The iPhone camera is riddled with inadequacies starting with the lack of any auto-focus and continuing on to the lack of any digital zoom at all.

Jailbreak your iPhone.

The digital zoom problem is taken care of with the Snapture app. To zoom on Snapture, simply pinch the screen to zoom in/out. To take a picture, just tap on the main screen.

This is where I inadvertently ran across the solution to taking up-close photos (of say, a paper, writing, etc). Because the iPhone only starts focusing at least half a meter of so, when you are taking up-close photos, bring the camera as far from what you are taking a picture of. Then, use the digital zoom to get a focused, clear photo of something up-close.

Ed