The establishment of the Max Berek Innovation Lab (MBIL) in Wetzlar by Leica and Huawei is not a gimmick, but a bold entry into the future of photography.

Long time ago I wrote an article on the internet that with the adoption of digital imagery, the classical art of photography was dead. I was severely ridiculed by the then active cognoscenti that I did not understand the digital world and should wash my mouth with soap and start learning about the true essence of digital technologies.
Now the advance of the technique is even more visible than it was then. The new camera of the future will be an app in which algorithms will define what and how a scene is being recorded. The announced Summicron-SL lenses may be the last one will ever see from Leica.The OBLW will produce a new type of camera obscura with so-called computational photography that will correct and enhance the images. A very simple application is the reduction of distortion and vignetting in modern Leica cameras and lenses, but this is the start not the end
The era of the honest photograph (the unaltered reproduction of the reality) once the exclusive characteristic of the Leica way of photography will be a relic of the past.
The iPhone will take over and the included algorithms. Leica and Huawei are the beginning of the end of the classical Leica photography!
Time to pick up the Leica M-A and a box of Ilford Delta films!
Like it or not: straight photography has gone and the smartphonography rules.