Apple will reportedly fix the iPhone XS and iPhone XR ‘beautygate’ selfie smoothing effect in iOS 12.1

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

• Apple will reportedly fixing the excessive camera smoothing
  effect that users reported with the iPhone XS.
• The controversy was dubbed “beautygate” by iPhone XS users.
• Reviewers are now noticing that the iPhone XR is producing
  similar selfies, where facial details and imperfections are
  smoothed out.
• The fix is coming in the upcoming version of iOS, iOS 12.1.

Apple is reportedly planning to fix the excessive photo smoothing
effect from the iPhone XS and iPhone XR phones in an upcoming
version of iOS, according to
The Verge’s review of the iPhone XR.

The selfie smoothing controversy, dubbed “beautygate”
when users discovered it, can make iPhone XS selfies appear void
of detail compared to previous iPhones and other top Android
devices. Indeed, the photos looked as though they were taken with
some kind of “beauty mode” effect, which some phones come with as
an option. Beauty mode photos tend to have facial details and
imperfections blurred out.

The main controversy was that there was no way of turning off the
supposed “beauty mode” on the iPhone XS.

You can check out
some selfies we took with the iPhone X and iPhone XS Max to
see the effect in action. In the image below, it appears like my
face has been painted in the iPhone XS Max selfie:

Business Insider/Antonio
Villas-Boas

Rather than a “beauty mode,” Apple said the smoothing effect
comes from the new Smart HDR feature, which is designed to even
out shadows and flatten highlights by taking the best of multiple
photos taken at various exposures and settings, and combining
those photos into a single image.

To mitigate the excessive smoothing that iPhone XS
users — and now iPhone XR reviewers — have
reported, Apple says it’ll adjust the Smart HDR feature to pick
out “a sharper base frame.”

The fix is reportedly coming in iOS version 12.1, which is
currently in public beta but has no official release date
yet.