[fleddr]

Yep, smartphone cameras are optically terrible, which is then compensated for with clever tricks. These tricks optimize for popular use cases: people, food, etc.

One aspect that is little discussed is the inflated quality perception of such a photo when seen on the actual device, an iPhone in this case.

iPhones have an incredible screen. OLED, wide gamut color, high PPI. A photo looks radically better on an iPhone compared to opening the same photo on a standard monitor.

[wyager]

Apple also uses non-standard HEIF tags to allow for HDR photo display of photos taken by Apple devices. Last time I checked, you couldn't (easily) take a photo from a dedicated camera (which has more than enough dynamic range to justify HDR) and turn it into a file that would get rendered as HDR on iPhone.