I'm curious as to what type of truly useful answers you expect from a site (apparently) dedicated more to camera equipment and photography technology more than to photography as art, and with an exceedingly high average age?

The vehemence with which encroaching celphone capability is denied is both laughable and revealing.

One of the next posts will surely start taking about long lenses and birds in flight, blah blah.

Better to ask the same question on a dedicated celphone photography site - which will astonish you - as well as here - the reality is somewhere in between.

Jerry, obviously you spend a huge amount of time researching various topics and are well versed on myriad of topics. Perhaps spend a little time on celphone tech, so "It seems that cameras are the only part of a cell phone that makers can really improve" can be safely deleted;)

While it is true that phone cameras (lenses, sensors, software, controls) are the most evident advances, there are many others, most related to sensors of many kinds including light, color temp & values, accelerometers (angles, directions, g-forces), temperature, humidity, heart rate, proximity, pressure, gyroscopes, magnetometers etc. Its an impressive list. Ask the person who's iPhone automatically called emergency services after the accelerometer recorded a high impact, location monitors "knew" she was in a car, upside down at the side of a road, while recording heartbeat and BP levels amongst other things. Many elderly people use their phones as first alert tools for falls etc.

Technology advances at an incredible rate - the first gyroscopes for radio controlled helicopters originally were the size of four decks of cards and cost many thousands of dollars for the truly dedicated few and now micro helicopters with 1000s times the capability costs under $15 delivered from China.

Phones and cameras share one primary characteristic - a total dependence on sensors of one sort or another. Hard to say whether phones are one of the leading drivers of consumer oriented sensors, or perhaps the beneficiary of sensors for other purposes, most probably both.

Advances in our culture do not always come from where we expect. Arguably, the primary drivers of internet commerce (which is ultimately after all what the internet is for and about now) and personal computer technology generally, are pornography and gaming.