You might thing thast using a smartphone for professional photography was easy. After all these are point and shoot 'happy snapper' cameras, right? However if you are looking for the best quality you get, things are a bit more complicated.

Firstly you have a number of software packages to sort out. You can use the apple built in camera app, but that doesn't give you many creative options. If you want to set shutter speed, ISO and indeed manual focus then you will need a different app. There are excellent apps. like Halide, Pro Camera, Reeflex, Beastgrip, Moment, Reef Colour, Bayer Cam (for shooting genuine raw files), 65 x 24 (For shooting X-Pan size panoramas). Then there are video apps. of which Blackmagic and Filmic Pro are the best. I use them all and ofter switch between them. Finally a special mention for Adobe's new offering Indigo which bypasses the Apple software complete and creates it's own raw .dng files. You only get 12MP from this app. but it is very good indeed. 

Then there are the add on lenses. These have been around for a while, but they were always rubbush. However things have now improved dramatically with great options from Reeflex,  Moment, Beastgrip and Neewer. These require using screw in mounts via a smartphone case or adapters. I would briefly mention some instances where you get a real bonus. Firstly, I'm not convinced by the Apple lens set up. Having the basic lens as a 24mm equivalent strikes me as crazy, It's too wide. If you want to use the 2x lens, which is closer to a 'standard' lens, it's a crop and you only get 12MP. However I have a reeflex 2x add on lens, whuch when fixed to the front of the main wide 24mm equivalent lens gives a 48mm lens equivalent utilising the full 48MP of the apple lens. 

Another great Reeflex lens is the 240.It was designed to double the length of the 120mm equivalent on the Apple 16 series. However it works brilliantly on the 17 Pro Max 100mm lens and gives an insanely sharp 200mm. Now if you change to the 8x crop setting you get an amazing 400mm f/2.8 (35mm eqivalent) and yes it works.

Finally there are a lot of posts about the amazing chinese phones. Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi. Now these might look impressive but there are some problems. Firstly, where do you buy one? There are very few places where these are available for Europe and the USA. And personally I'm not interested in buying a £1000+ smartphone on ebay. And secondly if you want extras, lenses cages,grips etc. you have to move to China to get those. I'm happy with my iphones, because I get none of those problems.