OK, I didn't read it like that. My reading was more along the lines of "manufacturers are cheap, when they could pay extra for a better sensor and mark up their product accordingly".

Unfortunately I don't remember where this was, but I read that the way Sony is setup they couldn't really do it.

This was related to "actual cameras", not phone cameras, but the article's point was that "Sony sensors" was a separate division, and Sony Cameras would be their client, just as, say, Nikon.

Nikon was supposedly taking part in the design of the sensors Sony would manufacture for them and this design was only to be used for Nikon. So if some engineer came up with some revolutionary idea, at least in theory, Sony cameras wouldn't be able to use it.

Not sure if this is the case with the phones, too, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least Apple took a similar approach with this.