Almost no-one I know of uses Spheremaps anymore (since they look very wrong for what they give back, might as well go with a Specular term instead) and the very few cases that do use them are pretty rare since it's will be more of an specific artistic choice, and cubemap isn't always used for real-time stuff, you can use…
There's a lot of things if you look at it at extreme angles its reflective, even things you wouldn't expect like roads and bricks, sadly this is the best example I can find right now http://www.carlespiles.com/artwork/431-2/
I must be missing something here. When I look at anything reflective, it seems to me that the entire surface reflects the environment, which I believe is what the Cubemap would be simulating. So say something like this: Or if I look at cars and metals in general, it also does that. I can't find an example where you'd want…
:) when you go to the beach and look at the ocean from far away you see the sky reflection. When you're right above it you can see the sand across a now-transparent mass of water. Your iPhone example is not great because it doesn't show too much variation in the incidence angle. I would like to ask to keep this thread…