I attended the Canon Pro solutions show in London yesterday, it was a better show than I expected and worth the day out.
I sat in on some of the half hour talks, one being the Eos custom functions usefulness. Most of the talk was regarding the focus settings on the new 7D/1DIV/5DmkII, it left me thinking of the last Nokia I had and most of the phones that went before it that passed through my hands. They all had the ability to connect to the Internet, send text and send pictures etc. The problem was it was such a fiddle to use and the screen so small I never bothered and certainly the last Nokia I had I believe was a N90, the software was so flaky and frustrating that when I lost it on a roller-coaster I actually felt so liberated I had a drink or two to celebrate.
What next? along came the iPhone that's what, all the same promised technology and more, but in a usable form. Suddenly email. internet and other functions are easy and usable. The number of people at the show using the iPhone was quite remarkable and the train journey home also had a disproportionate number of iPhone users. So like the MP3 before, Apple took the promised technology and made it usable and the World flocked to it. What a pity we can not say the same about custom functions. The focus options settings are mind boggling, even if you took the trouble to memorise where all the permutations are and the permutations of the permutations and what they do and when to use them etc the application of them is such a fiddle. I find it difficult to believe that any photographer that works in a field where the differences are important would have the time to switch from one or the other, I can't believe that a sports photographer that needs to react to changing situations can switch to the most appropriate option in a time that allows them to shoot the thing they want. I find it difficult to see how a wildlife photographer following a subject could pick the best option as background, light and contrast change. Neither can I believe that anyone has the time to seek out the different conditions to test all these options and get to know the nuances enough to use with confidence. I am sure these all work well and produce the results as claimed, but please please Canon next time you design a camera with infinite customisable options give to Apple to design the interface, they might be usable then.

Kevin.

Complexity....complexity...complexity.

High-end photographic systems are highly complex and require the ability to adapt themselves to the needs of many different niches. Canon (and Nikon and the rest) could do better, but with all the different ways that people choose to use and configure the camera, I don't see them taking any quantum leaps any time soon.

If Apple fielded a DSLR, it would have the feature set of a digicam with the quality of the DSLR. It would be a "jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none."

Don't forget all the things an iPhone doesn't do well (full disclosure, I own one and like it a lot)
* multitasking isn't available
* GPS is mediocre
* built-in camera is mediocre
* until recently no IMS (Image text messaging)
* No tethering
* Can't synch with PC using Bluetooth
* Requires iTunes (very bloated software that tries to be all things to everyone)
* Can only synch to one exchange system
* No flash player
* Blah blah blah

The iPhone is fantastic, but it is a compromise of everything. I don't think that a comparison of an iPhone to a DSLR is a valid one. Compare an iPhone to a digicam, and you will see things line up a bit better.

The most important thing that the camera manufacturers could do to match the iPhone's success would be to open their operating system and allow third party applications. That would start a new imaging revolution. (It will never happen.)

Yes but you can use them on a iPhone.
Finding your way through customs functions takes forever even if you know what you are after. One example on the day was a setting which works very well tracking small birds in flight that jitter about. I think yes I could see that being useful if small birds are your thing, but wait a minute it only works against a plain background like the sky. Now I don't do birds, but I would imagine if you are shooting a hawk in the hover it works fine, but then it dives for it's dinner against a low contrast background of trees and suddenly you are in the wrong setting.
A friend of mine used to be the press photographer on a local rag, his day could go from a Cricket match, to indoor sport, children's infant School, visiting celeb to the WI jam making contest, for him to optomise the camera for all those conditions on the fly would be a nightmare. I am not saying Apple would make a camera of a better quality they would make one where the options are real because you would know how to set them easily. My little Ricoh has lots of options, it also has the ability to save them as different "my camera" settings, I just need to turn one dial to get to a preset set of functions, not a trawl through menus and sub menus.
It's not having the settings I object to but God knows there are to many, it's getting from one to the other in a usable way.
I got told I was stupid for buying a Mac classic way back in time and that the Msdos way of pressing keys was fine and cheaper, what happened to all the MS.Dos users when Windows came out, they bought Windows and got excited about using a mouse. I bet there are still those that lament the passing of Msdos, I also bet they can speak fluent clingon, talk like Yoda and seldom go on a date and never the same one twice and probably design camera interfaces.

Kevin.