Auto HDR?

I probably will leave it off since I have a 5s and the camera is plenty good. I have not downloaded 7.1 yet, but HDR usually has a pretty big effect on shutter speed, which would explain your blurry pictures.

Prior to the 5s I had the nexus 5 and HDR was a must b.c the camera was pretty poor. I think it really depends on which iphone you are using. If you have a 5 or 5s it may be "overkill." Granted, I am by no means any kind of photographer that is just the way I feel about it.

 

Personally, I like to keep it ON.

What's REALLY annoying with iOS 7.x is that you set it as the setting you want, but when you go back into Camera, it reverts to the default (which is now AUTO) when I want it to stay ON. Meaning one has to manually reset it each and every time you open the Camera. . . a n n o y i n g!


Anyway, in the Settings app, you can make it keep the original. "Blurry" is not a feature, it just means that time the camera was not still enough when you shot the pic, so fast moving may not look as good. But if you make it keep the original non-HDR image, you can always check them and just delete the version of the two you don't want.
I find it really depends on what you're shooting for which of the two (original or HDR) is the better, hence why I keep both, and decide later which to manually delete.

 

It does stay as what you set it now. It didn't do that before 7.1 though.

I personally will keep it on Auto HDR. Mainly because I like to keep my stuff automatic. I like the option of having HDR, but don't always know when it's best to take advantage of it, so I will leave mine on auto. Second, it's a mild annoyance because it does get blurry sometimes if you don't hold it very still, however I can see by the spinning wheel on the capture button when it is taking a picture in HDR (because it has to take 2 pictures for 1 HDR shot), so I can always tell when it's using HDR even on automatic, and therefore I know to keep it steady.

I'll upload a couple pictures I just took in my room. It is night time, and the lighting is only coming from a single lamp about 3 feet to the left of the bottle.

The 1st picture is with HDR on, and the second with HDR off. I like the HDR photo, personally. On auto the camera does not take it in HDR for this particular situation though.

EDIT: After looking at the pictures post-upload I see that the 2nd one (non-HDR) is slightly blurry. Sorry about that. You should still be able to tell the difference based on the tone

 

Nope. As the time difference between the two image samplings is much-much lower than with traditional shoots using the mechanical shutter. This is why you'll encounter little artifacts. Even many shots of moving subjects can turn out to be virtually artifact-free.

An example of such an artifact:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/9368690108/in/set-72157634791582799

This shot was made on the iPhone 5. The 5s, I think, samples significantly faster the sensor even in HDR mode; therefore, the occassional HDR artifacts will be even less apparent in the 5s shots.