Earlier this year, Samsung introduced the capability to capture Super HDR photos using the Galaxy S24 series. While this new format works on all high-end phones and tablets that come pre-installed with Android 14, it wasn’t compatible with Apple’s devices. That is changing now, as Apple has released compatibility with the ISO 21496-1 standard.
Apple’s iPad, iPhones, and Macs running newest software can display Super HDR images properly
Samsung’s Super HDR format is based on Google’s Ultra HDR format, which was introduced with Android 14. When a Super HDR image is captured, its dynamic range information is encoded as an extra piece of information in the standard JPEG image file format. Devices running Android 14 and having an app that understands Ultra HDR can encode that data properly to display it properly in HDR.
According to Android Authority’s report, with Android 15, Google is encoding gainmap data using both Ultra HDR v1 and the ISO 21496-1 standard. If you don’t know already, ISO 21496-1 is a standard that ensures that HDR gainmap data is encoded and decoded correctly on any platform (which is compatible with the ISO 21496-1 standard).
Recently, Apple added support for the ISO 21496-1 standard in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15. Moreover, apps like Messages, Photos, Preview, and Quick Look can now decode media files using the ISO 21496-1 standard.
So now that Apple and Google have both added support for the ISO 21496-1 standard, devices running the latest versions of Apple’s or Google’s operating systems and having the necessary hardware can display Super HDR images and videos properly. A Reddit user recently discovered that an Ultra HDR image captured using their Pixel device was correctly displayed on their MacBook Pro’s Liquid Retina XDR display.
On Android, Google Chrome and Google Photos already seem to support the ISO 21496-1 standard. They can display Super HDR/Ultra HDR images without any issues on devices running Android 15 and having an HDR-compatible display. When One UI 7.0 arrives, Super HDR images and videos captured using your Galaxy S24 will show up accurately on your friend’s new iPhone, iPad, or Mac and vice versa.
