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It’s amazing to me that so many are blaming Apple. Despite the fact that this site is all about new technology (so ironic!), uploading a photo from an iPhone is

It’s amazing to me that so many are blaming Apple. Despite the fact that this site is all about new technology (so ironic!), uploading a photo from an iPhone isn’t exactly an edge case. They should have tested this, and apparently they did enough to send a tweet about it.. as if that’s enough. Clearly the college board dropped the ball in adequately informing people of their not-great workaround, instead of either specifying the accepted types directly in the web page’s input tag (as many have pointed out, and thus would have just worked correctly in the background), or by accepting and converting HEIC files themselves. At minimum, they should have put their suggested settings changes into the webpage itself before you started, and/or given a practice website to make sure it worked correctly. College board owns this process, and it’s their job to make sure the setup works correctly for all students, including those who might not all be technically inclined.

lone_haxx0r 6y ago
Using HEIC apparently [1][2] requires a license and is patent encumbered[3], so I actually blame Apple for using a closed format by default. [1] https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/97036 https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/97036 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587923 [2] http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/833-HEIC-Yeah.html http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/833-HEI...
- azinman2 6y ago
  First of all, as many others have pointed out by specifying the accepted file formats in the <input> tag, they would avoid HEIC entirely as the phone would simply convert to one of the accepted formats. It's also not clear to me that this patent license is actually an issue in terms of decoding and converting file formats on the backend. Even if that were the case, I'm certain there is some commercial license software they could purchase to do that for them. This isn't an open-source endeavor, and they charge each student to take the exam.
  - lone_haxx0r 6y ago
    1. I think both parties are at fault The testing system for not using the <input> tag appropiately and Apple for using a closed, patent encumbered format as the default when most of their users don't know about software patents. > It's also not clear to me that this patent license is actually an issue in terms of decoding and converting file formats on the backend. It's reasonable to assume that it is. 2. Sure, the college could pay, but looking at the broader problem here, saying that colleges should accept closed formats would make it really hard for open source online testing systems to proliferate, and all colleges around the world would have to pay royalties to the HEIC patent holders. Even if they were to implement an open source decoder, unless you have plenty of lawyers, the legal uncertainty of the situation could be unacceptable to many individuals/institutions. 3. If the format was open in the first place, maybe we would have lots of open source decoders and maybe the library that the testing system developer used would have support for it, and would have transparently worked without the developer knowing about the format.
    - azinman2 6y ago
      1. I'm not going to argue about Apple's defaults here. It simply isn't germane when the college board has full control over the inputs and iPhones will make up a significant portion of test takers. 2. I think you don't understand what the College Board is. It's a single organization that administers test. This isn't something each university needs to deal with. They make and administer the test to all college-bound students in the US each year. 3. There are plenty of existing open source decoders, and all major open source graphics programs already accept the format (GraphicConverter, ImageMagick, GIMP), in addition to all the major OSes (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android).
      - lone_haxx0r 6y ago
        2. In the specific case of the College Board, yes. Keep in mind that maybe the license fee is based on number of institutions and every student would end up indirectly paying for the license. But also think about independent educational institutions (primary, secondary, higher, etc), think about all schools and colleges in other countries (we're all in a similar situation). All of them would have to find a way to license HEIC, just because Apple decided that they wanted HEIC as their default format. 3. I'd guess that companies that implement HEIC pay for their license. The legal situation of using open source programs to decode licensed and patent encumbered formats is uncertain to me, and I guess it is to most people, including software engineers and managers.
- tantalor 6y ago
  Here's a LGPL decoder: https://github.com/strukturag/libheif https://github.com/strukturag/libheif
  - Gaelan 6y ago
    Assuming GP is right about the patents, the College Board would open themselves up to patent suits by using that without a license.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      Maybe they should just pay the $5 fee...
  - pornel 6y ago
    Patents are separate from copyright, so even an independently developed freely licensed open-source software is illegal to use without a patent license from patent owners. https://www.hevcadvance.com/pdfnew/LicensorList.pdf https://www.hevcadvance.com/pdfnew/LicensorList.pdf
- trhway 6y ago
  >Using HEIC apparently [1][2] requires a license and is patent encumbered[3] College board could have added "iPhone HEIC license surcharge" for those users - that would have gotten Apple attention :)
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  So what formats do they accept when they want a video? Theora?
swiley 6y ago
Closed/liscenced crap != innovation. I don’t care which part of California it came out of.
danmg 6y ago
Why does Safari still not support webp then?
j45 6y ago
Compatibility with multiples browsers / platforms is usually the responsibility of the website/application. Historically Apple has implemented what they want to out of various standards, protocols, etc, it shouldn't be a surprise. Of course, it's not my preference when we're waiting for different operating systems or browsers to behave the same way, but that lack of compatibility has been going on for decades.
bdcravens 6y ago
Many places don't handle those files properly. For selling on eBay/Mercari/Poshmark, if I AirDrop from my iPhone to upload from my computer, they don't convert the file properly. (Typing descriptions etc is far easier from the computer than on a mobile app) I can setup an Apple Script to do conversions, but I've found uploading to Dropbox and pulling from the desktop version works better (Dropbox does the HEIC-JPG conversion) I believe the onus should be on the trillion dollar company that chose to use a non-standard file format.
kyle-rb 6y ago
> uploading a photo from an iPhone isn’t exactly an edge case From what I've heard in articles and other sources, uploading directly from the iPhone works fine. The issue is only when students try to upload an HEIF file from a computer, instead of directly from an iPhone, which requires: 1. The student has an iPhone, which they use to take a picture of their work. 2. The student chooses not to upload directly from their iPhone, and instead wants to use their computer (presumably they're already logged in there). 3. The student's computer is a Mac, and they choose to use AirDrop (or another method that doesn't do conversion) to transfer the file instead of email (or another method that does convert to JPG). 4. The student is using Chrome/Firefox or another browser that doesn't do automatic conversion to JPG. I would argue that this qualifies as an edge case. Presumably, CollegeBoard did their due diligence testing the basic single-device flows, but didn't cover multi-device flows, or just missed possibilities like AirDrop instead of email for transferring images. I agree that they should have done a better job informing students; there probably should be more info on the upload page itself.
- azinman2 6y ago
  If your premise was true, then they wouldn't be tweeting this: https://twitter.com/CollegeBoard/status/1263484343084867586/photo/1 https://twitter.com/CollegeBoard/status/1263484343084867586/... Clearly they knew this would be an issue, and could have done multiple mitigations to handle this, including just accepting HEIC files themselves.
- leadingthenet 6y ago
  That really doesn’t sound like much of an edge case to me. I’m willing to bet it’s a pretty typical workflow that people have if they own Apple devices.
  - consonaut 6y ago
    You would be surprised how many students use an iphone and a macbook but are unwilling to use safari (or icloud, photos) because of privacy concerns. If you stay in the "regular" apple workflow everything is fine: iphone camera -> icloud/photos (airdrop/photos) -> safari. If you deviate at certain points though the workflow breaks down. Whose fault is that?
consonaut 6y ago
This whole blame game is weird. Could the college board have handled this better or have a better upload mechanism? Sure. Could apple be more clear about the way they are storing and transferring photos? Sure, finder on my macbook actually does worse in handling .heic files than my windows 10 desktop unless I sync using photos. But if I got this right the upload page stated the accepted file formats, why should they accept anything else? Sure, there are workarounds to handle uploading .heic files and automatic conversion works in certain cases but why should they care? The onus is on the user to ensure his submission is correct. EDIT: I just tried .heic files on my Surface and had to install an MS store app to actually be able to open .heic files in full resolution. https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/p/heif-bilderweiterungen/9pmmsr1cgpwg?activetab=pivot:overviewtab https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/p/heif-bilderweiterungen/9pm... EDIT2: I guess for me it boils down to, why should we coddle the applicants? Being able to understand the conditions of a test is not an unreasonable hardship. From that I gathered the website stated the accepted file formats. The uploader source suggests it did refuse certain file formats. There are technical solutions for this/these problem(s) and of course it would be nice if every system would be perfect. But it would also be nice if people would just work within the given constraints of a system.
- josho 6y ago
  If I may restate your position: "If a student uploads an image in the wrong format then it is acceptable for their entire test to be invalid and they can retake the entire exam." Rather I think what is acceptable is HEIC is not accepted by the system, and if a student attempts to submit this format they receive an error saying that only JPG images are allowed.
  - consonaut 6y ago
    > If I may restate your position: "If a student uploads an image in the wrong format then it is acceptable for their entire test to be invalid and they can retake the entire exam." Yes, being able to understand the conditions should maybe be part of passing the test. Like I said, could the upload form have handled this better? Sure, although I have not read enough to understand if this was actually the upload form failing. The OP article claims "Spencer ... tried to convert it by renaming the HEIC file to PNG" which is not how you convert files. Maybe students learning that early on is not a bad thing?
wooptoo 6y ago
What an embarrassment. Just let the students upload whatever file, run it through imagemagick on the backend and convert to JPEG or PNG. If the output if garbage then shoot them an email.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

lone_haxx0r 6y ago

Using HEIC apparently [1][2] requires a license and is patent encumbered[3], so I actually blame Apple for using a closed format by default. [1] https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/97036 https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/97036 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587923 [2] http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/833-HEIC-Yeah.html http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/833-HEI...

azinman2 6y ago
First of all, as many others have pointed out by specifying the accepted file formats in the <input> tag, they would avoid HEIC entirely as the phone would simply convert to one of the accepted formats. It's also not clear to me that this patent license is actually an issue in terms of decoding and converting file formats on the backend. Even if that were the case, I'm certain there is some commercial license software they could purchase to do that for them. This isn't an open-source endeavor, and they charge each student to take the exam.
- lone_haxx0r 6y ago
  1. I think both parties are at fault The testing system for not using the <input> tag appropiately and Apple for using a closed, patent encumbered format as the default when most of their users don't know about software patents. > It's also not clear to me that this patent license is actually an issue in terms of decoding and converting file formats on the backend. It's reasonable to assume that it is. 2. Sure, the college could pay, but looking at the broader problem here, saying that colleges should accept closed formats would make it really hard for open source online testing systems to proliferate, and all colleges around the world would have to pay royalties to the HEIC patent holders. Even if they were to implement an open source decoder, unless you have plenty of lawyers, the legal uncertainty of the situation could be unacceptable to many individuals/institutions. 3. If the format was open in the first place, maybe we would have lots of open source decoders and maybe the library that the testing system developer used would have support for it, and would have transparently worked without the developer knowing about the format.
  - azinman2 6y ago
    1. I'm not going to argue about Apple's defaults here. It simply isn't germane when the college board has full control over the inputs and iPhones will make up a significant portion of test takers. 2. I think you don't understand what the College Board is. It's a single organization that administers test. This isn't something each university needs to deal with. They make and administer the test to all college-bound students in the US each year. 3. There are plenty of existing open source decoders, and all major open source graphics programs already accept the format (GraphicConverter, ImageMagick, GIMP), in addition to all the major OSes (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android).
    - lone_haxx0r 6y ago
      2. In the specific case of the College Board, yes. Keep in mind that maybe the license fee is based on number of institutions and every student would end up indirectly paying for the license. But also think about independent educational institutions (primary, secondary, higher, etc), think about all schools and colleges in other countries (we're all in a similar situation). All of them would have to find a way to license HEIC, just because Apple decided that they wanted HEIC as their default format. 3. I'd guess that companies that implement HEIC pay for their license. The legal situation of using open source programs to decode licensed and patent encumbered formats is uncertain to me, and I guess it is to most people, including software engineers and managers.
tantalor 6y ago
Here's a LGPL decoder: https://github.com/strukturag/libheif https://github.com/strukturag/libheif
- Gaelan 6y ago
  Assuming GP is right about the patents, the College Board would open themselves up to patent suits by using that without a license.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Maybe they should just pay the $5 fee...
- pornel 6y ago
  Patents are separate from copyright, so even an independently developed freely licensed open-source software is illegal to use without a patent license from patent owners. https://www.hevcadvance.com/pdfnew/LicensorList.pdf https://www.hevcadvance.com/pdfnew/LicensorList.pdf
trhway 6y ago
>Using HEIC apparently [1][2] requires a license and is patent encumbered[3] College board could have added "iPhone HEIC license surcharge" for those users - that would have gotten Apple attention :)
tinus_hn 6y ago
So what formats do they accept when they want a video? Theora?

swiley 6y ago

Closed/liscenced crap != innovation. I don’t care which part of California it came out of.

danmg 6y ago

Why does Safari still not support webp then?

j45 6y ago

Compatibility with multiples browsers / platforms is usually the responsibility of the website/application. Historically Apple has implemented what they want to out of various standards, protocols, etc, it shouldn't be a surprise. Of course, it's not my preference when we're waiting for different operating systems or browsers to behave the same way, but that lack of compatibility has been going on for decades.

bdcravens 6y ago

Many places don't handle those files properly. For selling on eBay/Mercari/Poshmark, if I AirDrop from my iPhone to upload from my computer, they don't convert the file properly. (Typing descriptions etc is far easier from the computer than on a mobile app) I can setup an Apple Script to do conversions, but I've found uploading to Dropbox and pulling from the desktop version works better (Dropbox does the HEIC-JPG conversion) I believe the onus should be on the trillion dollar company that chose to use a non-standard file format.

kyle-rb 6y ago

> uploading a photo from an iPhone isn’t exactly an edge case From what I've heard in articles and other sources, uploading directly from the iPhone works fine. The issue is only when students try to upload an HEIF file from a computer, instead of directly from an iPhone, which requires: 1. The student has an iPhone, which they use to take a picture of their work. 2. The student chooses not to upload directly from their iPhone, and instead wants to use their computer (presumably they're already logged in there). 3. The student's computer is a Mac, and they choose to use AirDrop (or another method that doesn't do conversion) to transfer the file instead of email (or another method that does convert to JPG). 4. The student is using Chrome/Firefox or another browser that doesn't do automatic conversion to JPG. I would argue that this qualifies as an edge case. Presumably, CollegeBoard did their due diligence testing the basic single-device flows, but didn't cover multi-device flows, or just missed possibilities like AirDrop instead of email for transferring images. I agree that they should have done a better job informing students; there probably should be more info on the upload page itself.

azinman2 6y ago
If your premise was true, then they wouldn't be tweeting this: https://twitter.com/CollegeBoard/status/1263484343084867586/photo/1 https://twitter.com/CollegeBoard/status/1263484343084867586/... Clearly they knew this would be an issue, and could have done multiple mitigations to handle this, including just accepting HEIC files themselves.
leadingthenet 6y ago
That really doesn’t sound like much of an edge case to me. I’m willing to bet it’s a pretty typical workflow that people have if they own Apple devices.
- consonaut 6y ago
  You would be surprised how many students use an iphone and a macbook but are unwilling to use safari (or icloud, photos) because of privacy concerns. If you stay in the "regular" apple workflow everything is fine: iphone camera -> icloud/photos (airdrop/photos) -> safari. If you deviate at certain points though the workflow breaks down. Whose fault is that?

consonaut 6y ago

This whole blame game is weird. Could the college board have handled this better or have a better upload mechanism? Sure. Could apple be more clear about the way they are storing and transferring photos? Sure, finder on my macbook actually does worse in handling .heic files than my windows 10 desktop unless I sync using photos. But if I got this right the upload page stated the accepted file formats, why should they accept anything else? Sure, there are workarounds to handle uploading .heic files and automatic conversion works in certain cases but why should they care? The onus is on the user to ensure his submission is correct. EDIT: I just tried .heic files on my Surface and had to install an MS store app to actually be able to open .heic files in full resolution. https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/p/heif-bilderweiterungen/9pmmsr1cgpwg?activetab=pivot:overviewtab https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/p/heif-bilderweiterungen/9pm... EDIT2: I guess for me it boils down to, why should we coddle the applicants? Being able to understand the conditions of a test is not an unreasonable hardship. From that I gathered the website stated the accepted file formats. The uploader source suggests it did refuse certain file formats. There are technical solutions for this/these problem(s) and of course it would be nice if every system would be perfect. But it would also be nice if people would just work within the given constraints of a system.

josho 6y ago
If I may restate your position: "If a student uploads an image in the wrong format then it is acceptable for their entire test to be invalid and they can retake the entire exam." Rather I think what is acceptable is HEIC is not accepted by the system, and if a student attempts to submit this format they receive an error saying that only JPG images are allowed.
- consonaut 6y ago
  > If I may restate your position: "If a student uploads an image in the wrong format then it is acceptable for their entire test to be invalid and they can retake the entire exam." Yes, being able to understand the conditions should maybe be part of passing the test. Like I said, could the upload form have handled this better? Sure, although I have not read enough to understand if this was actually the upload form failing. The OP article claims "Spencer ... tried to convert it by renaming the HEIC file to PNG" which is not how you convert files. Maybe students learning that early on is not a bad thing?

wooptoo 6y ago

What an embarrassment. Just let the students upload whatever file, run it through imagemagick on the backend and convert to JPEG or PNG. If the output if garbage then shoot them an email.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]