When "An iPhone Takes Better Photos Than a Camera"

It might have a larger resolution, and clever post-processing, but a progressive sensor and prime lens cannot recreate even an unedited manual shutter and lens can do.

This is a fun experiment:

Here are two images. Taken 30 seconds apart, from the same spot and same settings. One is a 4-y/o iPhone; the other is a decade-old Sony Alpha-7ii, almost archaic. Can you tell the difference? Which photo was take with which camera? Both of these were shot in raw formats and received nothing more than cropping.

The first photo is the OLD Sony camera; note the details in the snow flakes, their shadows against the sky and their stark contrast against the dark greens of the tree, and the lack of vignette around the edges and the sharpness of detail on the pine needles and clumps of snow they hold. Most of these things are either lacking or subdued in the second photo. While a phone does a good job, it simply cannot, because of physical limitations, preproduce as much information as a full-frame camera.