iPhone photos now upload, and upload errors say what went wrong

Fix

Week of July 15, 2026

Applicants adding photos to an advocate application hit two rough edges: iPhone photos in Apple’s HEIC format could be rejected before they ever left the browser, and when an upload did fail the message gave no hint as to why.

HEIC photos are accepted — the application form now takes photos in Apple’s HEIC/HEIF format, the default on every recent iPhone. They’re converted automatically, so they display everywhere just like a JPEG. Previously the form could turn them away as “not a PNG, JPG, WebP, or GIF” even though they were perfectly good photos.
Upload errors explain themselves — a photo that fails now says whether the connection dropped (“check your connection and try again”) or the site refused it, instead of a bare “Couldn’t upload.” Applicants know whether retrying will help.

No admin action required. Applicants who were stuck can now finish their application.