While Apple is surely using its clout to push things in that direction, the industry hasn’t embraced it yet. That means, in addition to a still photo, a HEIF file could also be an animated GIF, HDR photo, burst, Live Photo, short video, etc., as well as the depth-sensing data for augmented reality. As CNET’s Stephen Shankland best puts it, it’s a container for different types of files. Lastly, HEIF is more than just a new file format. HEIF, if it picks up steam, will live side by side with JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and all the other formats in existence. Let’s not forget that JPEG has been around more than two decades. Google Photos, it seems, is supporting the format in some fashion, based on a recent test we did. However, compatibility might not be an issue since Apple software developers have had some time to build support for HEIF into their apps - if developers join the bandwagon, naturally. Also, older JPEG files you have on your phone will remain in that format, even after you upgrade to iOS 11. That means you’ll still need JPEG for editing and sharing with incompatible apps. In the camera settings, users can choose between High Efficiency and Most Compatible, the latter being JPEG (iOS 11 will also convert an HEIF file to JPEG when it’s required, but not all hardware and software can read an HEIF file natively). Because HEIF is still new, it’s not universally supported, even if Apple is using it. The company announced support for HEIF at WWDC 2017, but it remains to be seen whether Apple will promote it publicly or keep it as behind-the-scenes tech. It’s simply because Apple is using it, and that carries a lot of weight for any emerging technology.

Apple’s adoption of HEIF is one way to deal with increasing file sizes without sacrificing image quality or needing to dedicate significant storage. But JPEG file sizes are getting larger, thanks to constant improvements in camera tech and new features, like new sensors with more megapixels, which affects storage capacity as well as bandwidth limitations. JPEG has been the universal standard since it was created in 1992, and is used by nearly everything that involves digital photography. It achieves this by comparing all the data of an image and only saving the areas that are different, instead of every piece of information (it’s more technical than that). HEIF, according to Apple, maintains the image quality of JPEG but at up to half the size, or offers better quality at the same size. It’s a technology for maintaining some quality while keeping file sizes small compared to a lossless technology like TIFF, which employs little to no compression but file sizes are very large. Like JPEG, HEIF is a standard for lossy digital image compression.

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