There are more efficient formats like JPEG-XL, HEIF and WebP. If you convert the RAW -> JPEG -> WebP you are losing more quality. I think iPhone uses HEIF format.
Related https://lemm.ee/post/2052205
All 3 formats I mentioned are free to use and there are free and open source libraries to do the conversion.
Open source libraries doesn’t mean it’s free.
Firstly, even open source can have commercial licensing and can be free only for non-commercial use.
Secondly, the process of producing an image from the sensor isn’t a straight forward process, the compression and containerization is only one part. In order to get the final picture all sort of processing is needed, all needs to be tweaked and integrated to work together. dropping some rando library (even if compatible with the hardware) in the middle of that isn’t some plug and play affair.
Lastly, while a format or a standard is free to use, the algorithms and code can be subject to patents and additional licenses. In the case of HEIF, as I understand it, it’s just a container format. it is based HVEC, and that has a long list of patents behind it.
To quote this article
If there’s one major downside to both HEVC and HEIF, it’s that they’re covered by patents that may need to be licensed for use in various apps and services. While this was also the case for the h.264 codec, the HEVC codecs cost more. And per usual in the tech world, the needs served by HEVC and HEIF are also covered by other, competing standards, many of them freely available.
You are rigth about HEIF, but most electronic devices already pay for the license to encode/decode HEVC.
The camera sensor returns raw images, then there is post-processong and the last step is encoding. There are no technical limitations and it’s not hard to implement another image format. As other users commented, Google Pixel phones and some apps in Google Play already does. Btw I’m electronic + software engineer.
My conclusion is even if the new formats are better, JPEG is more compatible and good enough for most users. Some brands take care of power users and others don’t. I’m a bit disappointed with OnePlus camera software.
