Why Apple mobiles rakes HEIC Photos

Traditionally IPhones have taken jpeg photos just like most other smartphones but starting with ios 11 the format switched to HEIC which caused some problems for iphone users

But apple did have a couple reasons for the change just consider one of the most annoying pop up messages IPhone users can receive saying you've ran out of icloud storage it's a problem that virtually everyone has after they've accumulated enough apps photos and videos

And the only solution is to delete those apps photos and videos or to buy more icloud storage space for a monthly fee

To prevent this problem apple focused on reducing the amount of space photos and videos took up since those tend to be user's largest categories on their icloud and iphone storage

But how can you significantly reduce the file size of photos and videos without reducing their quality

Surabhi Achar Destinies

Well that's where heic comes in it compresses images and videos much more efficiently leading to a photo taking up forty to fifty percent less space compared to its jpeg equivalent and without being able to tell a difference between the two visually in fact there are areas where heic outperforms jpeg like improved highlights shadow details and mid tones

There's also extended dynamic range and 16-bit color as opposed to jpeg's 8-bit color profile

So users can enjoy higher quality photos that take up half the space as before but there is one downside with HEIC and that is compatibility most pcs and android devices don't support it unless they're running the latest versions of their operating systems

It's still a relatively new file type so gaining support across platforms will take time until then iphone users may have trouble transferring images and videos to certain pcs or android devices

There have even been bugs in ios that prevent heic images from downloading and being viewed in imessage

So if you value convenience and compatibility more than saving space you can always revert back to using jpeg in your iphone's camera settings