This format occupies less storage space but provides higher photo quality than JPG. HEIC, short for High Efficiency Image Container, is Apple's new photo format with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra in 2017. Q1: What is a HEIC file, and why does my iPhone take HEICs photos instead of JPG? If you already know the answers to these questions or have no interest in them, you can directly navigate to the next part to learn how to change HEIC files to JPG on your computer. Before digging into the solutions to open and view HEIC files on your computer, let's start this guide with a couple of questions about HEIC to JPG, which can help you better understand the solutions presented below.