I wish MacRumors would stamp images with A & B or 1 & 2 and poll the crowd on which images look better... then "update" or post a followup article after 48-72 hours revealing which was Apple's vs. which is <others>. By putting the favorite company's name on images in articles like this, fans/anti-fans find things to favor/fault in those shots.
A poll as described would have people judging solely on quality of photos head-to-head and the delayed big reveal or followup article would give us an overall objective group opinion.
Yep, but the reality is the raw images before the phone software post-processes them, are probably much of a muchness, and what people are judging on is merely what each brand has set it's choices for saturation, brightness, etc. All of which the user can then change themselves.
Apple is clearly turning up the yellows, and Google is turning up the blues. Sometimes the result is that iPhone looks better, and sometimes Pixel looks better. Sometimes one looks an oversaturated mess, sometimes the other does. Sometimes one looks too bright, sometimes one looks too dull. It's so hit and miss.
Sure, ideally, most users just want the pics to look great without having to mess about with them, but it looks like both phones are guilty of getting too carried away with over processing them, hoping for the conditions to be right for an epic result.
My verdict: both are pretty decent, and more or less on par. Choose your phone based on something else.