Apple’s HEVC choice: Codec battle 2018?

What does Apple’s choice of HEVC (H.265) mean for developers, users, viewers and streamers? Jan Ozer writes that it will take a year a so to find out. His predictions include:

No major publishers implement HEVC/HLS support before 3-6 months after iOS 11/MacOS Sierra ship. This leaves the door open for a full codec analysis between AV1 and HEVC, including encode and decode requirements, hardware support, cost, IP risk, HDR support, software support, the whole nine yards. At least in the US and Europe, one of these codecs will be codec next.

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Marketing hype is global, codecs are local. Premium content distributors around the world will choose the best codec for their markets. In second and third world markets, iPhones play a very small role, and there will be plenty of low-cost Android phones, and perhaps even tablets and computers, without HEVC hardware support. In these environments, VP9/AV1 or another codec (PERSEUS?) might be best.