New iPhone XR - Photos in HEIC format - forum compatible - just a test?

[RadDave]

Earlier this week, I obtained a new iPhone XR (my first iPhone) and have been exploring its features while reading through a recent David Pogue book on the X models - I'm now exploring the camera (the features are amazing and mind-boggling!) - as a default, the phone uses the newer HEIC (or HEIF) photo format - now there are a number of settings that can be altered, as shown in the first image below - as an example, I took two images of my den, the first w/ the 'High Efficiency' setting, the second on 'Most Compatible' which used JPEG.

These iPhone pics were 'Air Dropped' to my MBPro and came in w/ their respective image formats - now I don't use any of the iCloud photo features which might make a 'most compatible' issue change? BUT, of the three forums (this one + iPad Forums + Good Music Guide) that I often upload images to (usually from the web or my DC, so not an issue). Thus, an open question that I'm sure others have been pondering - how to handle this newest image format - of course the easiest way for me would simply switch to 'Most Compatible' vs. doing some type of Preview and/or 'batch conversion' intermediary process (of course, until the 'forums' add the format). Thanks and any comments. Dave
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[Raz0rEdge]

Dave, I ran into this myself with my iPhone XS when I wanted to pass along some pictures from my phone to someone else. I was taking pictures in the HEIC format by default and that didn't matter for my consumption, but to send them along to someone else I just exported them as JPG using Preview and that worked fine.

The same process stands if you want to upload the pictures to a forum until people catch up to using HEIC as an acceptable image format.

 

[IWT]

Ashwin & Dave

Your combined experience appears to disprove an article from Macworld (2017) which currently not available although I have a PDF of it.

Quoting from it:

"Before you flip that switch, though, you should know that Apple has taken numerous steps to make sure all the photos and videos on Apple’s latest devices aren’t incompatible with the rest of the world. If you try to share a photo or video and your device can’t confirm that the recipient is capable of displaying it—which for quite a while will be almost everyone—the file you share will actually be a converted version in JPEG or H.264 format. It all happens transparently. If you didn’t know it was going on, you’d never suspect."

Things may have changed since 2017, of course, but I always understood that HEIF photos sent from your iPhone were automatically converted to JPEG. This seems to be incorrect. Which is a shame.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

Ian, I think the automatic conversion is controlled through a setting. Open Settings, then Photos and scroll to the bottom on your iPhone. There is a check option for "Transfer to Mac or PC" to set it to automatically be compatible or to keep the original format. Mine is Automatic. I've never had anybody complain about the format of transferred images.

 

[IWT]

Thanks Jake. That must be it then.

Ian

 

[Raz0rEdge]

I didn't know about the automatic conversion when I share from the phone, but I was Airdropping the images to my Mac and then attaching it in an email for example where I had the issue.

 

[MacInWin]

Ashwin, that is logical. Your airdrop was from the iPhone to a HEIC-compatible device, your Mac, so no conversion took place. When you emailed that HEIC to your friend, Mail doesn't do conversions, so the file was emailed as a HEIC.

iMazing has a HEIC converter, or you could do it with Preview.

 

[pm-r]

I didn't know about the automatic conversion when I share from the phone, but I was Airdropping the images to my Mac and then attaching it in an email for example where I had the issue.

It seems it depends... maybe...

Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices

When you share media using other methods, such as AirDrop, Messages, or email, it might be shared in a more compatible format, such as JPEG or H.264, depending on whether the receiving device supports the newer media format.

Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support
[Bold mine]



- Patrick
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[RadDave]

Thanks Guys for all of the great comments - as shown in one of my first pics, I had the 'Automatic' conversion setting set but all of my devices are recent enough to accept the image files as HEIF/HEIC - my initial problem was trying to upload this newer image format to a forum - in fact the three forums that I upload images are this one, iPad Forums, and the Good Music Guide - at this point NONE accept the high efficiency format (and I tried all), so conversion via whatever method (Preview does fine and there are other apps, of course) is necessary - I need to experiment some more, but hope that this format will be quickly adopted so there is no worry about these extra conversion steps. Dave