iOS 8 Safari Supports Animated PNG Images

Animated_PNG_example_bouncing_beach_ball

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

Top Rated Comments

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farewelwilliams

65 months ago

at least the beachball isn't spinning.

Rating: 29 Votes

louiek

65 months ago

Excellent. Now can we get started on webm support?

Rating: 8 Votes

xplora

65 months ago

The beach ball is also animated in Safari 8.

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

Rating: 6 Votes

phillies262834

65 months ago

The beach ball is also animated in Safari 8.

Rating: 6 Votes

Bahroo

65 months ago

Thank you Apple, this is true innovation

Rating: 6 Votes

Bahroo

65 months ago

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 .

Rating: 6 Votes

doelcm82

65 months ago

Amiga!!!

Rating: 6 Votes

LastMac

65 months ago

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.

Rating: 5 Votes