Apple Open-Sources PICO: Learned Image Codec Achieving 2.3-3x Bitrate Savings Over AV1/VVC — 127 Points

Apple ML / Hacker News·medium signal

Apple released PICO (Perceptual Image Codec), the first learned codec optimized directly for human visual perception rather than PSNR/MS-SSIM. It achieves 2.3-3x bitrate savings against AV1, AV2, VVC, ECM, and JPEG-AI, with 20-40% savings over best existing learned codecs. PICO encodes a 12MP photo in 230ms and decodes in 150ms on iPhone 17 Pro Max, with cross-platform robustness guarantees — a production-ready alternative to traditional codecs.