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During today's WWDC Keynote, Apple showed off the latest version of macOS Safari that will ship with iOS 14 and macOS 11 Big Sur.

In the developer notes, Apple notes that it has added WebP image support for the first time in Safari.

apple_macos-bigsur_safari_improvedtabs_06222020.jpg

WebP is a newer image format developed by Google and announced in 2010. It provides lossy and lossless compression with smaller file sizes as compared to JPEG and PNG files. Compared with JPEGs, WebP is said to offer 25-35% smaller file sizes for the same quality. The addition of animation also allows it to also serve as a substitute to animated GIFs.

WebP images are supported in Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers, but has been notably absent from both iOS and macOS Safari. The addition to Safari makes the format more likely to receive widespread adoption.





Article Link: Apple Adds WebP Image Support in Safari 14
 
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datiecher

macrumors newbie
Sep 25, 2017
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That would be great. I’d love to be able to use RES in Safari again.

They actually announced support for the Web Extensions API standard in Safari 14, so we'll soon be seeing a lot more extensions from the Chrome Store being added to the Mac App Store in the coming months.

As for WebP, it's definitely a welcomed addition, because the reductions in size I've personally seen in the wild have been great. As a matter of fact, I just created alternative WebP images for a client's web app just last week and have seen on average ~35-40% reduction in size while maintaining the same level of quality.
 

827538

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Jul 3, 2013
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I would prefer if they went all in on AVIF.
Audio - Opus
Images - AVIF
Video - AV1

Why can't everyone just get behind these three? Although I can see AV1 becoming the new defect standard for video pretty quickly.
 

Herbert123

macrumors regular
Mar 19, 2009
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Please let us be able to turn it off or at least download a JPG. Until editing tools widely support WebP this is a headache.

Why? All conversion tools, and most image editors (but for Photoshop curiously enough) already support it: PhotoLine, Krita, Affinity (import), Gimp, Sketch, and so on. And for Photoshop users plugins exist to handle the file format.

Besides, JPG wouldn't work for a large portion of webp images anyway: webp supports full transparency, which jpg does not. And webp images may be saved as lossless, which is not possible in JPG either.
 

John.B

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Jan 15, 2008
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Holocene Epoch

ksec

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Dec 23, 2015
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Please let us be able to turn it off or at least download a JPG. Until editing tools widely support WebP this is a headache.

Well you can use an extension to change your Safari version number so you are only served with jpeg. I am not a fan of WebP either.

I am more looking forward to JPEG XL.
 

konqerror

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Dec 31, 2013
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What about HEIF? Would that ever be a viable web graphics option? Too heavy?

HEIF and WebP are conceptually the same, but Google will never support HEIF because of the patent mess (and likely the mere fact that you have to pay for it), so we'll never see it in Chrome, so websites won't support it.

Simply, Chrome's market dominance means that Google has the final say.
 
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Apollo33

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Jun 26, 2007
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HEIF and WebP are conceptually the same, but Google will never support HEIF because of the patent mess (and likely the mere fact that you have to pay for it), so we'll never see it in Chrome, so websites won't support it.

Simply, Chrome's market dominance means that Google has the final say.

This is not exactly accurate.

1. Safari doesn't actually seem to support HEIF: https://caniuse.com/#search=heif
2. Android 9 added (OS-level) HEIF support: https://www.androidcentral.com/android-p-features-we-love-hdr-and-heif-support

I get the whole "us vs. them" mentality, but NO browser (not even Safari) supports HEIF. Likely due to licensing issues, which you alluded to.

By comparison, since WebP is an open format, all browsers except IE11 support it now: https://caniuse.com/#search=webp

If you're doing any significant web development, smaller file sizes are always better for the end-user. The smaller the files, the quicker the site loads.

For example, my GatsbyJS site automatically renders JPEG and WebP versions of each image at various sizes to dynamically serve the best possible image to each user.

As a result, Safari users will magically get a faster web experience that Chrome users already had. (Granted, all iOS browsers use the native renderer so I don't think any browser on iOS 13 has WebP support.)
 
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amartinez1660

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Sep 22, 2014
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This is not exactly accurate.

1. Safari doesn't actually seem to support HEIF: https://caniuse.com/#search=heif
2. Android 9 added (OS-level) HEIF support: https://www.androidcentral.com/android-p-features-we-love-hdr-and-heif-support

I get the whole "us vs. them" mentality, but NO browser (not even Safari) supports HEIF. Likely due to licensing issues, which you alluded to.

By comparison, since WebP is an open format, all browsers except IE11 support it now: https://caniuse.com/#search=webp

If you're doing any significant web development, smaller file sizes are always better for the end-user. The smaller the files, the quicker the site loads.

For example, my GatsbyJS site automatically renders JPEG and WebP versions of each image at various sizes to dynamically serve the best possible image to each user.

As a result, Safari users will magically get a faster web experience that Chrome users already had. (Granted, all iOS browsers use the native renderer so I don't think any browser on iOS 13 has WebP support.)
And better battery life and better memory footprint, so less tab reloading, so on and so forth (basically all the benefits of smaller, easier more transportable formats).

However, if you can clarify out of curiosity (I know nothing about web dev), why is it safari faster? I conclude because it does have WebP since the other is patented or you meant because of lighter JPEG versions being provided?

EDIT: ok, re-read, Safari has none except I guess the usual JPEG, PNG, etc formats.
 
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