I think you are reading more specificity into my very brief, casual statement than I intended. I don’t disagree with any of your observations.
“A camera RAW image file contains minimally
processed data from the image sensor” (Wikipedia)
iPhones CAN capture RAW format since iOS 12. You need to use a 3rd party app (such as Lightroom) to get at it. Here’s a list of apps:
https://apps.apple.com/us/story/id1348100616
The iPhone Pro can also produce ProRAW, which does involve processing before you get a DNG.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211965
Of course, given the smaller sensors and lenses, iPhone cannot match even prosumer cameras for the photo resolution and light-gathering properties. Sometimes you actually need 50MP images.
Apple surely isn’t going to fool any serious photography people that they can throw away all their gear and just carry an iPhone Pro around. But as a point and shoot camera, iPhone is more than capable. You don’t need to carry around one of those (I used to carry around a Sony RX100 everywhere until a grain of sand got in the works and totaled it. I was very happy with what it could do, but my iPhone is good enough that I don’t feel a need to get another camera to carry around for the situations it doesn’t handle well).
Even pros will want a Pro. As they say the best camera to use is the one you have, and if you carry an iPhone around everywhere, you won’t be without a pretty decent one.
I cannot say I’m entirely satisfied with what my current iPhone is capable of, and I’m sure when i get a new one, I’ll be frustrated with it as well sometimes. Just less often.
What is holding up my iPhone purchase at the moment is picking the storage option. My 256GB iPhone is less than half full. The main storage culprit now is audiobooks, because of my habit of downloading at purchase time (and consuming them at a much slower rate), and I really don’t need to do that (& I just cancelled my Audible subscription). 256GB seems about right.
But if I get inspired to start shooting lots of photos and 4K video, that could disappear quickly. Yet the price jump to 512GB gives me pause — but I can see using this thing for 3-4 years.
Right now there is not much prospect of it: COVID precludes most travel and social activity, and smoke from the wildfires out here preclude most outdoor activity, where I like to take pictures. But these are only temporary circumstances, right?