Well, if you take one single kind of image that the software is optimized to almost fake, yes you can get close. But you'll never get to the level of, say, an a7iii+85mm1.4 even for portraits, even in good light.
In any case, good enough and better are two very different words. I really enjoy taking pictures on an ILC much more and the results I get are noticeably better even in portraits, including by people that don't know what I took it with. For example, good luck emulating the look of a 135mm f/2.8 (at night) with an iPhone if we're talking about portraits, or good luck doing better than a 50mm 1.4 for street, good luck doing better than a 70-200 2.8, and so on.
But yes, it has a much lower skill ceiling and often more consistent results, and it really does get close.
I enjoy the a-series but that’s exactly what I’m moving on from
I think I’ll get a gimbal and some contraption to trigger flash and maybe some adapter lenses as they trickle out for this form factor
Yes, the consistency in such a wide range of lighting situations is what’s attractive. Along with the built in non-destructive editing. Soon, ProRAW for even more of that. Live Photos by default which “captures the moment” more than the composition itself, and a software and syncing pipeline that supports that seamlessly. With the nearest replacement being an entire tool-belt and bags of gear.
I think at this point we will see the market choose, and often times I ahead of the accepted trend on that. A daguerreotype was probably superior processing technology than film and paper but it wasn’t convenient enough to remain an option. Same went for film and dedicated digital cameras. I think this is where we are now with the iphone 12 pro and ProRAW, even for photo enthusiasts.
Well, to boot, no, film and paper were far way easier and more powerful to process than daguerréotype, and digital is also way more powerful to process than film. That being said, I do think you lose out on a lot of convenience with an iPhone as your sole camera.
To start, you can actually crop. You can use lenses with a higher focal length than 70mm, which for many people makes all the difference in portraits. If you're using something like ProRAW, you're limited to 1/3 of an FPS vs 20FPS.
If you want to capture the moment on an ILC, you can also just hold the shutter. This would be the very first time we go from a platform that has higher image quality and more editing lattitude to a technology that has less of it. The replacement isn't an entire tool belt and bags of gear, for me it's an A7ii and a 28-75 2.8 (for a total cost lower than the iPhone 12 Pro + my current phone and will outlive it by four or five times).
As for sales, the iPhone has already gobbled up everything except the high end camera market, which is actually seeing increasing sales, so we'll see about that. I don't find it all that probable.
As for ProRAW, it's technically completely inferior to, say, an ARW file.
In any case, good enough and better are two very different words. I really enjoy taking pictures on an ILC much more and the results I get are noticeably better even in portraits, including by people that don't know what I took it with. For example, good luck emulating the look of a 135mm f/2.8 (at night) with an iPhone if we're talking about portraits, or good luck doing better than a 50mm 1.4 for street, good luck doing better than a 70-200 2.8, and so on.
But yes, it has a much lower skill ceiling and often more consistent results, and it really does get close.