[Feature] Ability to upload 'unedited photos/videos' from the iOS app

[john-trieu-nguyen]

I have searched the existing feature requests, both open and closed, to make sure this is not a duplicate request.

• Yes

The feature

Summary
On iOS, when an asset (e.g. photo) is edited, Apple still keeps the unedited version available behind the scenes.
This allows iOS users to revert all their edits to the unedited version if they choose.
The current Immich iOS app only has the ability to upload the edited version.

A blocker to implementing this feature was the upstream Flutter photo_manager library.
The library didn't expose unedited versions of assets.
This proposed PR would enable access:
fluttercandies/flutter_photo_manager#1339

Working example
I've forked an implementation using the patched photo_manager:
https://github.com/john-trieu-nguyen/immich/tree/feat/upload-original-files-from-ios

It works by creating a seperate album that contains all 'unedited' assets.
This is the iOS App with the 'unedited' image alongside the 'edited' image.

Solves issues
#5818
#4750

Things to note

• Unedited assets are not part of the normal media library so the implementation uses some workarounds
• For example, to get the total count of unedited assets requires walking through the entire media library
• This also means we can't use change tokens between subsequent iOS syncs so a full sync is required each time
• The hasAdjustments property used to detect edited assets requires iOS 15 (Immich targets iOS 14). Users under iOS 15 use a fallback function that could lead to performance issues

Conclusion & ask
With the above limitations, I'm not sure if this could be implemented elegantly unless iOS introduces some new APIs. Maybe under an experimental feature flag?
Regardless, I will use the fork for personal use but I was hoping anyone can chime in if there's a better way forward.

Additional information
Portrait photos on iOS are actually edited photos. Apple applies a 'portrait' filter to the photo to create the blur effect.
Since I take a lot of portrait photos, I wanted to also backup the original image.

Platform

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

[bo0tzz]

@shenlong-tanwen thoughts?

[shenlong-tanwen]

We would eventually like an option to allow a user to upload the base image to the server, but the implementation from the fork looks more like a patch than an actual solution. We can use this discussion to find ways to improve this better.