It has been 16 years since the iPhone was first launched. The iPhone changed the mobile phone industry forever but it wasn’t until 2010 that its effect really started to shake things up in other industries. 2010 was the year when the iPhone 4 was launched and it was the same year an app called Instagram came out and started catching the fancy on social media. It was also reported that in 2010, an estimated 121 million digital cameras were sold across the world. That was perhaps the all-time recent high for digital cameras as the iPhone over the years has become the go to device for casual, amateur, and even professional photographers. 13 years have ensued and the iPhone has evolved dramatically and perhaps has one of the most consistent and versatile camera a smartphone user can buy.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is aware of the power of the iPhone camera and says that for a lot of people “the best camera is right in their pocket.”
In an exclusive chat with The Times of India, Apple CEO spoke about the impact the iPhone camera has had on people’s lives. “Apple has always been about democratizing everything,” Cook told The Times of India on a recent visit to New Delhi. Case in point:
We meet at an upscale hotel in the capital where Karishma — a rangoli artist from Chandigarh — is here to show Cook her designs. Cook admires the rangoli and kola designs made of flower petals, rice and colored sand. He would later tweet and called the “amazing designs vibrant and beautiful.”

He shared the images of these designs, which were clicked by two photographers — Joshua Kartik and Apeksha Maker. Cook takes out the time to chat with them. Kartik says that in his brief interaction with Cook he spoke about the impact of iPhone on videography. “What the iPhone and Apple have done is dramatically reduce the processing time. We have gone from spending hours after shooting something on processing the images or footage to instantly upload and share,” says the Mumbai-based photographer, whose #shotoniPhone images have been shared by Cook earlier as well.
Maker also echoes the sentiment. “The most important thing the iPhone has done is give people the confidence to shoot pro-level images and footage with relative ease.” She told Cook how her love for photography kicked off because of a product that isn’t renowned for the camera. It was an iPod touch which was gifted to her and the first photo she clicked was from the music player. Since then, there has been no looking back for the photographer, whose images of Cook shared with the world from his Twitter account earlier this year on Holi as well.

Giving people the power

In the last couple of years, Apple has really upped the ante when it comes to video shooting capabilities of the iPhone — an aspect Cook spoke about as well. “It’s not just photography, but videography and film making are also being done on the iPhone now,” he says.
The iPhone’s Cinematic Mode has caught the attention of movie makers as well. Earlier this year, renowned director Vishal Bhardwaj — in association with Apple — released a short 30-minute film titled “Fursat”, which was shot entirely on the iPhone. “It is incredible that now, with the cinematic mode, full-length movies are being shot on the iPhone as well,” says the Apple CEO.
What Cook calls “democratic” is eminently visible on social media and how people have started looking at photography and videography. Millions of images are clicked on the iPhone daily and people have the freedom to just take a device out of their pocket and get down to work. The iPhone has over the years given users the power to shoot what they like without carrying additional gear. Not just that but what Apple puts inside the iPhone — a processor capable of computing tasks at extremely fast speeds — has made a tremendous impact in making lives easier for those who edit, process their images and footage. “At the end of the day, it is about democratizing,” says the Apple CEO.