Why iPhone Photos Use HEIC — and How Developers Can Handle It Gracefully

#webdev #javascript #tutorial #frontend

When Apple switched to HEIC back in iOS 11, most developers didn't think much about it—until users started uploading photos that browsers couldn’t read.

HEIC is great:

Better compression

Higher quality

Supports transparency and multiple frames

But it creates real issues for web apps:

won’t load HEIC in most browsers
Canvas cannot render it
Backend needs libheif or ImageMagick

The simplest client-side solution

WASM decoders work, but they’re heavy.
Backend conversion works, but costs CPU.

For non-technical users, the most practical workflow is simply converting HEIC to PNG before upload.
A clean online option many people rely on is:
👉 https://heictopng.net

PNG ensures compatibility everywhere, especially on web platforms where HEIC support is still inconsistent.