What is the reason for the way Apple stores photos on your phone when viewing in Windows?

[eseerc]

For the first time, I plugged my phone into my work PC to charge. A window popped up asking me how I wanted to view files on my phone. What was shown was a series of folders with similar naming conventions "XXXAPPLE" and in each folder is a selection of 1-6 random pictures from different years and times.

I'm curious why the photos are showing up like this. Does anyone know?

 

[phreddyl]

When you plug it into windows it is treating the phone like a storage device- ie a usb drive etc.

 

[mikeo007]

As for why it stores them like that, I assume it's just their way of ensuring file integrity and enforcing naming conventions, etc. Its complicated with all the different photography options on iOS now (live photos, lossless editing, etc) Most of this is supposed to be invisible to the user, you should be seeing them in a library view, which itunes and Photos both do. Windows is just showing you the raw file structure.