Apple is doing something entirely new with the camera in iPhone XS, and Sebastiaan de With, designer of the Halide app published a killer explanation of what those new things are. He also explains how they work and why those things are good—and where they are not good. He also explains the so-called smoothing effect that has been noted on selfies. The end of the piece is a pitch for Halide 1.0, Mr. de With’s camera app, that includes something he calls Smart RAW, but the technical analysis and explanation of what’s happening with the iPhone XS camera is a terrific read. It’s long, too, but well worth the read. Here’s a snippet:

An iPhone XS will over- and underexpose the shot, get fast shots to freeze motion and retain sharpness across the frame and grab every best part of all these frames to create one image. That’s what you get out of the iPhone XS camera, and that’s what makes it so powerful at taking photos in situations where you usually lose details because of mixed light or strong contrast.