When Apple releases iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra later this year, they will include two new image capture programs (HEVC & HEIF), as explained in this article (http://tidbits.com/e/17310#). Now, for the non-technical readers, or for those that don't care about such things, your eyes may glaze over a bit as you read the article. I can understand this, but these two new codecs are going to be quite helpful for you.

The article mentions that video streaming (think Netflix) comprises 70% of evening internet downloading, and is soon expected to reach 80%. Do you care? You bet! We just received a message from Cox Cable that our internet access will soon be limited to a download of one TB/month. Exceed that and we pay more money. I bet other internet providers will follow suit.

If these two codecs are used, you can store roughly twice as many pictures for the same quality and space as is presently the case. Think how your iPhone and iPad will appreciate that. Or get better video streaming at half the bandwidth usage. A big win for all of us.

Questions remain: will this be available for PCs as well as Macs? Don't know yet. Will your existing stash of pictures and videos be automatically converted to the new format? Don't know yet. Stay tuned -- there will be more info coming down the pike.

Jim Hamm