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0 pointslatexr4mo ago0 comments

> or stick to your walled-garden-padded-room reality where somebody else gives you a video file that works.

That’s not always a possibility. See for example:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/20/21262302/ap-test-fail-iph...

Those people didn’t need or want Photoshop or a complicated program with tons of options to convert image formats form anything to anything. Even a simpler app like Preview implies knowing where to look for the conversion part and which format to pick. They could have done instead with a simple window which said “Drop File Here”, and if it’s an HEIC, convert to JPEG. Could even have an option to delete the original, but that’s bout it.

There’s an Alfred workflow which is basically that. It does have some configuration, but the defaults are sensible and doesn’t let you screw up the important part of “detect this format which is causing me trouble and produce a format which will work”

https://alfred.app/workflows/alfredapp/heic-to-jpeg/

0 comments

f33d51734mo ago

> That’s not always a possibility.

The solution in such cases can't reasonably be "everybody around the world learns to download one particular tool to fix things". In your example, the two reasonable solutions are either apple figures out how not to send image files to people that they can't understand, or the college board figures out how to convert heic into jpeg themselves. Otherwise, as in that case, most people will simply be left in a lurch.

latexrOP4mo ago

No, of course not. The point is that in the meantime (the problem was eventually solved) such a tool bridges the gap.

f33d51734mo ago

The people with the know how to use such a tool are more likely to use a swiss army knife tool than a specialized one off tool. The article mentions someone using windows photo viewer to do the conversion.

jcelerier4mo ago

> They could have done instead with a simple window which said “Drop File Here”, and if it’s an HEIC, convert to JPEG

But then you have to remember the names of 200 distinct software that all do this one thing, so you make a meta-software to manage and organize them, and you're back to square one only with more indirection

fn-mote4mo ago

LLM's exist now.

Google could do this years ago.

It might be a problem that you have to search for the solution to every time you have it, but you'll find the solution quickly because many other people also experience the problem.

jcelerier4mo ago

> It might be a problem that you have to search for the solution to every time you have it,

as you say, it is a problem, and for many people an unacceptable tradeoff

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointslatexr4mo ago0 comments

> or stick to your walled-garden-padded-room reality where somebody else gives you a video file that works.

That’s not always a possibility. See for example:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/20/21262302/ap-test-fail-iph...

https://alfred.app/workflows/alfredapp/heic-to-jpeg/

0 comments

f33d51734mo ago

> That’s not always a possibility.

latexrOP4mo ago

No, of course not. The point is that in the meantime (the problem was eventually solved) such a tool bridges the gap.

f33d51734mo ago

jcelerier4mo ago

> They could have done instead with a simple window which said “Drop File Here”, and if it’s an HEIC, convert to JPEG

fn-mote4mo ago

LLM's exist now.

Google could do this years ago.

It might be a problem that you have to search for the solution to every time you have it, but you'll find the solution quickly because many other people also experience the problem.

jcelerier4mo ago

> It might be a problem that you have to search for the solution to every time you have it,

as you say, it is a problem, and for many people an unacceptable tradeoff

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse