I watched a video recently by a reviewer who had taken 1000 photos with both a Pixel 6 and iPhone 13 Pro. The difference was really quite striking, the Pixel 6 was much better at handling faces of different skin colours. This appears to be handled computationally, by detecting faces in the frame and then adjusting appropriately.

I don't doubt their claims, I was just wondering how relevant it is for most people.

The Pixel 6 slogan is For All You Are. The ads highlight lots of other features. What makes you think it's just about skin?

The selling point is it's better for darker skin. Not just diverse group photos.

I can not look at the english page for it anymore, because of Google's automatic forwarding rules. Maybe they changed the marketing by now? I'm pretty sure it was marketed for all skin colors, not just darker skin. And the talk about talking diverse photographs was the first "marketing section" after the tech specs. Yeah they also announced they have a "tensor processor" now. I don't think that was/is an actual selling point.

The slogan didn't change since the 1st ad.[1]

The Real Tone page says people of color several times.[2] And even saying all skin colors wouldn't mean they have to be in the same photo.

Are you claiming Pixel 6 ads don't explain any Tensor processor benefits? Or sell anything but the processor and camera?

[1] https://9to5google.com/2021/09/08/google-pixel-6-ad/

[2] https://store.google.com/intl/en/discover/realtone/

I didn't reger to the video ad, but to their web site. I'm saying their main selling point was (and is) that the camera does well with different skin tones.

It makes me think that biases were always committed to with profit in mind.

If profit results in a demographic no longer being underrepresented or an afterthought, I'm all for it.

Was it really an issue before, though? The article mentions that digital cameras were already better at taking photos of darker skin. I never noticed that photos of black people were of bad quality on the internet.

Better doesn't mean can't improve. And maybe Google and Africa's largest phone maker[1] know something you don't.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29224140

Presumably photographs got better all over the board, not just for black people. Technology simply got better over time.