Edit: Also one day before the iPhone event on September 12. The purpose was clearly to create a situation under which they could have the iPhone win.
Otherwise the two photos just look very differently processed / post-processed. It wouldn't be hard to Photoshop the iPhone shot to look more like the Pixel shot. The reverse would be maybe harder, but the Pixel probably has some setting that would crank down the contrast.
Don't get me wrong, the pixel is good, but i would say that's definitely an extra 10% leap at least even if i do think it's a bit warm color temp wise(and that's adjustable!)
Wide angle is not something that is better or worse.
I think both the Pixel and iPhone Plus take some of the best mobile camera photos out there. The Pixel is much, much better at low light. However, the iPhone reproduces colors in a more realistic way. Most Pixel photos usually seem to have a harsher color tone, brighter/whiter, very cool like LEDs. The iPhone seems to favor a more warm color temperature, which I think generally produces worse low light photos, but more accurate color reproduction.
As for color, that is somewhat up for debate. I would say that the color of her lipstick in the iPhone looks unrealistic and she's probably not nearly as tan as the iPhone makes her look.
Pixel: https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Pixels-IM...
iPhone 8: https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ip8Plus-I...
That's not even close. Wider angle. Better range of contrast. Better sharpness of details. Hard to say which is truer to the colors without being there, but the colors look better on the Pixel.
---------- Edit: By their own ratings, the Pixel phone beats the iPhone on every metric scored:
Pixel v. iPhone 8+
90 - 89 :Exposure & Contrast
85 - 78 :Color
93 - 74 :Autofocus
93 - 64 :Texture
89 - 68 :Noise
84 - 73 :Artifacts
88 - 84 :Flash
--------
89 - 96 :Final Score
How does the iPhone receive an overall rating substantially higher than its highest individual rating?