https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17851284/apple-iphone-xs-camera-vs-google-pixel-2-smart-hdr-2018

Apple’s new camera system in the iPhone XS and XS Max has just been detailed at the company’s grand launch event, and the big highlight has nothing to do with hardware specs. The big improvement this year is all about computational photography. Sound familiar? That’s exactly the stuff Google has relied on to build its world-beating Google Pixel camera, and Apple’s solution follows a very similar path.

A new Smart HDR mode in the freshly announced iPhones does two Pixel-like things. One is that it shoots a constant four-frame buffer when the camera app is open, meaning that the moment you press the shutter is the exact moment the photo is taken, there’s literally zero lag. The other new feature is the smart combination and splicing of multiple frames of the same shot, exposed at different values. Apple then says it takes the best parts of each frame to produce the best possible imagery. Google’s approach is to take a whole bunch of underexposed photos and combine them — so Apple isn’t doing the exact same thing, but it’s a very similar approach.