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Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

(www.theverge.com)
669 points danso | 1 comments | 20 May 20 19:36 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bchociej ◴[21 May 20 18:22 UTC] No.23262612[source]▶
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save_ferris ◴[21 May 20 18:31 UTC] No.23262790[source]▶
So you build a service that doesn’t properly validate or gracefully handle invalid file types and it’s my fault as the end user when I try to upload something and the system fails?

If you build a service that can’t support one of the most commonly used platforms in the world, that’s on you the developer, not me the user. This is software engineering 101 right here, and was completely avoidable on the part of the developers.

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1. mywittyname ◴[21 May 20 19:12 UTC] No.23263499[source]▶
It does gracefully handle invalid formats. The problem that students did not follow the directions provided on how to take pictures in an appropriate format. Instead they tried their own hacks, such as changing the file extension.

Another user here claims their daughter was informed repeatedly before the test that HEIC was not supported and given instructions on how to change their phone settings to ensure comparability. This is confirmed in the article:

> though it does link to the College Board’s website, which instructs students with iPhones to change their camera settings so that photos save as JPEGs rather than HEICs.