iPhone 15 Pro AV1 support

[Nozuka]

I feel like AV1 support on iPhone 15 Pro hasn't been talked about much.
So i tried to figure out if it actually is supported yet.

According to this test website, Safari on my iPhone 15 Pro indeed supports AV1.
While Safari on my M1 Mac doesn't.

Testing Media Capabilities

But it doesn't seem like it is very useful yet. Not sure if other Apps can use this function yet, for example. I'm sure services like Netflix would be very happy to use it.
Tried to watch a Youtube video on Safari with AV1, but the stats say that it is using a different codec.. so i guess youtube does not offer it to the iPhone 15 Pro yet, because so far no iPhone supported it.

So AV1 support as of yet, seems not very useful.
I guess it doesn't help that Apple didn't add software decoding to devices without the AV1 hardware decoder (yet).

Safari 17 release notes:
"Added support for AV1 codec support to the MediaCapabilities API for devices with hardware support. (97803066)"

Safari 17 Release Notes | Apple Developer Documentation

Released September 18, 2023 — Version 17 (19616.1.27)

developer.apple.com

 

[ibookemo]

Yeah I’d be interested to hear more on this too.

 

[anshuvorty]

While Safari on my M1 Mac doesn't.

Yeah, the M3 Macs are just now, getting support for the AV1 codec, so it makes sense that the M1 and M2 Macs don't have hardware support for it:

 

[JimmyG]

It's going to be quite the disappointment and insult if Apple requires chip-level/hardware-level encode/decode support for AV1 "to work" and does not provide OS-level software-level encode/decode for AV1 for non-M3 hardware.

FWIW, the kind folks at Microsoft are providing a specific firmware update just for this functionality for Windows 10!

AV1 Video Extension - Microsoft Apps

AV1 Video Extension - Microsoft Apps

Play AV1 videos in your favorite video app on your Windows 10 device. This extension helps video apps installed on Windows 10 play videos that have been encoded using the AV1 video coding standard developed by the Alliance for Open Media.

apps.microsoft.com

If I've got to upgrade my M1 Max MBP and get forced to purchase a replacement M3 Max MBP (for $$$$) just to get this working, I'm gonna be truly pissed!

It's not like AV1 is "something new", Apple has been part of the AOMedia group since early 2018...

Apple joins alliance to shrink your online videos - CNET

Apple joins an alliance to shrink your online videos

It's the last of tech's biggest companies to endorse compression tech designed to go easy on your data plan.

www.cnet.com

..."6 years" next month! Sheesh!

Take care of your user base and Apple Silicon early-adopters, and let's get this working already at the OS/not-hardware-only level, Tim!