Apple
I recently sat beyond two teenage girls on a bus from New York City to Boston. I watched for literally, and I kid you not, 32 minutes as one of them doctored a photo of herself on the Brooklyn Bridge with an app I never knew existed. She thinned her legs and arms, air-brushed her face, and added a tanner tint on her skin. I was absolutely fascinated that someone could so cavalierly misrepresent themselves like that. (Says the guy who’s so much sadder than his Instagram profile.)
In any event, one major marketing feature on the new and expensive iPhone XS and XS Max is the “Smart HDR” feature, which uses “advanced algorithms” and fast sensors to provide “bigger, deeper pixels.”
Some who have received the new iPhone XS (retailing for $999) and the XS Max ($1,099) have reported their selfies looking a bit too glamorous, claiming that Apple added a feature that rids the skin of blemishes and inconsistencies.
As Business Insider points out, popular gadget YouTuber Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy mainstreamed what he calls “#Beautygate.”
“It looks like I’m wearing foundation. So it looks like, whatever processing is going on here, with the facial recognition, and this smart HDR and whatever extras are there — because it’s even happening with Smart HDR turned off — is resulting in this almost covert beauty mode, this secret beauty mode.”
Others began posting photos of themselves in portrait mode to demonstrate the difference between older models of iPhones and the new flagship phones.
iPhone XS is applying skin smoothing/beauty filter on the front facing camera without telling you and no way to disable it. This is not acceptable.
byu/chemicalsam iniphone
@Advil soo I was watching Unbox Therapy and… #beautygate 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/hj2NcZMicP
— bryan™ (@pop__911) September 26, 2018
did @apple just found the killer feature ? Some people are saying Apple's new iPhone selfie camera automatically smooths your skin in photos — and they're calling it 'beautygate' #Apple #iPhoneXS #iphone #beautygate #LOL pic.twitter.com/xYYR3nhFQA
— Yaron Orenstein (@yarono) September 28, 2018
iPhone XS portrait seems like it’s doing more aggressive skin smoothing. This is straight out of the camera no edit. #wokeuplikethis pic.twitter.com/QB3xhvyTby
— Unbox Therapy (@UnboxTherapy) September 24, 2018
https://twitter.com/jamesjimmy23/status/1044685170044018688
Some people in Mac Forums claim that Mac hasn’t enabled a “beauty filter,” but the smoother photos are a product of the new iPhone noise reduction capabilities that are utilized in low light. Since the lenses are so small on phone cameras, they cannot let as much light in, thus using “noise” to add grain across the photo.
Whatever it is, the iPhone XS is a game changer for Tinder photos.
To learn more about the XS and XS Max, my co-worker Mr. Paul Sacca detailed everything you need to know here.
[h/t Business Insider]