iPhone 12 Pro Max "RAW" file questions

Howdy, All

I just got a 12ProMax, got it mostly for the camera, and the ability to save RAW files. The first disappointment arrived when I tried to import said files into Photos on my 2017 MBP running Mojave. They imported as a jpeg, but it didn't open correctly in Photos, or when exported, in Preview or Photoshop. Research seems to indicate that one must be running on macOS 11.1 for this to work. "Gee, Thanks Apple :-P". After trying Catalina, and then reverting via Time Machine, Big Sur is very unlikely to land on my machine in the near future.

Anyway, I used "Image Capture" to bring the pertinent files over, and found that what Photos sees as a single large jpeg is actually several files. There is a jpeg (6MB), another jpeg with an "E" appended to the file name (6MB), a small file with a .AAE extension (Finder calls it a "Sidecar") that opens with the text editor, but doesn't tell me much, and occasionally a .mov, or a .HEIC, (yet more megabites). And finally the desired .DNG (~20MB). This file does open in Photoshop, but _not_ in Photos or Preview, and appears to be a standard RAW image file.

Can anyone tell me what these additional files are about (the video is from inadvertently having "Live" enabled, that much I get.), and if there is a way to unclutter this mess, and just save the DNG, and perhaps a jpeg thumbnail on the phone when shooting in RAW? Additionally, it would really be nice if I could skip the extra steps in getting the images into my Photos library, but this is probably asking a lot for iOS.

Any thoughts appreciated. Steve