After iPhone XS was announced, some users noticed that its front camera beautifies selfies by default. The coin “BeautyGate” for this was soon coined to refer to this bug, but former Apple designer Sebastiaan de With explained that it’s a consequence of noise reduction. However, Apple has now admitted: the so-called “BeautyGate” is real, and it’s indeed a camera bug.
Apple told The Verge that iPhone XS’s and XR’s Smart HDR made smoother-looking photos taken by the front camera. The problem was that Smart HDR was choosing the wrong base frame for HDR processing when you took a selfie.” Instead of choosing a frame with a short shutter speed to freeze motion and preserve detail, it would sometimes choose a frame with longer shutter speed,” The Verge writes. As a result, the selfies looked as if you had the Beauty mode turned on. Except that it was impossible to turn it off. Another part of the problem is the lack of optical image stabilization in the front camera. This caused the shots to be blurrier than those taken with the stabilized front camera. As a result, you’d end up with the loss of detail and photos that looked smoother.
Reportedly, Apple will fix the bug that caused “BeautyGate” to occur. In the iOS 12.1, the Smart HDR should pick the sharpest base frame when taking a selfie, which will result in sharper, more realistic selfies. According to The Verge, the iOS 12.1 will be out soon. So, you’ll get to see if anything changes, and you’ll be able to make comparisons.
[via The Verge]
