Ron and DReed,
I agree that there are many things that need to happen before HEIF (part of H.265, aka HEVC) can challenge JPEG. Some comments:
- Video is the main driving force, for reduced transmission bandwidth and storage requirements: I believe that HEVC is the chosen standard for coming 4K broadcast TV. (And for example, Apple is already using HEVC for Facetime video chat, to reduce bandwidth needs.)
- Hardware support is coming first, and is already well established: HEVC is supported in several recent generations of Intel chips for PCs, the SOCs that Apple (since the A9 as in the iPhone 6S from 2015) and Samsung (Exynos chips from as far back as 2014) use in their phones, and also in recent Samsung smart TVs for example.
- With newer computers and phones and some browsers (at least Safari!) offering better video quality and/or lower data consumption for video steaming, other browsers will be pushed to adopt it too.
- Initial usage might be for capture (to save storage space on phones) and transmission, even if then converted to older formats for display and sharing.
Perhaps the main question is to what extent this will spread from HEVC video to use of HEIF for still images, as an alternative/rival to JPEG.
Given the fondness for transferring photos to and from mobile devices, I expect that the advantages in speed and in-phone storage usage for a given image quality will push HEIF forward.
@DReed:
(1) it seems strange to be skeptical about a demand for higher than 8-bits, given the debates over 12 vs 14 vs 16 bit raw files and interest in HDR and exposure stacking! One use is as a capture recording format, for post-processing of images of high dynamic range down to a viewable final product. I also suspect that linear encoding (no gamma compression) is an option, but I have to read more. Losslessly compressed high bit-depth HEIF files might then compete with RAW files and DNG, with the advantages of hardware support, and more generally piggy-backing on resources provided for H.265 video.
(2) I mentioned in the OP, HEIF has a number of features (like stacks of images for HDR, panoramas, focus stacking or such in a single file, together with explanatory meta-data, and support for non-destructive editing) that none of TIFF, PNG, JPEG or the failed JPEG2000 offer.