The Verge:

Ever since the iPhone XS came out, there’s been criticism of its front camera — specifically, that it overly smooths skin. This, of course, was dubbed “Beautygate” in reference to Samsung-style beautification filters, which Apple has always insisted it doesn’t use.

Whatever the case, it was definitely there, but now it’s going away: during our iPhone XR review, Apple told me that iOS 12.1 will fix a bug in its smart HDR camera system that resulted in smoother-looking photos taken by the front camera on the iPhone XS and XR.

Essentially, Smart HDR was choosing the wrong base frame for HDR processing when you took a selfie.

Most of the blame for this issue centered on Apple doing something intentional or because of overly aggressive noise reduction. Turns out, it was just a bug.