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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.

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.