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Add HEIF support to Ubuntu Linux 18.04 (thumbnails / gimp) - preview and open HEIC files from iPhone directly in Ubuntu

Since Apple moved from JPEG to HEIF as default format about two years ago, there has been a lot of progress.

There is a very straightforward way to add minimal HEIC/HEIF support to Ubuntu:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:strukturag/libheif
sudo apt-get install heif-gdk-pixbuf heif-gimp-plugin heif-thumbnailer

That's it! You don't even need to logout or restart, the new functionality is available immediately.

More details here and here.

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Accessing iPhone (iOS 10.2.1) pictures from Ubuntu

Recent changes introduced with iOS 10 prevent you from mounting an iPhone on a regular Ubuntu installation.

The PPA by Martin Salbaba used to fix the issue, but it hasn't been updated in a while, and now when I connect my iPhone (running iOS 10.2.1) the pictures are no longer accessible, although the documents are still there.

This solution worked for me (Ubuntu 16.04):

- install libimobiledevice6 + dependencies from this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~martin-salbaba/+archive/ubuntu/ppa+libimobiledevice (follow the instructions there)

- install newer libimobiledevice version according to the "recipe" by A.B. here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/598940/libimobiledevice-1-2-ios-8-support-for-ubuntu-14-04-trusty

- install ifuse according to the same method:
cd ~/src/
git clone https://github.com/libimobiledevice/ifuse.git
cd ifuse/
sudo apt-get install libfuse2 libfuse-dev
./autogen.sh
make
sudo checkinstall

You can now mount your iPhone like this:
mkdir ~/mnt
ifuse ~/mnt
I assume the same procedure would work for an iPad too.
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