Hi @tanschutz thanks for weighing in! As one of the devs working on the Photos preview, I just wanted to quickly chime in here to hopefully clarify a few things.
Both of these issues are related to the server, not the Photos app (which is why they’re also present in the existing Plex clients).
HEIC—and some other formats like AVIF—aren’t currently supported by Plex Media Server. This issue is being tracked internally, and while I don’t have a timeline for it, it’s definitely an issue we’re aware of and would like to fix. Similar situation with the exif rotation data, though I suspect there’s some client-side work involved in addition to the server work for this one.
Now, as for this part:
Let me be completely unambiguous here and say we are NOT dropping photos support.
The rationale for splitting Music and Photos out from the main app was outlined in some detail here, but in short, our longer term strategy is to open up the possibility of new library types (think; Audiobooks, Ebooks, and more) via community-built agents and corresponding third-party apps via the server API, while allowing us to build dedicated, more focused user experiences for Photos and Music.
Quite the opposite; the Photos preview is built on the same codebase as the new Plex app. Sharing components and logic between our apps should allow us to build more Photos features, faster!
It will! The team (myself included) is currently all hands on deck with the main app at the moment, but thanks to the shared codebase, all of the work happening there will benefit Photos, too.
I know this represents a lot of change all at once, but personally speaking (as a heavy user of both Photos and Plexamp), I’m really excited about what’s coming!
