> the kind of person who spends >$1000 on a bulky and complex camera
I'm talking about opening up a new market - instagrammers, who already spend money on ring lights, tripods for their phones, but who don't want to learn all the intricacies of using a DSLR camera + adapters + laptop.
The DSLR camera makers focus on a constant/shrinking market of pros, while totally ignoring a booming Instagram market.
The people who don't want to learn the intricacies of photography just use their phone. Unless you learn those intricacies, your phone will reliably take better images, because Apple have spent stupid amounts of R&D money on optimising their image post-processing.
The better lens and sensor on a DSLR is essentially irrelevant to Instagrammers, because the limitations of phone camera hardware are barely visible on a 6" phone screen in typical shooting scenarios. The point of using a DSLR-type camera is to gain more control over the imagemaking process. Unless you actually learn something about photography, that extra control is just an array of footguns. Faffing about with cables and cards is utterly trivial compared to pretty much any aspect of serious photography.
Every SLR I've seen has an Auto mode. You don't need to know intricacies to put it in that mode and leave it there forever.
I don't know why people keep parroting that an iphone is capable of comparable images to an SLR, it's just not true.
Even on Auto everything and with the result shrunk down to 2 Megapixels, an SLR will take much more pleasing images. The short depth of field will be very noticeable. In anything close to lower light the difference will be astronomical. Like a nice image instead of a blurry mess that you immediately delete.
Yes, the differences will be noticeable on a phone screen. DOF makes a massive difference to the overall image.
You can't get around physics and the weight and size of those lenses are tolerated for a good reason. If it was only about control then you there would definitely be camera phones with all the functionality of SLRs.
When the lens is so hopelessly tiny there's no point trying to control anything else because you will hit the limits of the lens/sensor in basically any situation. You can't open the aperture wide enough to get a pleasing DOF, and you don't have enough leeway to control shutter speed. And forget about zooming. All of those things are advantages because of the larger lenses, and are the difference between nice photos and, well, cameraphone images.
I would definitely think Instagrammers, with their endless vanity, would be interested in anything that makes their photos more appealing.