For most people relying on a smartphone for work, be it 700 or 1000 the device will pay for itself in a few months at most, so I think the price difference won’t matter much. Better battery performance could be significant though.
I'm not sure how meaningful the "Pro" suffix really is, but the iPhone has undoubtedly become a piece of professional equipment in the media industry.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/collections/smartphone-jour...
Dictaphone, camera, editing and publishing, phone, notepad, email... arbitrary other software around all of these, all in your pocket. Makes total sense.
I find it odd how people will happily pull their wallets out for a PC they will spend a ton of time on, but then balk at the idea of spending half that on a device that lives in your pocket and can help you do practically anything that comes to mind, even if all that comes to mind is entertain you for a few moments. Is it just down to the physical size of the device?
But none of what you described explains why you would need a Pro instead of the standard. Its nice to have, but the base model isnt nerfed to a point that makes it unusable.
1) They age better, and oftentimes are more not just useable, but actually a joy yo use, for a longer time
2) The price difference just isn't that much to justify taking a lower power device. Sure, the iPhone 11 would probably be just fine compared to an iPhone 11 Pro. But when you're talking about phones in that price caliber, honestly what's an extra $200? And I've never had a phone in my hand wishing it was less capable, so why chance wanting to replace it earlier?
Like I said, I bought the X at launch and that was to replace, in turn, a 6 Plus which was still very usable so I'm far from an every year upgrader, and I think that has to do with the fact that I always get the biggest and best, and then just age out a few cycles instead of continuously upgrading.
My 0.02.
I’ve been handing down my iPhones since day one. All of them have got 6 years minimum use.
I dunno, for all the uses and advantages my phone gives me, I'm happy to pay. My last one was an X and it's served me extremely well since I bought it at launch. I passed on the XS, but the 11 is tempting.
You may “need” one when you’re at school or university, but i would think many people can easily do without a PC, after that.
Here is one: I'm a botanist. I take a lot of pictures of herbarium specimens (pressed plant specimens in natural history museums) to make morphological measurements. I have a Sony A7RM3 that is a MUCH higher resolution, better quality camera, but it's a lot bigger, requires more setup time, etc. With an iPhone, the pictures I take are automatically uploaded into Apple's cloud storage and available on my laptop. It's a very nice, simple, relatively seamless system.
If I'm shooting something for a billboard, yeah, I'll go get out a real camera. Almost anything smaller than that can absolutely be done on almost any modern flagship phone.
People can be productive and do fantastic work on any working material. But why have it worse when you’ll be using the device day in day out and stare at it for years ?
I don’t think we are arguing the Pro is nicer, right ?
I didn't watch the entire presentation, but didn't seem very different from current high end phones, except for the camera.
I don’t mean candy bowls or flashy sofas, but well lit, well ventilated, with decent toilets, noise isolation and living space between desks, and ergonomic chairs (at least adjustable in height and depth/inclination)
Cheaping out on work environment is the first sign of misplaced priorities IMO. Especially when it’s so easy to get penalties from work inspection.
* I’ll settle for a million dollar a year, I confess
I’m estate agent and I want to be able to photograph exteriors and interiors.
I’m a garden designer, I like to photograph my clients gardens for a portfolio.
I run a small bar, that has live music sometimes- I like to photograph and video the bands for my website.
There may be other folks out there who want the fastest phone for the purposes of demoing technology. For me, I mostly just don't want to look like I'm a luddite (although I've seen a surprising number of founders/CEOs who rock the SE).
1. No Camera bump (c'mon, this is simple)
2. Good photos (I'm not trying to replicate Mona Lisa, I just need an ok camera that captures day-to-day things)
3. Small, portable
This is an iPhone 7+ we’re talking about... Maybe not the best springboard for your complaint.
Obviously for heavy lifting, I still would prefer an SLR with an assortment of lens options and such though.
Twice during this summer, I was not able to share my screen with coworkers using Zoom because my MacBook pro would overheat and throttle the processors. It might be that there's some dust inside the fan (I have a cat) but I am not able to open and clean it up. How is that "Pro"?
Our servers are all linux based and virtualization in mac is spotty (especially if you want to share a Docker-based setup via Zoom on a mildly hot day).
I strongly doubt I will go back to Mac when the time comes for renewing. I really do need to get stuff done, and this machine has gotten in my way too many times.
The finger reader thingie is nice, though.
Where I work, for example, the social media team are looking to buy an iPhone for IG Story content, as well as internal videos.
Whilst it obviously won't replace a pro photographer's equipment for static, paid shoots, it will be used often in a "pro" setting.
I vlog with a DSLR and even with an iPhone X most people can’t tell when I use footage from that (running with a dslr is hard, for example). iPhone Pro likely makes better video than my T6i Rebel in many situations. Depth of field is usually where DSLRs shine
I find that modern phones are better than traditional cameras a) by nailing exposure more consistently in tricky lighting conditions, b) having a far better display for proofing your shots, and c) can use computational photography tricks to create great HDR photos.
Where the standalone cameras are useful are where you need a capability that you just can't get in a phone. (And that's a set of capabilities that's been greatly diminished over the years, although it will never fully go away.)
People don't _look at_ Instagram posts in the same way they might a fine art photograph. It's a double tap while scrolling through hundreds of posts.
I say this as an avid amateur wildlife photographer who posts on Instagram and gets a handful of likes while friends get hundreds or thousands for an out-of-focus image of a milkshake and bagel.
The iPhone is a lifestyle product. It does a lot of things, but it does some of them quite poorly.
The new camera is better than it used to be, but it's still a long way of short of the quality you'd expect from a high-end professional photo studio camera.
As a lifestyle product, the important factor is the narrative that buying it will put you within reach of that professional creative lifestyle.
In a sense it will, if your definition is limited to lifestyle social sites like IG and FB.
But in a more honest and realistic sense it won't, because it lacks the quality and the flexibility of real professional equipment. A good DSLR + glass will still kill it, and medium format - which is what the most successful full-time studio pros are likely to use - will absolutely destroy it.
There are still situations where that high end is needed. Fashion, ads, and high-end portraiture and photojournalism all rely on it. I don't think studio photographers working in those fields are going to be moving to an iPhone any time soon.
My point was mostly that the definition of “pro photographer” is much wider these days than many people realize. For many values of “pro” an iPhone Pro is going to be absolutely fantastic and a better fit than higher-end pro.
That's precisely what I meant. It's what most people do most of the time.
Taking a shot of my breakfast smoothie with my 150mp Phase One, editing on a calibrated workstation and exporting to have it resized to 2mp for display on mobile phones is beyond pointless.
But the part it’s really going to revolutionize is the baseline level of expected image quality. Just like Casey Neistat forced everyone to start using DSLRs for vlogging with his famed 2 or 3 year experiment.
Not if I'm travelling internationally, as then I'm concerned about the implications of having border officials demand access to my phone. Or if I'm participating in various watersports/snowsports/backcountry activities where a phone is problematically fragile and difficult to keep charged.
In either of those scenarios (which account for the majority of pictures I take) I'm more likely to have a camera accessible than a phone.
Case in point, I have an iPhone X and a DSLR with all of the above lenses and the camera kit + lenses were more expensive than the new iPhone and I probably would use them less.
More like "Prosumer" digital cameras, without removable lenses.
Don't know if the new mac pro will shake that up.
It does, you need to be able to charge its cost as a business expense to be able to afford it. The "Pro" signals to the tax auditors that Apple approves of this :-)
Self-styled "influencers". They'll be all in.
"MacBook Pro" and "iPad Pro" are the ones you buy if you need it for work, because the increased price will pay for itself with increased productivity. But buy the "Air" or basic versions if you are primarily using it for more basic tasks and media consumption.
Not sure the "Pro" distinction will hold up for iPhone, though. I guess it depends if Pro Photographers actually will give up their "Pro" cameras for an iPhone 11 Pro. And I can't think of any other profession where the iPhone Pro will "pay for itself" in productivity increases relative to other iPhones.