What we want: Snap picture, picture is sent over high-bandwidth link to phone

Analysis: Can't be Bluetooth, also it's foolish to assume most pics are in wifi range of an access point, so it needs to be Wi-Fi Direct, like AirDrop is: Able to be performed with or without the parties being ON a network. The parties just p2p transfer the file.

More analysis: What would this take? 1. The blessings of the platform owners, at minimum Apple and other handset makers, probably Google too. The platform owners would need to provide:

1. Ability to make ad-hoc wi-fi direct connections with your other devices. APIs etc 2. Ability to either have your app running in the background, or be automatically silently launched in the background, to receive the image and add it to Photos.

No such abilities exist. All the cheesy hotspot things that they're doing is literally the only way to achieve such a goal without the cooperation of gatekeepers like Apple.