u/passani

Guys, I suspect I found a real issue. I was testing some code that reads EXIF data from photos for a utility, and kept getting a confusing result from an iPhone. Took me a while to work out it wasn't my code. Same phone, same session, iPhone 16 Pro on iOS 18.7.8.

If the user taps "Take Photo" and shoots it there inside the browser, the website receives nothing. No GPS, no timestamp, not even the camera model.

If you choose a photo from your library instead, everything is there, starting with date and precise coordinates.

So it is Safari doing it, not the camera. It is tracked as WebKit bug 207088 and the behavior has changed over the years: everything stripped up to iOS 16.4, EXIF kept from 16.4.1 but location still removed, and from iOS 17 there is an option to include location. On macOS Safari it never happened at all.

Heads-up: if you ever check a photo with one of those online EXIF viewers and it tells you "no data found", that may only be true of the copy Safari handed over. The original still sitting in your camera roll can have everything in it. If you want the real answer, pick the photo from your library, not from the camera.

I tried a couple of the popular online EXIF viewers and neither explains this. They tell you your camera had no location permission, or to turn on geotagging. As a result, the user will walk away thinking the photo is clean, which might cause troubles. WDYT?

EDIT: to be clear, I think Safari stripping it is a good thing. My concern is only that it makes EXIF checkers report "no data found", which sounds like your photo is clean when the original on your phone still isn't.

I'm writing a series of educational posts on how programmatic works (no product pitch, just explaining the ecosystem). I put together this diagram of global ad spend to help readers understand the relative scale of open web programmatic vs. walled gardens.
Data is directional (compiled from GroupM, WARC, and ANA). China domestic excluded. MFA figure from ANA/Jounce research.

A few specific questions for anyone who works with this data:

Does the ~$55B estimate for open web programmatic (Prebid/OpenRTB) feel roughly right, or is there a more authoritative source?
Is ByteDance's ~$28B placement as a walled garden correct given that TikTok inventory is partially available via open auction?
Any obvious categories or players I'm missing?

I'm not looking for perfect precision. I think orders of magnitude are fine. But I want to avoid anything egregiously wrong before publishing.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes a look.

Heads up: on iOS, taking a photo inside Safari strips its EXIF while picking the same photo from your library doesn't

Ad spend breakdown diagram for a blog series (would love feedback)