[Havoc]

Inclined to say no - mainly because of the camera. The gap between ability to mechanically take a pic and what the flagships are doing with AI driven post processing seems not only big but growing.

Short of die hard linux/FOSS fans noticably worse pics is going to be an absolute show stopper

[johndough]

The problem is not AI - many of the best "AI" publications are open source after all. The problem is that hardware vendors do not provide access to their signal processing chip's internals. It is damn near impossible to even make a phone call these days without some obscure binary blob or magic chips that nobody knows what they do but are able to control every aspect of a phone.

[michaelt]

> many of the best "AI" publications are open source after all.

In my experience there's also very little detailed documentation about what cutting-edge phone cameras are doing.

You can get some vague descriptions (focus stacking? exposure stacking? ISO stacking? ML bokeh? Special handling of faces in multiracial groups? Shake compensation? Super-resolution?) which is all very well shooting from a tripod - yet modern phone cameras do their magic at 4k 60fps even while moving? All while running on battery?

[colejohnson66]

> It is damn near impossible to even make a phone call these days without some obscure binary blob or magic chips that nobody knows what they do but are able to control every aspect of a phone.

That’s always been the case for wireless phones; It’s nothing new. Your SIM card is running literal Java programs (hence where the “3 billion Java devices”) and can ask the baseband to send data for it with you having no way to know. Here’s one researcher’s diggings into it: [0] and the discussion: [1].

Some baseband processors can even DMA the main memory. IIRC, Apple has put in effort to firewall said processors.

[0]: https://scribe.rip/telecom-expert/what-is-at-t-doing-at-1111...

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29135559

[hoseja]

It's the only way the government lets the plebs carry around radio transceivers in their pockets.

[kaba0]

(Just a nit, it is actually 56 billion now)

[megous]

Some do. Pinephone Pro's ISP has some public docs and mainline Linux support.

[mixmastamyk]

Shoot raw then import into darktable. This seems like the simplest way to get there until more infrastructure is developed.

[__d]

If that's the simplest way to get a decent photo, then Linux phones are going to have a very limited audience.

[anta40]

True.

I know some photography basics, how to use DSLR/mirrorless, and even how to use handheld lightmeters. The reason we use smartphones is simplicity and convenience: take pictures of family on the beach, apply some editing (Snapseed/VSCO/etc), then share them to social medias. All is done on single device.

Not everyone is a enthusiast who is willing to carry camera and laptop eveywhere :)

[mixmastamyk]

It's how photographers work. Beginners use management apps as well.

[seba_dos1]

Darktable even works on those phones:)

[zekica]

Look at what Intel is doing with MIPI IPU6 webcams. The solution already exists.

[NavinF]

Oof looks like it’ll take over a year before Linux supports those webcams and their chipset ISP: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Greg-KH-No-ADL-Webcam-Laptop

I also don’t know if these cameras are any good. I’ve yet to see a laptop webcam beat a 5 year old iPhone 8 recording at 4K 60fps let alone a modern phone.