[zenexer]

It might be a standard, but for a long time the licensing costs were exorbitant, and that likely stifled adoption. While licensing costs have come down, the pushback against HEIC’s pricing led to the development of better, royalty-free alternatives—including JPEG XL. Thank god they went with an unencumbered standard this time.

[gambiting]

Windows showing you a popup saying you need to buy a £0.79 windows add on to just open photos taken with an iPhone was always unbelievable. Like some kind of malware or something.

[npteljes]

Haha, that's rich. I have never seen this popup (haven't had the use case), was it this one?

https://helpdeskgeek.com/wp-content/pictures/2020/10/02-HEVC...

[gambiting]

Yep, that's the one.

[throwaway17_17]

In what context was thisnprompt appearing. I can not think of a time I have ever struggled to be able to open a photo from my iPhone in any of the apps I commonly use. Is this a Windows application issue or an OS issue, and how were the photos coming to your machine?

Just to clarify, this is an honest question not sarcasm.

[swiftcoder]

If you directly download the HEIC photos to your windows PC.

The iPhone tends to convert to jpeg whenever you email/whatsapp/etc a photo, so it's only direct file import that nets the original HEIC file.

[gambiting]

Exactly, I'd upload a bunch of photos to Google Drive to download to my PC, Google Drive could open them fine, but the default windows photo viewer app would demand payment to open them.

[astrange]

Well, Windows wouldn't display the HDR part of the image, so you're still not exactly seeing it.