iPhone's HEIC Format Causing Some Students to Fail AP Exams, Here's How to Fix It

[needsomecoffee]

Know someone well whose kid just finished four AP exams (Chem, Calc, English, & USHistory). The Board had a test exam up before testing started, and the kid spent half a day optimizing her work flow with her phone because "...minutes mattered". Not blaming anyone, but there were opportunities to avoid this.

Now I am wondering what The Board did with the image files received that could not be interpreted. Did they just discard them? Rather than face the $500 million class action just filed (yep some parents take their kids' AP results VERY SERIOUSLY), perhaps The Board could get a license and read the files hopefully stored on their servers with timestamps rather than force a retest. But that might make too much sense.

BTW: same kid did her own research on the College Board's finances because after a while AP seems a bit of a scheme. Very interesting data there. tl;dr: Education is a big money bizness - apprx. $9 Billion / yr to administer tests & develop some lesson plans ???

 

[PR.]

Oddly on our iPads managed by Jamf Pro this camera setting is not visible. I've checked the configuration profiles and there doesn't seem to be any specific restriction about this.

Checking my personal iPad/iPhone the option is visible

 

[konqerror]

Oddly on our iPads managed by Jamf Pro this camera setting is not visible. I've checked the configuration profiles and there doesn't seem to be any specific restriction about this.

Are you checking on models with HEVC encoder hardware?

Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support

Upgrade to iOS 11 or later or macOS High Sierra or later to view, edit, or duplicate HEIF or HEVC media captured with an iPhone or iPad.

support.apple.com

 

[PR.]

It only works on models with HEVC encoder hardware

Using HEIF or HEVC media on Apple devices - Apple Support

Upgrade to iOS 11 or later or macOS High Sierra or later to view, edit, or duplicate HEIF or HEVC media captured with an iPhone or iPad.

support.apple.com

Aha, that's it, my work iPad is a 5th gen. Also explains why we've only started seeing an issue with this recently as 6th and 7th gen iPads have been rolling out.

Would be handy if there was an Apple restriction on this as our main issue is Windows 10 doesn't open HEIC by default, there's a plugin in the MS Store but it can't be centrally deployed to our school computers.

 

[Apple Freak]

It is BS that students are actually being issued a fail because of this.

 

[mannyvel]

It's strange that they never used HEIF-capable phones for testing. I mean, it's been there since iPhone 7 and iOS 11.

Did they tell their testers to "Turn off that HEIF stuff because it won't work" and forget to put that in the instructions?

 

[konqerror]

Would be handy if there was an Apple restriction on this as our main issue is Windows 10 doesn't open HEIC by default, there's a plugin in the MS Store but it can't be centrally deployed to our school computers.

It actually takes a bit of work to get the HEIC image out. When you share through e-mail or text, it's usually automtically converted back to JPEG. Similarly, apps have to tell the system they're fine with HEIC, or else iOS converts it down for them. Saving the files on iCloud or the Mac Photo app converts unless you go into the menus.

This is why nobody noticed this issue before in daily use; the compatibility logic works great until it doesn't.

 

[garylapointe]

Apple barely does any usability testing with actual customers before shipping out their products and software.

Apple has tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands) of people downloading their non-released BETA software and testing it.

Not that this has ANYTHING to do with this article.

 

[VictorTango777]

Reactions are much different when the bugs are in software other than Apple.

 

[dzankizakon]

It's weird that Apple is sending HEIC files when uploading photos via Safari, they should convert them to JPEG on the fly like they do in Mail.app and elsewhere. It's strange to expect websites to understand a photo format which existed only for a couple of years.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

What I don't get here, is that it was a written exam... That was meant to be uploaded online... And they were apparently doing it in handwriting? . Full sympathy with the students, it's something their school should've taken care of - but why on Earth are exams that are in the end digital anyway being conducted this way, rather than just having them write it on their computer in the first place?

They're allowed to upload a "text file" (txt, doc, docx, pdf, or odt) or an image of a handwritten essay.

They're not required to handwrite it.

I imagine a lot of people prefer handwriting it because it's easier to see what you've already written when you have a full size sheet of paper in front of you than trying to stare at the 3.5" screen of a budget phone. Assuming only people with budget phones would use the upload image option may explain why they didn't bother testing with nicer/newer phones that would have used this file format.

 

[eawmp1]

My HS senior just crushed the AP Physics exam...only to not be able to upload the pics of her work.

Yeah, she can resit for the exam in June, but with changed questions and concepts, as well as the crushing experience that was inability to upload...

As US teens overwhelmingly prefer the iPhone, this is a major screw up by the College Board.

 

[macsrcool1234]

So why is it a problem only now in 2020?

Have you stepped out from under a rock lately? The entire world is changed....

 

[konqerror]

It's weird that Apple is sending HEIC files when uploading photos via Safari, they should convert them to JPEG on the fly like they do in Mail.app and elsewhere. It's strange to expect websites to understand a photo format which existed only for a couple of years.

I think there's logic. When a website specifies that it wants a .jpg file, Safari autoconverts. It sounds like the College Board's site is accepting all filetypes, which Safari is interpreting to allow HEIC.

 

[macsrcool1234]

The instructions on the College Boards website look very clear to me - with images and step by step instructions on how to save as JPEG's. I am sorry, I am more worried about the quality of these students who couldn't even follow those instructions if they are sitting for "Advanced" placement tests to get into college.

You should be just as worried about your own inability to follow a timeline - the instructions were posted after the fact.

 

[macfacts]

Fool me once .... Why do people trust apple so much?

 

[APteacher]

Just for clarification, speaking as an AP teacher, I felt I needed to clarify the timeline presented here. While this article does read as if the instructions came after the exams, that is very much incorrect. College Board made it clear any images had to be either jpg or png back in April, weeks BEFORE any exams actually took place. They communicated this to students in numerous emails and posts on their website, to the point where it was kind of getting tiring of hearing them repeat the information. Teachers were also repeating it to students over and over and over again. The specific instructions about how to make sure iPhones provided jpg instead of HEIC came at LEAST a week before the exams began.

This is very, very much on the students, if they "didnt know". Now, there have been some issues with uploading (not related to file type), but that is completely separate from this. I sympathize with any students who were unable to upload through no fault of the own. But if they submitted HEIC? That's their fault.

 

[VictorTango777]

Fool me once .... Why do people trust apple so much?

If only those web developers worked at Apple. Then they could mess up and still receive sympathy and support from Apple users on this forum (Software is complex, They are doing the best the can, What about Windows, What about Android...)

 

[now i see it]

this example of FUBAR is as good as any to prepare the high schoolers for what awaits them in the real world.

But then again, bricked iPhones from botched iOS updates in the past probably gave them the heads up years ago

 

[Abazigal]

Just for clarification, speaking as an AP teacher, I felt I needed to clarify the timeline presented here. While this article does read as if the instructions came after the exams, that is very much incorrect. College Board made it clear any images had to be either jpg or png back in April, weeks BEFORE any exams actually took place. They communicated this to students in numerous emails and posts on their website, to the point where it was kind of getting tiring of hearing them repeat the information. Teachers were also repeating it to students over and over and over again. The specific instructions about how to make sure iPhones provided jpg instead of HEIC came at LEAST a week before the exams began.

This is very, very much on the students, if they "didnt know". Now, there have been some issues with uploading (not related to file type), but that is completely separate from this. I sympathize with any students who were unable to upload through no fault of the own. But if they submitted HEIC? That's their fault.

So you all never thought to allow the students to have a dry run to practice uploading the photos and iron out any kinks in the system?

Sounds like a shirk-fest through and through. As the institute carrying out the exam, the onus is on your organisation to ensure the students are able to upload their solutions and the fact that so many were unsuccessful shows that despite the school’s best efforts to reach out to them, they failed, not Apple.

As a teacher myself, my heart goes out to the students who have to retake the exam. The college has failed its students.

 

[EricOSU]

I’m sorry this is on the board; they have the uploaded files; they didn’t have specific instructions regarding jpeg for this round so to fail an entire group of kids and not say look we have the original files we will work with say Apple to convert these for our graders, your test scores will be delayed is a joke. They should then say moving forward here are the instructions and if they are not followed you fail. But again it’s easier to collect an additional round of money from kids for the testing then except blame and eat some costs.

 

[Jimmy James]

It's probably on Office 365 and would you believe that Microsoft software won't even show the correct orientation of a photo based on tags? Try it with Outlook and you will see photo's 90° or 180° because they think that the image should be converted after the fact to one orientation rather than getting the best quality off the original, possibly compressed, version and using the tagging information to show the orientation.

Microsoft has made it cheap for folks to transition their outdated internal systems to similarly limited cloud systems and I'm guessing it's probably something like this.

And don't get me started on Microsoft Teams :/

Now I know why.

 

[MacCheetah3]

i cannot understand how this problem was not identified earlier before the software went live.
Any software devs here that could explain?

It seems like an obvious thing...get an iphone, what lots of people in the US use, and try it before it goes live.
There are only two platforms after all...

This \/ \/

Why didn't the app do a type-check to make sure the images being uploaded are of an acceptable format?

Exactly. Input validation is in the early stages of software development 101 and there are multiple ways to accomplish input validation. Even though it's best to check both pre- and post-submit, it's usually more efficient to do it prior, using something such as JavaScript. A quickly searched example -- though, I'd trigger the check onChange. After POST (i.e. submission) validation is done via PHP, (MVC) C#, etc functions.

In my dev courses, always assume input can be untrustworthy was frequently reinforced. Guide the user as much as possible and always validate in some way.

And before someone jumps on it... Yes, this page was probably rapidly developed, although, again, validation is a foundation of software design.

It is BS that students are actually being issued a fail because of this.

Y-e-a-h... It's not as if a student altered the image after submission. If the developer didn't completely botch the page, the file should still have been uploaded, but maybe not processed by an automated system. Therefore, those who fumbled should be taking the extra time and effort to make up for their mistake (i.e., convert the files and process them manually).

 

[827538]

The sooner we go to AV1 AVIF and OPUS the better. Everything else should be killed off.

 

[KrispE00]

Some things like equations, chemical structures, and Chinese/Japanese are difficult to write on the computer. In the latter case, the IMEs used to write the languages on a Latin keyboard basically help you cheat.

Additionally, they evaluate answers based on intermediate/work steps, it will take forever to solve math problems solely by typing it in.

This is correct. Specifically for stats and calc AP tests, you can receive points for showing your work even if the final answer is wrong. And a correct final answer without showing your work doesn’t earn full credit.

But really this whole thing is ridiculous. people need to be scanning these as pdf. There are plenty of free apps.