Earlier today a Rapid Photo Downloader user emailed me with a question about the “live photos” feature on iOS. I much prefer discussing such questions in public, where everybody can read the response, than in private. So here is my reply:
Live photos are a feature in iOS. They allow you to do things like photograph somebody who has blinked, and then digitally manipulate the photo on the phone to include the shot them not blinking. They do this by associating a low resolution movie with the photo. The base file name of the movie and the photo are the same, e.g. IMG_0438, with only the extension differing e.g. .mov and .heic. The low resolution movie and the photograph are stored beside each other on the phone’s filesystem.
HEIC (file extension .heic) photos on iOS are Apple’s take on the HEIF or High-Efficiency Image File format. When you export a HEIC photo from iOS, it converts it to JPG for you. When you browse the filesystem on the phone or download from it, you only get the HEIC file. HEIC files are good in the sense of size efficiency and dynamic range, but compared to JPEG very poor in the sense of compatibility and adoption.
This has two implications for Rapid Photo Downloader:
- There should be an option (on by default) to give live photo movies and photos the same base filename, exactly like the program already does with RAW + JPG.
- An option to automatically convert HEIC to JPG and store the JPG alongside the HEIC image would be useful. The HEIC image would always be downloaded, and not digitally altered in any way.
Neither of these two options have been implemented in Rapid Photo Downloader. As an iPhone owner myself it’s something I personally would like to see. However the TODO list for the program is substantial. There are considerably more urgent tasks.