Notably, any photograph captured on an iPhone is inherently formatted as HEIC unless manually altered.

Apples early adoption of this technology underscores its commitment to optimizing user experience on its devices.

The equivalent format for videos is HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding).

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Valeriy Odintsov

What are the advantages of HEIC?

HEIC, with its superior performance, offers several advantages over traditional formats such as JPEG.

In addition to improving image quality, HEIC provides advanced features.

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This feature proves valuable for tasks such as image superimposition and compositing, expanding creative possibilities.

Another advantage of HEIC is its comprehensive support for various image metadata.

It does an excellent job storing complex details such as camera model, aperture, exposure, and location.

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Existing photos will not be converted automatically.

They will remain in the format they were originally captured.

The following steps can be followed for those inclined to enable seamless HEIC file access on a Windows computer.

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Now you’re free to open any HEIC image on your Windows PC.

Why did Apple switch to HEIC?

Apple switched to the High-Efficiency Image Format (HEIC/HEIF) primarily because of its advantages and technological advances.

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Adopting HEIC as the default image format on Apple devices started with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra.

And thats a big deal when a major company adopts a new format.

Apple is the kind of company that can afford to introduce a new format into its ecosystem.

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It became famous when support for this format in browsers was included.

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