iOS 8 Safari Supports Animated PNG Images

[MacRumors]

With the release of iOS 8, Safari has gained the ability to display Animated PNGs (APNGs). Originally proposed in 2004 as a replacement to animated GIF images, APNGs offers more color and transparency support over GIFs.

The Animated Portable Network Graphics (APNG) file format is a non-standard extension to the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) specification. It allows for animated PNG files that work similarly to animated GIF files, while supporting 24-bit images and 8-bit transparency not available for GIFs. It also retains backward compatibility with non-animated PNG files.

The APNG specification, however, was rejected by the PNG group in 2007, so support for the format has been rather limited. In fact, the format has been declared dead due to the lack of official adoption. Firefox was the only major browser that provided standard support for APNG, until iOS 8.

The beach ball image in this article is animated when viewed in iOS 8 or Firefox. Edit: and OS X Yosemite.

Thanks Parasprite

Article Link: iOS 8 Safari Supports Animated PNG Images

 

[farewelwilliams]

at least the beachball isn't spinning.

 

[phillies262834]

The beach ball is also animated in Safari 8.

 

[xplora]

The beach ball is also animated in Safari 8.

That being on OS X Yosemite, I can confirm that too, it was bouncing here.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Someone call the Beach Boys and ask them if they will appear at the October Yosemite launch.

 

[marine0816]

Ball bouncing on iPhone 6+ using dolphin and chrome browsers

 

[louiek]

Excellent. Now can we get started on webm support?

 

[klaxamazoo]

Please tell me there is a way to turn that off.

 

[campingsk8er]

It's also animated in the Chrome app for iOS.

 

[Bahroo]

Thank you Apple, this is true innovation

 

[AlecZ]

Finally. This is one of the few Firefox features I always wanted in Safari. Edit: I'm just annoyed that iOS, as usual, got its standards updated before OS X did.

 

[marine0816]

Thank you Apple, this is true innovation

Money was spent on stupid gifs and not on quality infrastructure #bendgate

 

[Shookster]

Strange that they went for a format that was abandoned by its creator instead of something like WebP which is actively maintained.

 

[Bahroo]

Money was spent on stupid gifs and not on quality infrastructure #bendgate

I was being a little sarcastic lol, although this is cool though.

bendgate isn't a issue, my iPhone 6 holding up perfectly fine over here and its the best smartphone I ever used .

 

[lincolntran]

Why the hell did they reject such a good idea? GIF is an ancient format!

 

[Parasprite]

Strange that they went for a format that was abandoned by its creator instead of something like WebP which is actively maintained.

(A)PNG has a bit of a leg up considering it has a large user base already, is easily recognizable, and is widely supported. Even if the browser can't animate the file, it will automatically fall back to just displaying the first frame.

 

[Madd the Sane]

Although Preview on Yosemite only shows the first frame, it does show info for the delay time for the next frame.

(A)PNG has a bit of a leg up considering it has a large user base already, is easily recognizable, and is widely supported. Even if the browser can't animate the file, it will automatically fall back to just displaying the first frame.

And with Apple supporting the format, I wouldn't be surprised if the PNG group re-evaluated the APNG addition.

 

[Tmacman]

iOS 8 bing works as well

 

[doelcm82]

Amiga!!!

 

[LastMac]

Strange that they went for a format that was abandoned by its creator instead of something like WebP which is actively maintained.

At least one of the creators seems happy:

https://twitter.com/stuartparmenter/status/512071807520616448

And the format is simple enough, it does not require constant maintaining.

 

[locust76]

Webm support coming in 2024.

 

[SvenSvenson]

Money was spent on stupid gifs and not on quality infrastructure #bendgate

Unless, of course, the person they hired do implement this also did the structural analysis of the iPhone 6?

It's a different budget - they didn't spend money on this 'rather than' making the phone stronger.

 

[JTravers]

Finally! This is going to be great. Can't wait for the online GIF repositories to start supporting it, as well.

 

[Pakaku]

I'm sad that the beach ball doesn't bounce in the articles sidebar on the front page.

 

[nostaws]

Good thing they spent all their time getting the bugs out of iOS 8 so that they could focus on gems like this.

Animated PNGs > functioning wifi