iOS 12.1 will improve selfie quality on the iPhone XS and XR

Nilay Patel, writing for The Verge

Ever since the iPhone XS came out, there’s been criticism of its front camera — specifically, that it overly smooths skin. This, of course, was dubbed “Beautygate” in reference to Samsung-style beautification filters, which Apple has always insisted it doesn’t use.

Whatever the case, it was definitely there, but now it’s going away: during our iPhone XR review, Apple told me that iOS 12.1 will fix a bug in its smart HDR camera system that resulted in smoother-looking photos taken by the front camera on the iPhone XS and XR.

Essentially, Smart HDR was choosing the wrong base frame for HDR processing when you took a selfie.

When this issue came about, people thought it was due to Apple intentionally doing some overly aggressive noise reduction or something else.

But nope, just a Smart HDR bug.