iPhone 16 Pro Supports JPEG-XL Format

The iPhone 16 Pro models will support the JPEG-XL file format, according to code found in iOS 18. Compared to JPEG, JPEG-XL has improved compression for smaller file sizes.

iphone 16 pro capture button
Apple did not mention JPEG-XL support during today's event, but this feature was rumored ahead of the iPhone 16 launch. It appears that the Pro models will support capturing images in JPEG-XL.

Compared to the HEIC format that Apple introduced several years ago, JPEG-XL supports both lossy and lossless compression. HEIC is a lossy format, and while it retains better quality than JPG images, pros will likely prefer JPEG-XL for zero image degradation. HEIC has never gained wide support, which has hindered its usefulness.

HEIC will still be available alongside JPEG, JPEG-XL, and other formats.

Related Roundup: iPhone 16 Pro

Popular Stories

iPhone SE 4 Thumb 1

'New' iPhone SE Product Listing Appears on French Website

Wednesday February 12, 2025 6:49 am PST by
As the wait continues for Apple's long-rumored, fourth-generation iPhone SE, French electronics retailer Boulanger has prematurely published a product listing for a "new" model of the iPhone SE. The placeholder page says the device is "coming soon," but it offers no further information, and the price shown is obviously not real. The listing was spotted by a reader of the French technology...
apple launch feb 2025 alt

What to Expect From the 'Apple Launch' Next Week

Thursday February 13, 2025 11:48 am PST by
Apple has yet to announce any new devices this year, but that could change starting next week. Apple CEO Tim Cook today said to "get ready" for a "launch" on Wednesday, February 19. "Get ready to meet the newest member of the family," said Cook, in a social media post. The post includes an #AppleLaunch hashtag, along with a short video featuring an animated Apple logo inside of a circle....
apple launch feb 2025

Tim Cook Teases an 'Apple Launch' Next Wednesday

Thursday February 13, 2025 8:07 am PST by
In a social media post today, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased an upcoming "launch" of some kind scheduled for Wednesday, February 19. "Get ready to meet the newest member of the family," he said, with an #AppleLaunch hashtag. The post includes a short video with an animated Apple logo inside a circle. Cook did not provide an exact time for the launch, or share any other specific details, so...
iPhone 17 Pro Render Front Page Tech

iPhone 17 Pro With All-New Camera Bar Design Allegedly Revealed

Thursday February 13, 2025 5:49 pm PST by
Apple's next-generation iPhone 17 Pro will feature three rear cameras arranged in a familiar triangular layout, but the cameras will be housed in an all-new rectangular camera bar with rounded corners, according to YouTube channel Front Page Tech. iPhone 17 Pro camera design render created by Asher for Front Page Tech In a video uploaded today, Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser said the camera ...
M4 Mac mini Apple Video

Apple's Refurbished Mac Mini Pricing Has a Problem

Thursday February 13, 2025 6:20 am PST by
Apple this week began selling refurbished Mac mini models with the M4 chip for the first time, but this has led to a pricing conundrum. In the United States, Apple is offering a refurbished Mac mini with the base M4 chip, 256GB of storage, 16GB of RAM, and Gigabit Ethernet for $509, down from $599 new. This is the standard 15% discount that Apple offers on refurbished Macs. The issue is...
M4 mini Glowing Blue

Apple Begins Selling Refurbished M4 Macs

Wednesday February 12, 2025 11:35 am PST by
Apple today added MacBook Pro and Mac mini models with M4 series chips to its certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland for the first time since the computers were introduced in October 2024. Some refurbished MacBook Pro models with M4 chips are also available in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and select other European countries. ...
Apple Ad on X

Apple Resumes Advertising on X

Wednesday February 12, 2025 2:18 pm PST by
Apple this month started advertising on X for the first time in more than a year. The company had stopped advertising on the social media platform in November 2023 following controversial remarks made by its owner Elon Musk. For example, the @Apple account is running an ad promoting Safari's privacy features. The ad was spotted by MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. The @AppleTV account has a...
iPhone 16 Apple Store

iPhone 17 in New Sizes This Year: What to Know

Thursday February 13, 2025 2:45 am PST by
Last year, Apple tweaked iPhone 16 Pro screen sizes to make them bigger than 2023's iPhone 15 Pro models, and this year we are also expecting a change in the size of the displays in the iPhone 17 lineup. Here's what we know. Standard iPhone 17 Apple could introduce a new display size for the standard iPhone 17 model in 2025. The iPhone 17 could measure in at 6.3 inches, up from 6.1 inches,...
iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Coming Next Week With These New Features for Your iPhone

Friday February 14, 2025 6:18 am PST by
The first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner, and the update is expected to include many new features and changes. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects the iOS 18.4 beta to be released by next week. Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far. Apple Intelligence for Siri Siri is expected to get several enhancements powered by Apple Intelligence on iOS...

Top Rated Comments

Jamie0003 Avatar
23 weeks ago
Why does supporting a file format require a new phone?
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JPack Avatar
23 weeks ago

Why does supporting a file format require a new phone?
Same reason why 80% Limit required a new phone. $.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
maruyama Avatar
23 weeks ago

Why does supporting a file format require a new phone?
It does seem kind of silly, but it might actually be more hardware-related than it would appear at first glance.

HEIC encoding and decoding have almost certainly been hardware-accelerated on the A-series chips ever since Apple adopted the format. I wouldn't be surprised if the encoding part is even baked into the ISP stack at this point. HEIC is a lot more computationally intensive than classic JPEG, so it's both a speed and battery advantage to do that in hardware rather than in software.

Switching to JPEG-XL, which is presumably similar in terms of computation requirements, would then mean Apple needs a hardware-accelerated pipeline for encoding images in that file format, thus tying it to the A18 SoCs.

The alternative would be switching all iPhones on iOS 18 to encoding JPEG-XL on the CPU rather than HEIC on the ISP, and I think the firestorm of criticism for making the camera slower and more battery-intensive on all existing iPhones is something they definitely wanted to avoid. JPEG-gate!
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rotvaldi Avatar
23 weeks ago
JPEG XL is a royalty-free raster-graphics file format, it could be easily added on iOS 18 and support all phones, applying only on iPhone 16 is a catch.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kiranmk2 Avatar
23 weeks ago

I work customer service and the amount of people who send in HEIC files for compensation claims yet don't know or understand what HEIC is or how it was enabled in the first place is astounding. We regularly have to decline them if they're too tech illiterate to send JPGs.

It's the iTunes Connect of file formats. The world was fine with JPG and RAW.
Sounds like you're not exactly providing a good customer service then if you aren't catering to your customers' needs...
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
robgendreau Avatar
23 weeks ago
This article claims it's "very likely" iPhones other than the next generation will get JPEG-XL in the iOS 18 upgrade: https://www.cultofmac.com/news/jpeg-xl-iphone-new-photo-format-explained

One can export to the format from the Lightroom Mobile app in iOS as well.

Great for display HDR; does gain maps. https://gregbenzphotography.com/hdr-photos/jpg-hdr-gain-maps-in-adobe-camera-raw/

I'm glad Apple is getting into it. Safari was one of the first browsers to support it IIRC. HDR looks great on the Apple devices that have higher nits, esp MBPs, etc.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)