With iOS 16 and macOS 13 Ventura, Apple will add support for the AVIF image format to its iPhones and Macs. Here’s why that’s good news.
With iOS 16, the iPhone will be full of novelty. We think in particular of the redesign of the lock screen or the arrival of the digital identity card in France. That’s not all, we discover thanks to Jen Simmonsthat AVIF support will also be there, even on macOS 13 Ventura.
What is AVIF? The new modern image format
You may have never heard of AVIF before this article. However, its support is already provided by the main web browsers such as Firefox and Chrome, but also competing systems such as Windows 11 and 10 or Android 12.
This new image format is intended as a more modern replacement for jpeg. It is based on the AV1 codec and allows support for HDR and transparency, while promising higher quality compression at equivalent weight. It is therefore a competitor to the HEIC format that Apple wants to push, but which is based on the paid H.265 codec. Like the AV1 codec, AVIF is free to use, without royalties.
By reading this, we understand better why Apple is discreet about the support of this codec. The firm is not going to change tack, HEIC will remain the default format for saving photos on the iPhone. It is only a question of being able to decode the AVIF images sent by its correspondents.
What about AV1 support?
At this point, Apple is only announcing support for AVIF on its devices, not AV1. Thus, it will be necessary to be satisfied with fixed or animated images and not with videos. The reason can probably be sought in the lack of hardware support for the AV1 codec on the latest Apple chips, even the Apple M2 chip. Decoding an AV1 video file would therefore be done in software, which would have a greater impact on the battery, whereas occasionally decoding an AVIF image should have a limited impact.
With the European Union’s eyes on the AV1 format concerned, it remains to be seen whether Apple will want to go further in supporting the codec on its next chips.
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