When I take purposeful pictures I use a camera. I use my phone for a number of things, but serious photography ain't one of them. (I like the flexibility of interchangeable lenses, big glass, small f, long focal lengths, tripod mounts, special-purpose filters, etc.)
When I edit photos and organize them I use a computer because it has a big screen. Again my phone isn't involved.
Why then do they require an app? It doesn't bother me that they have an app, but requiring one tells me they're just reinventing Instagram. Serious photography web sites should work on the web. And I can't believe I had to write that sentence.
FWIW, I have a DSLR (used to be semi-pro, now just a hobbyist). I use Lightroom and Photoshop on my iPad. I never touch my desktop anymore. Clearly, your workflow may require desktop software. But I believe it's possible to create high-quality work without a desktop these days.
Where do you keep your raw files? That would fill up an iPad fast. I know Adobe has cloud storage with their photography plans, but I can't imagine ever not having a local copy.
I only keep the RAW files for the final photos. Usually this is one or two files per “shoot.” So my cloud storage costs aren’t that high. Obviously this doesn’t work for everyone as there are lots of cases where you need to archive everything.
Not previous commenter, but I offload raws from my camera to my desktop, where they're backed up. I upload another copy to Lightroom (cuz more backups is always better). Then I edit from my iPad using their cloud storage.
And iirc, I have Lightroom set up to export a JPEG of the last edit for the photo to a directory. So I back up the edits too.
It's really a pretty nice experience. The new lightroom moved a bunch of stuff around and some of the more advanced stuff is hidden, but it's a lot easier to make quick, rough edits. I like hitting the auto-edit button when I'm filtering out photos that are trash, because sometimes photos I think I hate look a ton better with rough editing.
I don't think reinventing Instagram (as it originally was) is a terrible idea. Instagram with a different culture from the Instagram of today, with a highly-polished experience focused on amateur photography (today's phones have incredible cameras) instead of just being "Facebook, but the images are really big". It would be niche, but I think we need more niche and specialized apps/services these days.
Not that it shouldn't expand to Android and the web, but I think for this kind of premium and niche experience you can justify handwriting your MVP for iOS instead of starting with the web and/or React Native
I think Instagram has already trained a lot of serious photographers to work in this world. At least until recently, the only way to post to Instagram was via mobile (or some Lightroom plugins or spoofing your desktop browser as a mobile browser). Many photographers were going through the workflow you described and then sending the edited file to their phone for posting.
That being said... this seems like a poor move because photographers are willing to do that to get the audience reach Instagram provides. Glass, on the other hand, requires a subscription and doesn't seem worth the effort yet.
Although I’m not in the industry, I’ve witnessed professional photographers taking photos and sharing them using iPhones. There was a brief anecdote of a photographer that took pictures of a model on an iPhone for Vogue (or some other magazine). It had more depth to it (something to do about doing it remotely), but in general, I wouldn’t count off phone’s photo quality.
You’re definitely right about post-processing and all the other jazz that comes into the play after the picture has been taken though.
Disclaimer: not a photographer, and have close to 0 artistic abilities, so I might be completely wrong.
When I edit photos and organize them I use a computer because it has a big screen. Again my phone isn't involved.
Why then do they require an app? It doesn't bother me that they have an app, but requiring one tells me they're just reinventing Instagram. Serious photography web sites should work on the web. And I can't believe I had to write that sentence.