HEIC
Apple's efficient photo format your computer loves to hate.
Where it came from
HEIC is the still-image sibling of HEVC (H.265) video, standardized in 2015 by MPEG. Apple made it the default iPhone camera format in iOS 11 (2017) — halving photo sizes overnight and creating a decade-long support headache for everyone else.
How it works
A HEIC file is an ISOBMFF container (same family as MP4) holding HEVC-coded image data, possibly multiple images (Live Photos, bursts) and depth maps.
Compression is dramatically better than JPEG — similar quality at roughly half the size — but decoding requires HEVC patents, which is why OS support lagged: Windows needs extensions, older software simply fails.
UWC decodes HEIC via libheif WASM and hands pixels to sharp — your iPhone photos become PNG/JPEG/WebP without installing anything.
Convert HEIC photos
Drop iPhone photos into the studio — HEIC decoding runs server-side, nothing is stored.