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Why Apple Uses JPEG XL in the iPhone 16 and What It Means for Your Photos
- makeitdouble 2y agoReading the whole piece a few days ago, it's a pretty good overview of the promises of JPEG XL. Apart from that, Apple's POV and PR bits being given such a central role felt a bit weird, especially as petapixel already spotted Samsung adopting JPEG XL months before Apple. Aside from the petty "who was first" bickering, it's a completely different move to adopt a common standard already accepted by rival companies on the android side, and it means we can really expect a larger adoption of JPEG XL than the other standards Apple just pitched on its own. That was the biggest beacon of hope IMHO, it would have benefited from more prominence.
- simondotau 2y agoAttaching any significance to being “first” on open standards is a game Apple rarely plays, but which others impose upon them because Apple’s adoption is (rightly or wrongly) seen as the most consequential and/or most newsworthy inflection point.
- makeitdouble 2y agoIn the specific case of JPEG XL I think Google support will be the real inflection point: no chrome and default android support is a deal breaker for wide audience content publishers. The ironic part being of course that Chrome used to support it way too early, but support was dropped as nobody followed. So yes, Apple support is a big deal, but not more consequential than the other actors of the pretty vast ecosystems.
- ksec 2y ago>The ironic part being of course that Chrome used to support it way too early Chrome never officially supported it and it was behind a flag for experimental role.
- ksec 2y agoIn terms of JPEG XL Lossless, Camera makers are already or has plan to adopt the format as RAW. In that space I think the adoption roadmap is quite good.
- alwillis 2y ago… especially as petapixel already spotted Samsung adopting JPEG XL months before Apple. JPEG XL was added to iOS 17 and macOS 14 last year [1]. [1]: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10122 https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10122
- macinjosh 2y agoThe article states that because the file sizes are smaller the format is more environmentally friendly because, they state, "All that stuff lives somewhere, and wherever it is, it requires energy to operate." Cold storage exists, as well as different tiers of storage. The hard drive on my shelf isn't using any energy. Are they storing all of their images in RAM? Maybe you could say this would lead to less use of storage space so less use of raw materials for storage devices. I would posit that it is possible this format is less environmentally friendly because it takes more compute cycles to produce the output from the compressed data, but I have no real insight into this just intuition.
- r00fus 2y agoOn the other hand, we have industry defined standards to compress TCP headers [1] - incurring a cost to compress/decompress but resulting in lower packet sizes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robust_Header_Compression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robust_Header_Compression
- threeseed 2y agoMost iPhone users would be storing photos in iCloud. And most professionals are storing their photos in Creative Cloud. And in both cases the photo data would be replicated on multiple hard drives for redundancy. So it would definitely be more environmentally friendly to have smaller photos. The more important reason is that cloud storage costs significantly more than local.
- k310 2y agoWhat is environmentally (OK, mentally) unfriendly to me is the creation of new formats that various apps, and notably, websites where I post images, can't handle, so I swear a bit, convert the image to jpeg or png, and post. People are part of the environment, too! But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. ... Thoreau.
- astrange 2y agoYou wouldn't like a website that accepted raw phone photos, because they're in HDR, and you'd get blinded by looking at them. Instagram already does this to me when I look at it at night, because it accepts HDR video.
- scosman 2y agoThank god they went with a standard this time. When they launched HEIC, there wasn’t a single workable open source decoder. Hell, there wasn’t even a single non-Apple decoder. XL color depth looks amazing.
- rgovostes 2y agoAn annoying oversight is that while my Fujifilm camera is modern enough to shoot HEIF+RAW, Apple Photos only knows to group JPEG+RAW as a single photo. Because Apple did not spend a day of engineering time bringing feature parity for the file format they themselves promoted, it has turned into a bigger feature to match and merge the HEIF and RAW assets after the fact. After several years, I'm growing doubtful they'll ever accomplish it. I have yet to see whether they did it right with JXL+RAW (or is it DNG+RAW?) but hopefully they will before it becomes available in mainstream cameras.
- lonjil 2y agoApple's ProRAW format is Linear DNG, that is to say, already debayered, not what most people would call "raw". Previously they've used Lossless JPEG for compression inside these DNG files, but now they use JXL. The DNG spec also allows for using JXL to compress proper raws, but I don't know if anyone is doing this yet. I know Samsung uses JXL compression in DNGs produced by their phones, but I haven't checked if those are proper raws or debayered.
- masklinn 2y agoThank god they went with a standard because when they went with a standard it wasn’t widespread? What?
- happyopossum 2y agoHEIC is a standard too - it wasn’t a secret internal Apple project…
- zenexer 2y agoIt 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.
- weiliddat 2y agoIs part of the reason patents / licensing issues with HEVC that makes it harder to adopt?
- b15h0p 2y agoTo increase adoption they should not have limited this to the latest iPhone models. Why on earth can a one year old iPhone 15’s CPU not handle encoding JXL? It can encode 4K video in real time, so this should be no problem at all, right?
- NinoScript 2y agoI’d guess hardware acceleration could have something to do with it
- JyrkiAlakuijala 2y agoI don't know, but my guesswork is that the DNG/ProRAW/JXL support comes with compatibility challenges. Limiting the size of the launch to well-informed photography prosumers and professionals will help to iron out the compatibility challenges — rather than make all confused consumers face these challenges at once. I don't think that hardware support plays a role here. The fastest encoding modes of JPEG XL are ridiculously fast on software, and Apple's CPUs seem powerful enough.
- Nanopolygon 2y agoIn lossy mode I think there is no difference between AVIF, HEIC or JXL. AVIF is even a little bit ahead. For lossless mode, JXL's fast modes (-e1 and -e2) are fast. But their compression ratio is terrible. The higher levels are not usable in a camera in terms of speed. Of course, my favorite and many people's favorite in this regard is HALIC (High Availability Lossless Image Compression). It is a speed/compression monster. The problem is that for now it is closed source and there is no Google or similar company behind it.
- lonjil 2y ago> In lossy mode I think there is no difference between AVIF, HEIC or JXL. AVIF is even a little bit ahead. AVIF is definitely not ahead for the high quality levels you'd use in photography. AVIF is ahead at lower quality levels. > For lossless mode, JXL's fast modes (-e1 and -e2) are fast. But their compression ratio is terrible. JXL lossless e1 is still a lot better than the lossless compression people tend to use for photos these days. Like Apple has been using Lossless JPEG, which sucks.
- sho 2y agoSome more recent developments around browser support: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mozilla-Interest-JPEG-XL-Rust https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mozilla-Interest-JPEG-XL-Rust
- MrAlex94 2y agoWeirdly enough, JPEG-XL support is actually fairly decent in Firefox already and there were patches developed by the community that work well for things such as color profiles, animation support etc. I’ve had them in Waterfox for a few years now - it was a purely “political” decision, if you want to call it that, to stop any more progress until recently.
- iforgotpassword 2y agoMan this back and forth is really frustrating. So Google killed XL a while ago already and I feel like either Microsoft or Mozilla at least considered following suit. After Apple has done heic for a while now I assumed it might go that way regarding a jpeg replacement, but now they did a 180 and switched to xl. I mean good, it's not as patent encumbered, but wtf am I supposed to expect for the future now? Will Google add XL back to chrome? I guess it will take another decade or five until we have a jpeg replacement that's being universally agreed upon, because come on, it would be too easy if we don't get another plot twist where a major player jumps onto something else again for a while.
- lonjil 2y ago> So Google killed XL a while ago already and I feel like either Microsoft or Mozilla at least considered following suit. There's been JXL stuff visible in Windows 11 preview builds for months now. They might roll out support next year.
- JyrkiAlakuijala 2y agoUse Jpegli for now. You can get half the benefits of JPEG XL with it.
- Washuu 2y agoFirefox Nightly is listed as supported on the jpegxl.info web site. My understanding is that it does not fully support the specification yet which is why it is not released to production. https://jpegxl.info/resources/supported-software.html https://jpegxl.info/resources/supported-software.html
- lencastre 2y agoCries in iPhone11Pro … also WTF!? Why not make QOK format and x266 available and exclusive to iPhone17
- TiredOfLife 2y agoFor one you can't use Chrome to view those photos. note: the format was co-developed by Google who also makes Chome.
- swiftcoder 2y agoIndeed, but Chrome removed support for the format some time ago.
- lonjil 2y agoI don't think you can use Chrome to view any raw image files...
- 0x69420 2y agoplease tell me this means chromium will un-drop jxl and we can just stick them on the web like png/jpg/gif
- modeless 2y ago> these .jxl files are wrapped in a DNG container, so you can’t just fire off .jxl files from the iPhone 16 Pro. Any move toward JPEG XL support is good, but this is lame. Even if the Chrome team comes to its senses and restores jxl support you won't be able to view these files.
- brigade 2y agoOf course it’s .dng; .jxl doesn’t carry the metadata needed to process a RAW image because it’s not intended for that.
- USiBqidmOOkAqRb 2y agoWhich metadata exactly? Is the actual concern that someone unaware might accidentally stumble on the unprocessed image?
- brigade 2y agoTo start with, without a linearization table, white and black levels, how exactly do you expect sensor data to be usefully interpreted?
- USiBqidmOOkAqRb 2y agoWell, I assumed Exif and embedded color profile would have been expressive enough for this. I do agree I'm a bit out of my depth when it comes to raw photo data but Exif seemed to have properties for everything, even counting the kitchen sinks in the image.
- appendix-rock 2y agoWhere did that come from? It feels like you’re working backwards from some bad feelings felt about Apple.
- illiac786 2y agoHmmm, is the jpeg xl data inside the dng not demosaicized?
- nesk_ 2y agoThat’s good news. I’ve watched a really good video in the last weeks about JPEG XL advantages, if you want to learn a bit more: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FlWjf8asI4Y https://youtube.com/watch?v=FlWjf8asI4Y
- hajhatten 2y agoWas just about to see if someone mentioned this video. Really good explanation comparing JPEG XL vs AVIF.
- trompetenaccoun 2y agoThis may be a naive question but can't we have the features of JPEG XL combined with the compression algorithm of AVIF? Why does it have to be one or the other? Size clearly matters, especially for the majority of the world's population who do not have access to super fast internet and TBs of storage. It's definitely a luxury not having to care about file sizes.
- pif 2y agoBuying Apple is a luxury in itself: don't expect them thinking about the non rich.
- account42 2y agoBecause there is no point, AVIF does not have inherently superior compression to JPEG XL.
- rasz 2y agoIt has hardware acceleration deployed on majority of user devices, thats something.
- lonjil 2y agoAVIF is worse than JXL both for high fidelity compression and for lossless compression, which is what Apple is using JXL for here.
- larrysalibra 2y agoHow does JPEG XL compare to Apple’s current default HEIC? Is HEIC eventually going away in favor of JPEG XL?
- lonjil 2y agoThey aren't switching from HEIC to JXL. Apple uses HEIC for regular photos, but they use DNG with Lossless JPEG for "ProRAW". They are switching the latter to use JXL inside DNG instead of L-JPEG.
- dgreensp 2y agoOk wow, that was not clear from the article. It also seems kind of confusing and unfortunate that Apple is using so many different image formats.
- praseodym 2y agoJPEG XL also supports re-encoding existing JPEG files to decrease file size while keeping the original file quality. That really seems like useful feature but so far I haven’t seen any tooling (in macOS) to re-encode my existing photo library.
- sureIy 2y agoIt would be safe to assume that Apple will eventually add a way to recompress your photo library to JXL… if they weren’t in the business of selling storage and cloud storage. They have in the past released tools to optimize storage so it wouldn’t be completely out of the ordinary, but… I wouldn’t hold my breath.
- appendix-rock 2y agoSigh. I’ll happily hold my breath. Apple has done plenty to reduce use of storage. They even give you free iCloud storage to back your phone up when transferring to a new device. A very clear attractive source of penny pinching that they’ve put effort into to leaving on the table. This is tiring.
- CorrectHorseBat 2y agoNot just the original file quality, it's exactly the same image but (losslessly) compressed better.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago> but so far I haven’t seen any tooling (in macOS) to re-encode my existing photo library On Linux you can re-encode every single .jpg to .jxl and they'll decode bit-for-bit, to the original .jpg. On Debian and derivatives it's the libjxl-tools: the cjxl executable converts to .jxl and the djxl decompresses. Works flawlessly. P.S: as a sidenote there's zero reason anymore to serve a .jpg file to a browser when the browser supports .jxl files. That's just a waste of bandwith. (and if your stack cannot serve different files depending on the users' browsers' capacities, it's not much of a stack)
- illiac786 2y ago
- mihaaly 2y agoYes, yes, but 48mP only, when will they finally have 240MP on a sensor that can be mounted on the ass of an ant. But double the protrusion 6 times I guess for the lens supporting the new tech and whatnot (tele-macro at night in a panoramic sport event!), it may even take picture for you without thinking taking a picture, you purchased a smartphone didn't you, let it be smart then, it will know better than you what you need, how you need it, and when you need it, all is necessary to fix it to your forehead so it can see what you see, tiny bitsy inconvenience beyond storing and managing the billboard sized but polaroid quality stream of pics vomited out by the device - never to see the most. This good photo = phone deception marketers pushed on idiotic customers who actually pay the premium for the marketing material is pathetic.
- cherioo 2y agoI don’t have iphone 16, and this article puzzles me. Is apple only using jxl for their “raw” camera capture, but not regular camera capture?? The non-raw use case seems to be the one that would have more impact to regular folks. Why? Is jxl inferior to HEIC?
- oktoberpaard 2y agoProRAW files are large, so there's more potential to save space, making ProRAW a more attractive feature to use for a wider audience.
- brigade 2y agoDNG spec added JPEG-XL as their modern codec. Both lossy and lossless modes are significantly better than the other 3 allowed codecs (JPEG, lossless JPEG, and zip.)
- 7e 2y agoI can’t wait for animated JPEG XL to replace animated GIF.
- edflsafoiewq 2y agoYou may be waiting a while. APNG and animated WebP are already widely rolled out, but haven't replaced GIF.
- account42 2y agoNeither of these are well supported at all. APNG has a whole history of non-support by major browsers and animated WebP doesn't even have its own mime type so you can't fall back to gif/apng if support is not there - and support for webp does not guarantee support for animated webp. Both are also decidedly mediocre improvements over gif (which is quite the accomplishment considering how shit gif compression is). Really, animated WebP has little reason to exist. At least the lossy version should really just be a video file with no audio track and a convention for the loop metadata. Too bad that browsers decided to create yet another format (with intentionally crippled compression compared to webm) rather than allow silent videos in <img> tags.
- edflsafoiewq 2y agoThey're both probably decades ahead of JXL. APNG has 96% browser support on caniuse after a surprise come-from-behind on Apple. The main reason for using GIF these days is you're on some platform where that's your only choice, so JXL is unlikely to change the status quo much.
- pornel 2y agoAnimated AVIF is widely supported, and can represent GIFs losslessly. BTW, Chrome vetoed the idea of supporting muted video files in `<img>` like Safari does, so we've got this silly animated AVIF that is a video format that has been turned into a still image format that has been turned back into a video format, which takes regular AV1 video data but packages it in a slightly different way, enough to break video tooling.
- thecosmicfrog 2y ago> Compared to a standard JPEG, a JPEG XL file is up to 55% smaller I still find JPEG "XL" to be such a bizarre name. I would intuitively think it would result in larger file sizes.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoAlthough it might seem confusing at first glance, having your selling point as "our file sizes are larger!" is so counterintuitive, that I think it's obviously not that!
- hootz 2y agoSometimes it can be like "our file sizes are larger, but look at this big list of cool features".
- Iulioh 2y agoBigger is better, it is known.
- 1000100_1000101 2y agoLets just call it JPEG 40 to avoid any confusion.
- bmicraft 2y agoThe XL probably relates to the fact that the relative savings increase with higher res pictures. Whereas original jpeg's file size might have scaled linearly, jxl could do better than that.
- illiac786 2y agoEven weirder, L stands for legacy.
- amy-petrik-214 2y agoJPEG XL is a great name from a marketing perspective. The Apple roadmap has several successor compressors with AI elements in the planning sheet - JPEG XL PLUS, JPEG XL MAX. These formats will have small nominal yearly licensing fees to use. Finally, the most advanced format will be JPEG XXXL which they are developing in collaboration with pornhub.
- astrange 2y agoIsn't it a little early to write this article? They haven't tried the implementation yet.
- dsego 2y ago> Compared to JPEG XL, HEIC — an implementation of HEIF — is just not good. I would've loved an explanation with this statement.
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- EasyMark 2y agoIsn’t Samsung generally ahead of apple on most technical fronts though? Especially on mobile, I think people usually just assume apple just spends more effort on refining it, which is not a bad rule of thumb, but certainly not always the truth.