With staggered release cycles, companies get a short-term upper-hand when they launch a phone against months-old hardware and software from the competition. Right now, the brand new iPhone XS is out — and we're still about a month away from the Google Pixel 3, so it's being compared to the nearly year-old Google Pixel 2 instead.

Normally, you'd think that'd put the iPhone XS way ahead — and in many ways, it is, because that's just how the tech industry works. But one place it seems Apple still hasn't caught up to Google's best tech from 2017 is the camera. With iPhone XS phones out in the wild now, a common refrain among reviewers and observers alike is that the Google Pixel 2 still takes consistently better-looking photos than Apple's new latest $1000 flagship.

Indeed, in the first handful of camera comparisons we've done with the two phones (a Pixel 2 XL and iPhone XS Max, in particular), the Pixel continues to flex its software-driven camera capabilities even as Apple touted its new "SmartHDR" camera processing on the latest iPhone. Most of us know the Pixel 2 takes deep, colorful photos with a really good feel for the proper exposure, and you can see in these side-by-side shots the area where it still shines against the iPhone XS' 12MP f/1.8 setup.