The iPhone XS and XS Max have been in the hands of users for a week now, and during that time many selfies have undoubtedly been taken on the new devices. Some users have noticed an unexpected difference with their selfies, however: their skin looks smoother and less realistic than it should. Juli Clover reports on this for MacRumors:

When taking a selfie in a situation where lighting is less than ideal, such as indoors or outdoors in areas with lower lighting, the iPhone XS Max appears to be applying a drastic smoothing effect that can hide freckles, blemishes, and other issues.

In full outdoor lighting the problem is less apparent, which has led to speculation that the skin smoothing is actually a result of some heavy-handed noise reduction techniques.

You can test the new camera yourself with an iPhone XS Max and an older iPhone like an iPhone X model by taking selfies indoors and outdoors and comparing the differences between the two. In almost all cases where the lighting is low or uneven, photos captured with an iPhone XS Max look dramatically different.

9to5Mac has a quote from one user, Abdul Dremali, who said, “Apple reached out to me yesterday and are working on this issue actively.” That isn’t necessarily confirmation that a skin smoothing effect is being applied, but it does indicate that something’s happening with the XS front-facing camera that wasn’t intended.

There’s often one controversy or another surrounding the launch of a new iPhone, such as antennas not working properly or iPhones bending under pressure. This issue doesn’t seem quite like those past problems, as it should be a quick fix in software if something’s not functioning correctly. In 2018 there’s a lot that happens in software every time a photo is taken on an iPhone; it wouldn’t surprise me if a small tweak arrives in iOS 12.0.1 that helps skin remain natural to the eye no matter the lighting conditions. One way or another, we should hear more from Apple before long.

In addition to the early slate of iPhone reviews from the press, it’s become tradition in recent years for each iPhone to be graded as a camera by professional photographer Austin Mann. I especially enjoyed Mann’s review this year of the iPhone XS camera system. He writes:

Most of the time my expectations for camera upgrades on “S” years aren’t so high, but after shooting with the iPhone XS for a week, I can confidently say it’s a huge camera upgrade. There’s a lot of little improvements, but Smart HDR definitely takes the cake. This is a feature and technology that improves virtually everything you capture with your iPhone camera. I think you’ll be really thrilled when you experience the results yourself.

As I shared in last week’s issue of MacStories Weekly for Club MacStories, the iPhone XS and XR announcements caught me by surprise in that I expected there to be more change in the devices compared to last year’s iPhone X. I’ve ordered a XS Max, but the primary reason for my upgrade was the additional screen real estate compared to my X; bigger display aside, September’s keynote didn’t provide much of a compelling reason for me to purchase a new phone this year. However, Mann’s review and that of John Gruber have helped provide much-needed additional detail on the camera upgrades in the XS, which sound impressively significant.

One of the standout lines in Mann’s review for me comes near the beginning, where he says, “iPhone XS captures what your eyes see.” It’s hard to find higher praise than that.