HEIF, the compression format that will save space on your iDevices with iOS 11

Last June was the date chosen by Apple to present your new operating systems: iOS 11 and mac OS High Sierra. There was great expectation since there were not many leaks about what would be the news of the respective operating systems. One of the main strengths was the compatibility of HEIF, un compression format that would save a lot of space on our devices.

With the latest updates, Apple had already included its own storage system: APFS (Apple File System) that allowed a space saving especially for devices with 64-bit processors. On this occasion, with the launch of iOS 11 we have verified that image and video files are halved in size after compressing in HEIF.

Small Storages Now Makes Sense, Apple: Introducing HEIF

We talk about HEIF as a compression format but in truth it is not so. These acronyms that refer to high efficiency image file format it is itself a kind of box where the original files are entered. That is, the place where photos and videos are stored, for example.

Officially this compression system is compatible with files Base ISO and other multimedia files such as text and audio, although they are not as small as images and videos. The objective of HEIF it is clear: achieve decrease file size without losing quality, the goal of a good compression system.

This system is capable of decode it by hardware all devices, but will not be able to store HEIF compressed content. Therefore, A10 Fusion and A11 Bionic processor only they can both read and encode. We are talking about that only the iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus and X can save space significantly with iOS 11.

We never knew the complete result of the inclusion of this system to iOS 11, but after its official launch we can roughly determine the final result: HEIF cuts photo and video files in half in each and every one of the ways in which we can capture images in iOS 11, as you can see in the table above these lines.

If we look at the table and analyze the spectrum of storage available in the iPhone and iPad ranges, we see how now a 64GB iPhone X makes sense as long as not many multimedia files are saved and iCloud is used.