Media on Mac and iPhone

HunnieBunnie · Feb 1, 2020

A friend who knows nothing about Mac and iPhone wants to send me some media to play on my Apple devices and asked me what I use. I have no idea. I have never watched anything on my Mac unless it was through YouTube or through my super drive which I have no idea where that is at the moment.

What do Mac and iPhone have that plays media such as films? I know I have something called Quick Time Player on my Mac, but I forget exactly what it is. I read that many of you watch films on your iPhone, etc., so I presume Mac and iPhone have something that allows you to watch films. Maybe it has something to do with iTunes, or is that just for music?? Obviously, I am not the most tech savvy person.

Inquiring minds want to know! Thank you!

J. A. · Feb 2, 2020

Apple lists those files in the technical specifications for every iDevice. Here are those for the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus:

Audio Playback
Audio formats supported: AAC-LC, HE-AAC, HE-AAC v2, Protected AAC, MP3, Linear PCM, Apple Lossless, FLAC, Dolby Digital (AC-3), Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3), and Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+)

Video Playback
Video formats supported: HEVC, H.264, MPEG-4 Part 2, and Motion JPEGSupports Dolby Vision and HDR10 content
(from apple.com)

There‘s a list of formats compatible with macOS Catalina on this page:
About incompatible media in iMovie for macOS
Those were also compatible with earlier versions, so if you don‘t use Catalina, you should be able to play them on your Mac.

HunnieBunnie · Feb 2, 2020

Thanks, J.A.! I am using High Sierra 10.13.6 on my Mac. I have no idea what that means about the phone, sorry. To my eyes, that info is written in Cuneiform script!

Maybe it is just my age or the fact that I spent too much many years ago being forced to learn computer languages (my GAWD I hated studying business and computer classes period!), but I look at stuff like that ever since then and immediately recoil!

I guess I will tell him to just send it via email and see if either my mobile or my Mac can open them. He mentioned something about an HDMI cable(?) or something like that to connect my Mac to my telly, but I already know my telly does not support that sort of thing. Hopefully, my Mac will do because it is highly unlikely I will watch an entire programme on my mobile, and I seriously doubt the mobile would connect to the telly if the Mac is unable to do it.. The mobile's screen is just too tiny for me to enjoy watching a film on it.

ETA: My friend did some research and came up with this. Posting his message here in case anyone else can benefit from what he says below:

"I’m going to send you the files over the internet and you can play them with a media player on your computer. If you don’t have it get the VLC Player program, it’s brilliant for playing any type of files. Just download it here: Official Download of VLC media player for Mac OS X - VideoLAN and it will play anything you like on your computer, this is the Apple version.

QuickTime as far as I recall is an older player that may work but I’d steer clear of it. I just looked it up and it’s not supported any more so don’t do it. VLC is the one you need."