HEIF - The New JPEG! No more Storage Problem.

HEIF-The new IPhone standard. No More Storage Problem!

JPEG is an old image file format that has been around since the 80s, more than a quarter of a century ago. That’s a very long time in the technology world. One of the reasons why it’s still widely used today is simply because there’s nothing better to replace it. Yet.

JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, and it’s a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality.

The format was created to utilize the processing power of the computer available back then. And even though it has evolved to keep up with the pace of technology growth, JPEG has shown its age and can’t fit the needs of today’s users and fully utilize the current technological advances available....

Introducing HEVC and HEIF  two new camera formats that are included in iOS 11. In using the new camera formats, Apple estimates users will be able to save up to 50% on storage needs, without any loss in image quality. This becomes the perfect solution for users on lower capacity devices, that still want to take advantage of the iPhone’s great camera..
For the past few years, camera videos on iOS have been using h.264 video compression and camera photos have been regulated to JPG. As the camera improves every year, and storage capacity needs increase, and Apple pushed towards a solution with compression and quality in mind.

It should be noted that neither of these new camera formats were originally built by Apple. HEIF is a relatively new system with technical specifications having been finalized in 2015, and HEVC being around for about as long. Apple is adopting HEVC and HEIF to tap into their strengths on their own systems.
By bringing in these new camera formats, Apple can continue to improve photo and video quality, while needing nearly half of the storage. That means savings not only in photos and videos taken in the camera app, but bandwidth from live streaming services too.


Basically, you’ll save 50% on storage when taking photos and videos using the iOS 11 camera app.

If you’re currently running iOS 11 beta 1, you can verify this by switching between the High Efficiency and Most Compatible formats under iOS Settings → Camera → Formats. Under the High Efficiency format, images will be saved as HEIC and movies as an HEVC .mov file. Under Most Compatible, images will be saved as JPGs and movies as an h.264 .mov file .