Image upload from iphone strips exif data

Question

I've built a website which allows image uploading and once an image is uploaded , some specific information about the photo is displayed. Uploading pictures from computers works just fine , the problem comes up when I'm trying to upload an image from a smartphone. The upload success but it seems like a major part of the data that is displayed when uploading from computer is now missing.

This code section is the one that actually retrieves and display the data :

$location = $_FILES["pic"]["tmp_name"];
$data = exif_read_data($location);
var_dump($data);

the var_dump($data) actually dumps different data in computers and smartphones.

EDIT : Apparently it works just fine with Andoroid smartphones, the problem only comes up when I try to upload images from iPhone

For example, var_dump from computer upload :

array(49) { 
    ["FileName"]=> string(10) "php2D4.tmp" 
    ["FileDateTime"]=> int(1367318152) 
    ["FileSize"]=> int(30357) 
    ["FileType"]=> int(2) 
    ["MimeType"]=> string(10) "image/jpeg" 
    ["SectionsFound"]=> string(24) "ANY_TAG, IFD0, EXIF, GPS" 
    ["COMPUTED"]=> array(6) { 
        ["html"]=> string(24) "width="320" height="240""  
        ["Height"]=> int(240)  
        ["Width"]=> int(320)  
        ["IsColor"]=> int(1)  
        ["ByteOrderMotorola"]=> int(1)  
        ["ApertureFNumber"]=> string(5) "f/2.8"  
    }  
    ["Make"]=> string(5) "Apple"  
    ["Model"]=> string(8) "iPhone 4"  
    ["Orientation"]=> int(3)  
    ["XResolution"]=> string(4) "72/1"  
    ["YResolution"]=> string(4) "72/1"  
    ["ResolutionUnit"]=> int(2)  
    ["Software"]=> string(5) "6.1.3"  
    ["DateTime"]=> string(19) "2013:04:26 23:57:43"  
    ["YCbCrPositioning"]=> int(1)  
    ["Exif_IFD_Pointer"]=> int(204)  
    ["GPS_IFD_Pointer"]=> int(594)  
    ["ExposureTime"]=> string(4) "1/15"  
    ["FNumber"]=> string(4) "14/5"  
    ["ExposureProgram"]=> int(2)  
    ["ISOSpeedRatings"]=> int(1000)  
    ["ExifVersion"]=> string(4) "0221"  
    ["DateTimeOriginal"]=> string(19) "2013:04:26 23:57:43"  
    ["DateTimeDigitized"]=> string(19) "2013:04:26 23:57:43"  
    ["ComponentsConfiguration"]=> string(4) ""  
    ["ShutterSpeedValue"]=> string(9) "4889/1250"  
    ["ApertureValue"]=> string(9) "4281/1441"  
    ["BrightnessValue"]=> string(10) "-3581/1451"  
    ["MeteringMode"]=> int(5)  
    ["Flash"]=> int(24)  
    ["FocalLength"]=> string(5) "77/20"  
    ["SubjectLocation"]=> array(4) {  
        [0]=> int(1295) 
        [1]=> int(967) 
        [2]=> int(699) 
        [3]=> int(696) 
    } 
    ["FlashPixVersion"]=> string(4) "0100" 
    ["ColorSpace"]=> int(1) 
    ["ExifImageWidth"]=> int(2592) 
    ["ExifImageLength"]=> int(1936) 
    ["SensingMethod"]=> int(2) 
    ["ExposureMode"]=> int(0) 
    ["WhiteBalance"]=> int(0) 
    ["FocalLengthIn35mmFilm"]=> int(35) 
    ["SceneCaptureType"]=> int(0) 
    ["GPSLatitudeRef"]=> string(1) "N" 
    ["GPSLatitude"]=> array(3) { 
        [0]=> string(4) "31/1" 
        [1]=> string(8) "5854/100" 
        [2]=> string(3) "0/1" 
    } 
    ["GPSLongitudeRef"]=> string(1) "E" 
    ["GPSLongitude"]=> array(3) { 
        [0]=> string(4) "34/1" 
        [1]=> string(8) "4684/100" 
        [2]=> string(3) "0/1" 
    } 
    ["GPSTimeStamp"]=> array(3) { 
        [0]=> string(4) "20/1" 
        [1]=> string(4) "57/1" 
        [2]=> string(8) "4272/100" 
    } 
    ["GPSImgDirectionRef"]=> string(1) "T" 
    ["GPSImgDirection"]=> string(9) "48089/465" 
}

var_dump from smartphone upload:

array(12) { 
    ["FileName"]=> string(9) "phpSzwfPw" 
    ["FileDateTime"]=> int(1367318054) 
    ["FileSize"]=> int(1778041) 
    ["FileType"]=> int(2) 
    ["MimeType"]=> string(10) "image/jpeg" 
    ["SectionsFound"]=> string(19) "ANY_TAG, IFD0, EXIF" 
    ["COMPUTED"]=> array(5) { 
        ["html"]=> string(26) "width="2592" height="1936"" 
        ["Height"]=> int(1936) 
        ["Width"]=> int(2592) 
        ["IsColor"]=> int(1) 
        ["ByteOrderMotorola"]=> int(1) 
    } 
    ["Orientation"]=> int(3) 
    ["Exif_IFD_Pointer"]=> int(38) 
    ["ColorSpace"]=> int(1) 
    ["ExifImageWidth"]=> int(2592) 
    ["ExifImageLength"]=> int(1936) 
}

Here's the computer var_dump($_FILES) :

    array(1) 
{ ["pic"]=> array(5) 
{ ["name"]=> string(18) leaf2.JPG" 
["type"]=> string(10) "image/jpeg" 
["tmp_name"]=> string(14) "/tmp/phpzeDUs9"
 ["error"]=> int(0)
 ["size"]=> int(46439) } }

Here's the iPhone results var_dump($_FILES) :

    array(1) { ["pic"]=> array(5) 
{ ["name"]=> string(9) "image.jpg" 
["type"]=> string(10) "image/jpeg" 
["tmp_name"]=> string(14) "/tmp/phplPUZky" 
["error"]=> int(0) ["size"]=> int(1455577) } } 

EDIT : Here is the uploading form HTML code:

     <form action="results.php" id="upload-image" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
         <div class="fileupload fileupload-new" data-provides="fileupload">
          <div class="fileupload-preview thumbnail" style="width: 200px; height: 150px;"></div>
          <div>
            <span class="btn btn-file"><span class="fileupload-new">Select image</span><span class="fileupload-exists">Change</span><input type="file" name="pic" id="pic" accept="image/*"/></span>
            <a href="#" class="btn fileupload-exists" data-dismiss="fileupload">Remove</a>
            <button type="submit" class="btn">Upload</button>
            </br>
            <span class="upload-error"></span>
          </div>
     </form>

What might cause it?

Answer 1

I am currently using iOS 8.1.1 and I also noticed this unlovely behavior of cutting certain Exif data from photos when uploading via mobile safari. I noticed the same behavior with a fresh installation of:

• Opera mini
• Chrome
• Mercury

So my assumption is that behavior is not browser related, but its the camera app when transferring the photo to another application (not authorized by Apple).

Does anyone found an official statement from Apple for this Exif data cutting?

Answer 2

Been testing on iphone 6 for mobile image upload. To cater for the orientation for iPhone. You must be ready for the two type of image upload. The front camera and the back camera. To get the orientation from the front *selfie camera you must do the following. First store the image to your destination folder on the server.

$image = imagecreatefromjpeg($source_url);
imagejpeg($image, $destination_url, $quality);

From there onward you read the EXIF from the created destination file

$exif = exif_read_data($destination_url, 0, true);
    if(!empty($exif['IFD0']['Orientation'])) {
        //rotate accordingly
}

This will give you orientation number to rotate it accordingly. As for the back camera you are able to read directly from the source URL. The file posted from the upload form. without having to store 1st then read the EXIF

$exif = exif_read_data($source_url);
    if(!empty($exif['Orientation'])) {
        //rotate accordingly
}

Answer 3

Unfortunately, itamar (op) if you upload from iphone to a server (as is my case), the IFDO: MAKE is stripped. If pic is saved on iphone and emailed, the data is there.

I need the MAKE info in order to rotate photos correctly. ORIENTATION value is different for Apple and Android and if I had the MAKE i could code to adapt. Cannot understand what the secrecy concerns could be with knowing what device took the picture.

Short of Apple allowing user to select PIC data info to be uploaded, maybe in SETTINGS, possible solutions:

• creating code to UPLOAD saved file (not share the picture) to server location and then attaching/adding to final place
• using commercial apps to upload, like http://www.transloadit.com
• rather than depending upon the EXIF data of MAKE, I just decided on finding out the device and o/s used to send data. Will explore "client_agent" as starting point.

Just got this idea from looking at the RESULT JSON from uploading to TRANSLOADIT. It clearly has the data we need:

"client_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 7_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) CriOS/34.0.1847.18 Mobile/11D201 Safari/9537.53",

If they can "see" the o/s and device, so can we.

If we get that data, then it can be added to pic EXIF and used elsewhere.

Hope this helped.

EDIT: data from Windows PC to illustrate when using "echo $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] . "\n\n";"

FROM PC: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/35.0.1916.114 Safari/537.36 File

FROM IPAD: "Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 7_1_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) CriOS/34.0.1847.18 Mobile/11D201 Safari/9537.53",

EDIT: added rference to php.net and get browser: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.get-browser.php