I think we will need some examples to support that claim.
Retail is one. Any retail company that doesn't have a legacy system to integrate with uses iPhones and iPads for their POS systems.
Logistics is another. According to an ex-girlfriend who works in LTL, the logistics industry is 90% people with iPads and iPhones. The only people who aren't using mobile devices for their "real work" are people like her who are chained to a desk doing back office stuff.
Tradesmen is another. When my water heater burst, the water heater guys, the plumber, the guys who replaced the floor, the guy from the gas company, and the guys who replaced the walls all took pictures of the situation before, during, and after to document what they did. Copies went to me, to the landlord, and to their office.
I have yet to see the last one lol. The tradespeople here still use the clipboard case that has their forms inside, sometimes with carbon paper. And they all seem to take cash or checks. XD
They're much, much better, and extremely useful, for just about any work that involves building or fixing things in the real world, to pick one large category of work. I'd personally find a laptop maybe 1/10 as useful as an iPhone (or smartphone more generally), at best, when, say, working on my house or car. Watching construction contractors work, they seem to love their phones and use them constantly, too, and for a lot more than making calls and sending messages.
It's like carrying around a whole office's worth of office equipment in your pocket. It's a document scanner, you can use it to measure stuff, to get paperwork signed, to take pictures and look at them later, it's a level or flashlight in a pinch, you can load reference materials on it, and on and on, and that's without getting into really specialized software or peripherals that let you do all kinds of cools stuff.
Pretty much every large retailer I've been to in the last 6 months has most of their employees supplied with smart phones of some sort, usually with a barcode scanner, that they can use for inventory processes. I've walked up to employees at the grocery store and a hardware store and asked for a specific niche item, and they've pulled out their phone, searched for the item, found it's location in store, price, and the number in stock. Seems like they're doing a lot of work with them.
how about take a picture of something and sending it to someone. Camera's are not only used for selfies, lots of inspection work basically requires to take a picture and submit it.
The workflow snap picture with camera -> eject sdcard -> insert sd card -> photo app for resize -> email attachment is really slow and inconvenient compared to add attachment -> snap picture -> send
Agreed, both the iPhone and iPad are amazing for digital art.
I have a project where I try and create at least 2 pieces of abstract art every day on my iPhone. It’s great for getting ideas out quickly. Over 1500 pieces later I’m still going.
Also, on the iPad, Procreate and the Affinity apps plus the Pencil are amazing.
I think we will need some examples to support that claim.