Camera phones replacing Android and iPhone: People protest Samsung and Apple’s lack of innovation

2023 marks just another year of the smartphone’s journey towards turning into a camera phone, and there’s nothing you and I can do to change that.

Take Xiaomi, for example. Huawei’s spiritual successor is now on the forefront of the smartphone camera evolution – phones like the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, Xiaomi 12S Ultra, and now the Xiaomi 13 Ultra (coming to the global market) perfectly illustrate the direction the Chinese tech giant has chosen to take, which is to turn its premium flagship phones into camera phones.A massive, circular camera housing, a leather back, and strong focus on making an amazing camera first, and everything else second. Of course, other Chinese phone-makers like Vivo and Oppo have joined the camera phone party with their own Vivo X90 Pro and Oppo Find X6 Pro, but the camera phone evolution knows no physical borders.

Apple and Samsung are no strangers to the camera phone trend either, with Samsung having spent about 2/3 of its Galaxy S23 Ultra keynote time on the camera system of the phone, despite this one turned out to be virtually unchanged compared to last year’s Galaxy S22 Ultra.

The thing is… I have a suspicion that the average person would appreciate if phone-makers didn’t put as much time and resources into just one area of the smartphone experience (the camera), and instead opted to spread all that R&D money and expertise towards improving phones in ways that matter… more.

Yes, our smartphones are turning into camera phones, and if you look into some comments online, the average smartphone user isn’t happy with Apple, Samsung, and Chinese phone-makers’ lack of innovation in other areas. Me neither.

Xiaomi 13 Ultra to set new standard for smartphone photography with far more impressive camera system than Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro, but at what cost?