APPLE High Efficiency vs. Most Compatible Confusion

I recently upgraded my 4 year old iPhone XR to an iPhone 14Pro with my son-in-law's help. T-Mobile had a great replacement offer that I just couldn't refuse, never mind the fact that they made an even better offer later. Sigh...

Whatever the case, I suddenly noticed that the photo sizes with the iPhone 14Pro was a lot smaller than what I used to get with my iPhone XR. What the heck! And if I blew up the 14Pro photo, it wasn't super clear. I was expecting gangbusters with the 14Pro because of all the hype about the camera abilities.

And then I remembered being surprised that Art's iPhone12 photos that he sends me comes out as a JPEG whereas mine always shows as a JPG. What's the difference? I had to look it up. I saw on the keycdn website that there's actually no difference. Reeeallly?

Annnnyway...

The point is Art's newer iPhone 12 was giving me smaller photo sizes than my older XR. 

Why?

And now... why was my iPhone 14Pro also giving me smaller photo sizes? 

So what did I do?

Yup. Looked online for the answer.

It's turns out that it's in the camera settings and lots of websites talk about this. 

I found this answer on the ZDNET website:

"The reason for this is actually very simple: HEIF (also known as High-Efficiency Image Files) is Apple's secretive image format that's optimized for its proprietary products and nothing else. 

By default, your iPhone or iPad's camera setting has the "High Efficiency" option toggled on. That means that with family gatherings and holiday parties on the horizon, issues with image sharing are bound to happen. To prevent such problems, and so that grandma can get all her photos and videos in peace, here's how to change the default camera format on your iPhone (or iPad) from HEIF to the all-inclusive JPEG."  

Apparently the factory setting for the camera is set on High Efficiency so that it will take less space on your iPhone. However, your pictures won't have that extra great clarity because it's a smaller file. You won't notice it unless you're picky.

I'm picky. And I do try to clean up my photo file. 

Soooo... if you're picky like me, this is how you can change your settings.

First go to Settings and click on Camera. Then go to Formats at the top and then check Most Compatible.

And about that PROPRIETARY thing with Apple (They are the ones who went to the lightning plugger thing, right?) it's always irritated my techie son-in-law.

I texted my daughter asking what kind of phone he carries and she texted back...

Samsung Galaxy X22. 😏

POSTSCRIPT 1:

Hmmm... So now I was wondering HOW MUCH of a difference they made. I changed the settings back and forth and then I decided to take a photo with both formats of the same photo at almost the same time and blow them up. This is what I found.

It's not a HUGE difference unless you want to blow something up to see the details more.

It depends on how picky you are.

POSTSCRIPT 2:

OK... Art just came in and said I need to go closer to see the difference. 🙄