The Camera in Your Pocket Already Won

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom was a phone with a 10x optical zoom lens bolted onto it, trying to be both a serious camera and a smartphone at the same time. The hybrid was clumsy in practice—too thick to be a real phone, too phone-brained to satisfy anyone who actually shot seriously. But the argument it was making, that you shouldn’t need to carry two devices, was already winning.

What’s strange is how quickly the camera industry capitulated. Within a few years, dedicated point-and-shoots had basically vanished from casual use, not because phones ever matched a real lens but because the phone was always there. The best camera is the one you have with you, and the one you have with you turned out to be the one with the apps and the sharing and the ten other things you needed it to do. The zoom didn’t matter. The convenience did.