After the announcement of Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, the most disappointing thing we found was that Google now doesn’t offer free original quality photo backups on Google Photos as it did with its predecessors. Now it just offers unlimited high-quality photo backup on Google Photos that back up compressed form of photos. But soon it was discovered that iPhone users get unlimited original quality backups because iPhone use HEIC format for images.
Now Google has confirmed that it is a bug and it will soon restrict iPhone users from getting the unlimited original quality photo back.
Also read: How to Convert HEIC to JPG on Android
The primary reason for getting unlimited original quality backups on the iPhone is the use of an efficient HEIC format that is smaller than Google’s compressed JPEG. When uploaded, Google finds low image size of original photos of the iPhone than the compressed JPEG version of photos. So, it keeps the original quality of iPhone photos.
A Google spokesperson told Android Police, “We are aware of this bug and are working to fix it.”
It is still not clear if Google will start compressing HEIC images to JPEG or will stop backing up HEIC images. It could also charge iPhone users if they want to use HEIC images, but this option doesn’t make much sense.
We will have to wait a few days before Google comes up with a fix. For now, people who are looking to buy new Pixel 4 or Pixel 4 XL are disappointed and want Google to reconsider the decision.
