mediocre camera). They're worlds apart.

Smartphones finished the democratization of photography by putting a decent (not pro level, but acceptable to 95% of people) camera in every smartphone owner's pocket. The confluence of technologies in them has revolutionized everything.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Please quote the message you are replying to. I caught this was to me because of your reference to my 4 year old granddaughter.

No, my granddaughter doesn't type, and pretends to read. We use a free app on our cell phone, (and on Portal) to TALK to her over a video connection. It's not a standard phone connection, it's a video stream connection, similar to the Dick Tracy wrist TV/phone only old timers remember from the comics. Generally however, TEXT has replaced TALK as the goto standard of communication for most people <70, and a lot of us >70. We still talk, just not nearly as much as we text.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

No doubt we will have them in heaven and know how to use them but will the service be reliable out there? I doubt if AT&T will be there. And even here on Earth, if Jesus wanted one he would have come later. The Devil, on the other hand...

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Boy, talk about 'cloud computing'.....

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

I agree however will add that other phones also take great pictures with no fuss, no muss. Samsung, LG and iPhone, including iPhone 12 Pro I'm very familiar with, and they all do this. I might give the iPhone 12 the edge but it is the newer of the phones I'm familiar with. It is difficult to impossible to tell which is best, they're all rather amazing. Hard to believe those tiny lenses do such amazing work.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I love the panos that come out of my Galaxy S-III. Of course it's old and only 8MP.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

I GET IT! As I stated, I must have missed that key as that was what I intended to do. Anybody else?

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yeah, really. I'm not sure how a discussion about camera usage and cameras changing became even remotely related to religion.