I am 100% on the side of the school. Unlike with JPEG, everybody who wants to work with HEIC should pay licence fees. Also, HEIC is like 50x more complex than JPEG.
I hope the world will never get to a point, where each phone brand stores photos in their own format, and you need a special software from the phone manufacturer to view the photos (that is what we have now with raw photography formats, and what we used to have in the past with phone chargers).
JPEG is like 50x more complex than PPM, but we eventually moved off that standard as well due to storage size and feature limitations. Plus, it's being adopted by both iPhone and Android--it's not like it's a proprietary format specific only to Apple.
Not to mention HEIF/HEIC images take up a fraction of the space of equivalent quality JPEGs, which is significant if you're a shutterbug who fills up their phone with photos.
Maybe we should have some standards with very simple formats that are "universal" and should be supported everywhere to solve this kind of problems, even if they are not ideal.
I understand the pros of complex formats, but then we end with things like browsers that are many million lines long. It might not seem too bad, but in my opinion that detracts not just from open source, but also making computing accessible, universal and usable for everyone.
There are many "smart" ways in creating JPGs. JPG compressors improved in recent years. If you have a HEIC image, it can usually be saved as JPG with the same quality, which is larger by only 10 - 15%. The term "fraction" is a complete nonsense.
Also, you can switch your camera settings in the iOS to save a JPG instead.
But no browsers do [1]. For an OS that does its best to hide file types & extensions from the user, it's absurd to not have robust file type conversions when moving/sharing files between apps.
Of course not. But if we are talking about replacing JPG, two things are necessary: a new format should not be restricted by patents and licence fees, and such movement has to be coordinated with all other "players" in the industry. Apple did not do any of it.
No? It’s an ISO standard that’s separate from H.265. Maybe you’re thinking of HEVC, which is like that. (Alternatively I’m wrong, which is totally possible)
I recall the shift from jpeg to png as a web default. Many sites would not accept one or the other. Eventually, png became more and more popular and "won." The same can happen with other formats, but it takes time. Any any site/org/company that deals with these uploads or displaying the images needs to be clear on what they can do and error out early when they can't do it. I recall "sorry, you tried to upload a png file, we only support jpeg" messages with links to details about the difference and how to convert them. And mime inspection worked back then too, so changing the extension was not good enough.
"Wants to work with" doesn't apply here. This is what the phone does by default, so it's not a conscious choice of the user. Also, if the college had written the `accepts` field on their form correctly it would have been converted to JPG automatically when they uploaded it.
I hope the world will never get to a point, where each phone brand stores photos in their own format, and you need a special software from the phone manufacturer to view the photos (that is what we have now with raw photography formats, and what we used to have in the past with phone chargers).