It used to be that iPhones made great, tasteful photos by default. That was why people bought them.
If I wanted to spend time processing every snapshot I take with my phone, I wouldn't use my phone at all, I'd use my X100T and get pictures that are much better than anything the phone can do.
> I wouldn't use my phone at all, I'd use my X100T
That’s what I’m actually doing. My Pixel 3 died suddenly in November 2021. Since it was an emergency, I bought a cheap phone with a horrible camera, intending to upgrade it quickly and taking photos with my X100T in the meantime. A year later and I’m still using that setup. The camera is portable enough to take it everywhere, the processing presets are good enough for me, and I have the RAW files available just in case. I’m probably in the minority of people who would do something like this, but I’m pretty happy so far.
I have Sony A7III and basically learned how to take pictures so that jpg files out of the camera looks good. I shoot jpg + RAW but I almost never touch RAW files. And people are really surprised when I'm telling them that (especially photographers). I like taking pictures, not editing them. It's definitely minority of people and I heard from many new photographers I meet that I'm wasting my camera abilities. Almost as if I'm not editing pictured from camera then I'm not "real" photographer. Thankfully I don't care anymore about it and I'm happy with my pictures (and my family, friends and other photographers that got used to me :P).
> It used to be that iPhones made great, tasteful photos by default. That was why people bought them.
I think most people buy iPhones because it's a status symbol or because it's what they are accustomed to. Certainly not because of feature A or B, and most definitely not if that feature is "tasteful photos", whatever that means (whose taste?).
But there is a small vocal minority which cares about picture quality, that is true. Totally irrelevant to apple's bottom line though.
It blends multiple shots for better dynamic range, but doesn’t do any heavy processing. If you want a pure single exposure RAW file you can get that using third party apps such as Halide.
If I wanted to spend time processing every snapshot I take with my phone, I wouldn't use my phone at all, I'd use my X100T and get pictures that are much better than anything the phone can do.