Bookmark this HEIC to JPEG converter if you're upgrading to iOS 11 tomorrow

Instead, go to Settings, Photos, and ensure Mac/PC transfer is set to Automatic rather than Keep Originals. Then when you import the files are converted but those that stay on the phone or up to date devices, like a Mac on High Sierra, get the better quality files. As it’s automatic I wouldn’t want to stop the camera shooting video in H.265 etc when doing 4K 60fps.
I sold my 7 Plus on iOS 11 and 620GB iCloud Photo Library, everything captured there is viewable on my iPhone 5s I’m currently using (on iOS 11) it’s all handled pretty well for older devices.

@Ross the Fidller, even though I don't use MacOS and don't even like it that much, I strongly disagree. In this case Apple is doing the right thing and I can only applaud them form that.

JPEG is old and inefficient. Anything below compression level 8 looks like junk and everything above takes up too much space. From what I have seen, HEIC looks way better while taking up less space.

Is Apple abandoning JPEG is what it takes to finally move forward, it is only a good thing and it's definitely not "another reason to stay away from Macs".

I must say though, I was happy to give up a flappy mirror in my camera but there are many diehards that just won't & how old is that technology?

@RossThefiddler: (LOVE Fiddle music) No, another reason to stay away from you! 😉 What do I know, I only have 25 years experience as an IT professional and 35 as a photographer! Did you ever notice some people don't know that they're not experts?

It's not like she's actually doing conversion!! It's the same Share button she would use otherwise. Have you ever used an iPhone/iPad?

Are you don't know what you're talking about or trying to make it as if it's hard.

Maybe your wife can explain it to you. It seems she's the smart one in family LOL

Photouniverse, please try to read and understand, and try to calm down. It is none of your business who is smart or not.
The new update is still not here, is it?
Until now, she could share all photos with me and family automatically in cloud, she did not have to share or convert anything. I am just asking how this flow is going to change.

Again one of these containers for a multiple formats inside, causing more problems than solutions.

A standard should always be open, royalty free, simple and easy to implement and take in use so everyone takes it in use and will support it fully.

Like PDF itself is fancy standard, but only Adobe is really the one who is implementing it fully.

Microsoft "OOXML" is such a mess that only Microsoft is capable to implement it fully.

There is so many things that just even largest companies in the world can't do well, so why to even bother to play with these new things?

Astrotripper: "Either way, you will not be able to fully utilize it without a proper license. Same as video stuff."

Here comes the FUD machine, LOL.

When you buy a 4K TV it plays your 4K content. How? Because the TV manufacturer licensed the dozens of technologies needed to make a TV work; licenses for signal transmission, remote and direct control systems, Dolby surround sound, video decoding, connection ports, etc, etc.

It's not just TVs either, its the same for the phones you buy, your fridges, computers, coffee machines, cars, medicines, even your foods and of course...

our cameras:

Sensor? Licences
Battery? Licences
Display? Licences
SD/CF storage? Licences
USB port? Licences
HDMI port? Licences
H.264 video? Licences

That last one is funny. In 2010 the internet was awash with claims that H.264 would kill consumer video due to patents and licensing.....

When I was a child my big brother used to pretend to be a ghost to scare me.

The internet reminds me of my childhood.

"Here comes the FUD machine, LOL."

May I suggest that you take people's concerns seriously instead of trying to ridicule them?

One significant problem with H.264 is that the products being sold only pass on licensing grants for certain kinds of use. Someone then read the small print and realised that if the use of their own content was "commercial", the cartel could demand licensing fees.

This didn't "kill consumer video" because the cartel has an interest in the technology remaining available, so they need the risk of being pursued to remain small, and thus they will only go after lucrative targets, not random cat video sharers on YouTube.

You seem to be impressed by "licensing" but efforts to develop unencumbered media formats have arisen precisely because deploying things like H.264 have become problematic: even the cartel cannot guarantee that some other company won't start asking for money out of the blue.

People have very good reasons to demand genuinely free formats.

@Najinsky

Well, you may choose to remain ignorant, but a quick look into a manual of most consumer digital cameras reveals something like this (quote from Sony A7 and A7R manual, CAPS courtesy of Sony):

THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO
(i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD (“AVC VIDEO”)
AND/OR
(ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO.

NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE.

Read the last sentence very carefully.

You do not have a license to use those cameras for commercial purposes when it comes to video recording.

Now, you may choose to ignore this, like literally everyone does. But that does not change the facts from the legal perspective.

My question to MPEG LA re HEVC/HEIF:

"In sharing my videos and photos to blogs and various websites, there is a possibility that some of these photos or videos may at some time acquire some commercial value, either through monetized blogging, licenses or royalties for their use and reproduction.
...
Please could you send me the appropriate license packet, if needed."

The reply:

"Thank you for contacting MPEG LA. We appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.

For your background, included in the royalty paid by Apple for their HEVC Products is the right for their customers to encode/decode HEVC video content. In that case, your use of Apple's HEVC Product described below would be covered under Apple's HEVC royalty paid to MPEG LA.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact me directly."

Seems very clear cut to me. Can the attempts at scaremongering stop now maybe?

What does Apple's small print actually say? We know what Sony's says. Also, this covers "your use" (if you believe the random MPEG LA staffer) but what if you license your content to other people? Does it cover them?

This is not scaremongering at all. A lot of people have had to deal with the issues of encumbered formats and decide whether or not there is a liability in providing software that deals with them. Or even just using them, as occurred in the case of Unisys and the GIF patents.

Various software distributions have avoided providing MPEG-related software altogether. I imagine that the advice of their lawyers is worth a lot more than what random Internet people think might happen if they go ahead and include it. Those distributions actually consider the rights of their users beyond "personal use" and all the other licensing caveats.

And by the way, the quote came from Forbes: "MPEG-LA Shows Need to Rebuild IP Foundations". So I am far from alone in noticing the problem.

Here's an excerpt from Apple themselves, regarding AVC license:

THE AVC FUNCTIONALITY IN THE iOS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED HEREIN ONLY FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ...

http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iOS11.pdf

It is the same for all MPEG-4 enabled consumer devices.

More importantly, people thinking this is going to be the next JPEG are wrong for a simple reason. Web browsers will not support it.

Try reading the article and understanding the tech before commenting...

@Suntan - Eric's point is largely valid. This isn't about backwards compatibility (and if it were, then this new format holds up pretty well as the camera exports JPEGS when requested) but about something new, which by definition, is currently non-standard.

"Do you suggest using JPG forever?"

In practice, we will be using JPEG forever because there is already a lot of content that no-one will bother to convert to something else. Such content is effectively archived content.

And it is essential for archiving purposes that formats are genuinely open so that decades from now society still has a widely- and readily-available means of decoding that content.

Even supposedly "mass market" things like PhotoCD have been cumbersome to deal with because of restrictions around the format, meaning that (thankfully) the only time I needed to get pictures stored in that format, it was a pain to obtain the appropriate tools.

The more restrictions put in place, technical or legal, the greater the danger that we will lose creative works. The world doesn't need another Fractal Image Format: another proprietary blast from the past.

Not sure using the 3.5mm jack argument helps what you're trying to say.

I have been using iPhone 7 and there is no issues at all.

Wireless is the future. Your fave phone manufacturer will do the same in 1-2 years.

Is using a dongle really better? More convenient?

Is coverting all jpg to HEIC, then converting them back to jpg before sending out better? More productive/convenient? I don't own an iphone & don't think I will want an iphone ever, that's just me.

Really? I still only use MP3.

There's an option in the Settings app to save photos as JPEG instead of HEIC if you prefer.

HEIF is an industry-standard (ISO/IEC CD 23008-12) since a couple of years already. Read more about the key features on this Nokia web site:
http://nokiatech.github.io/heif/technical.html.

"I hate how Apple forces some things on you"

I hate how people don't know what they're talking about!

You want all that? How about if every camera manufacturer would just implement a TAR and just package all the files to single container?

TAR isn't a compression like ZIP, RAR etc.
TAR is very simple file standard to contain any file to single one, you can place any file in it without any compression (when supporting the random access) or then just output it through different compressions if wanted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Image_File_Format

It's based on the video compression standard HEVC from the MPEG group, also known as H.265 or MPEG-H Part 2. Samsung adopted it for their NX1 camera, DJI are using it for their drone video, and Nokia are involved in various was too.

Decoding is built into most recent 4K smart TVs from Sony, Samsung, LG etc.

It's just a much superior format, so Apple have decided to adopt it.

The standard allows for the file to contain a collection of related images, for example, a copy of the raw and a copy of the processed image, or a sequence from a focus stack that can be used to refocus the image interactively, or a very large panorama and hi res images tiles that map into the panorama so you can just keep zooming in and zooming in and keep seeing finer and finer details.

And much more.

With storage so cheap is this really a problem? Presumably the internet will continue to be jpeggish- or will every image online need to be converted...

Also this "industry standard" does have patent costs, which will go to....

3.5 mm jack ports? How quaint!

Single utility ports have gradually been replaced with more versatile universal ports for decades.

Parallel for printers, gone.
Serial for modems, gone.
SCSI for hard drives, gone.
DIN for keyboards, gone.
PS/2 for keyboard/mice, gone.
DVI/VGA/S-Video, going, going, gone.

If you look carefully you'll spot a trend. Some people see it early, others like to wait and see. And for sure you'll have your laggards who'll never get it and the only way you'll get their RJ11 cable from them is to pry it out of their cold dead hand.

But most get it, eventually.

You should have heard how people complained when Apple dropped the floppy disk, but today, not so much.

And those bloggers calling Apple dumb for dropping the DVD, well their clicks stopped, so now they fill their space with reviews of how the latest Asus XYZ is so much better than the MacBook/Air.

Truth be told, without Apple to hate on, they'd be bored stupid, or out of a job.

That all depends on the licensing fee charged by Apple. Most other companies will be reluctant to use the new format if they have to pay a fee to integrate it into their hardware/software.

I think HEIC is like JPG and GIF and BMP and TIFF... Just another file format.

You are right that Heif could give better quality but apple doesn't support that. They have explicitly stated that the A10X doesn't support 10bit encoding and 10bit encoding for stills and video is only supported by mac os.

My only issue here is that Apple will compress when saving as a HEIF, and the re-compress when converting to a JPEG. I'm not sure it's going to be a huge issue with a smart phone photo, but I'd prefer one compression to two.

No, only new photos to start with.

But any old photos you edit will generate the edited copies in the new format and you'll get the space saving benefit from that (iOS never changes your originals so edited images are stored as a 2nd copy and the original is hidden unless you choose to revert to the original).

Many options will likely spring up very quickly to convert, but no doubt the wording will be very scary as it will essentially be creating a new version and then deleting the old one. That 'deleting the old one' part will no doubt turn into billions of varieties of disinformation, lol.