The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video.

Introduced in 2015, it was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and is defined as Part 12 within the MPEG-H media suite (ISO/IEC 23008-12).

While HEIC became the default for iPhones, it remains possible to revert the settings to allow photos to be recorded in the more recognizable JPEG format.

[8] On some systems, pictures stored in the HEIC format are converted automatically to the older JPEG format when they are sent outside of the system, although incompatibility has led to problems such as US Advanced Placement test takers failing due to their phones uploading unsupported HEIC images by default,[9] leading the College Board to request students change the settings to send only JPEG files.

The Multi-Image Application Format (MIAF) is a restricted subset of HEIF specified as part of MPEG-A.

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC, ITU-T H.265)[14] is an encoding format for graphic data, first standardized in 2013.

It is the primarily used and implied default codec for HEIF as specified in the normative Annex B to ISO/IEC 23008-12 HEVC Image File Format.

While not introduced formally in the standard, the acronym HEIC (High-Efficiency Image Codec) is used as a brand and in the MIME subtypes image/heic and image/heic-sequence.

HEVC image players are required to support rectangular cropping and rotation by one, two, and three quarter-turns.

The primary use case for the mandatory support for rotation by 90 degrees is for images where the camera orientation is incorrectly detected or inferred.

AV1 is a video encoding format that is intended to be royalty-free, developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia).

[20] The original JPEG standard is the most commonly used and widely supported lossy image coding format.

[52] HEIF itself is a container that may not be subject to additional royalty fees for commercial ISOBMFF licensees.