5 ms·

Is this why Apple won't allow WebM on iOS? It's like they want to pull the web apart, stick it behind a private API, then sell it back to you piece by piece. W

Is this why Apple won't allow WebM on iOS? It's like they want to pull the web apart, stick it behind a private API, then sell it back to you piece by piece. What is this even supposed to be beyond webm/gifv anyways?

chrisballinger 10y ago
The main reason they don't allow WebM is because only H.264/H.265 are hardware accelerated on iOS devices.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- aphextron 10y ago
  >The main reason they don't allow WebM is because only H.264/H.265 are hardware accelerated on iOS devices. And the only reason they don't support VP8/VP9 is because they can't lock it down like H.264. It's the same reason webGL support in iOS Safari took forever. Apple didn't like the idea of developers being able to create and distribute really advanced hardware accelerated 3D games on the iPhone outside of the official app store ecosystem. They need to support open standards for the sake of developers.
  - comex 10y ago
    The two things you cited are completely unrelated. edit: the parent replied to me but deleted their post by the time I finished my response; since I spent the time to write it, I guess I'll put it here: > My point is that Apple repeatedly resists open web standards for the sake of maintaining their walled garden. This new 'feature' is just another example of that. > What is this even supposed to be beyond webm/gifv anyways? WebM is a standard for video. "gifv" is not a standard or even a format; it's just what imgur puts in their URLs for pages that play looping silent videos, simulating the GIF experience. You can only watch "gifv" on imgur, though of course any site can play a looping silent video. "Live Photos" is a broadly similar concept to "gifv", in the sense that both are basically just a proprietary brand for a basic UI on top of a video player, not anything with deep technical content. However, the UX is somewhat different. Live Photos combine a high-resolution photo with a lower-quality video, and the video doesn't play until you mouse over. (The actual photo and video are just JPG and MP4, respectively.) In theory, the idea of treating a photo-video pair like a photo could be standardized, but it's not any less standard than gifv, and at least when it comes to display on websites (as opposed to, e.g., photo gallery apps), it's a simple enough concept that there doesn't seem to be much benefit in standardization. Apple released a small bit of code, for anyone to use on their own website, to do the job of drawing the UI and transitioning between the photo and video; of course, this is implemented on top of open web standards. Not sure why you want to crucify them over that.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- dchest 10y ago
  Sure, but this just rephrases the question as "Why don't they implement hardware-accelerated WebM?".
  - masklinn 10y ago
    Which can then be converted to "Why would they implement hardware-accelerated WebM, what is the value proposition for Apple?" Keep in mind that you need enough value gain for them to invest the engineering and silicon in hardware webm decoding rather than everything else they're doing.
wyager 10y ago
The lack of webm support is one of the most annoying things about iOS safari. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of battery life for a modern open codec!
- gpmcadam 10y ago
  Is the answer here then to use a third-party browser, like Chrome?
  - masklinn 10y ago
    No, because non-jailbroken iOS does not allow alternative browser engines so Chrome/iOS is just a shell around a native webview.
masklinn 10y ago
> Is this why Apple won't allow WebM on iOS? No. That doesn't even make sense. WebM is a video format, it competes with h.264/h.265. Further it's incorrect that they don't allow webm, what they don't is implement and support it — I assume because they already have hardware-accelerated codecs which they're invested in and thus have little use for webm — third-party video players can support webm just fine (VLC supports it AFAIK) > What is this even supposed to be beyond webm/gifv anyways? It's metadata-information on a picture, the main media is a regular photograph (in full quality) and the "live" part is surrounding information (in lower video-level quality) and really quite nice, it provides a loop of live context (the "live" video is 1.5s before and after) for the picture. There's nothing special at the technical level, it's just a video file next to or embedded in the picture file.
- aphextron 10y ago
  >No. That doesn't even make sense. WebM is a video format, it competes with h.264/h.265. Yes, it makes plenty of sense. If WebM were available on iOS, this new "feature" would not exist. There would be a million 3rd party apps already doing this. Apple simply wants to lock things down purely for profit. >It's metadata-information on a picture, the main media is a regular photograph (in full quality) and the "live" part is surrounding information (in lower video-level quality) and really quite nice, it provides a loop of live context (the "live" video is 1.5s before and after) for the picture. You've just described WebM
  - masklinn 10y ago
    > Yes, it makes plenty of sense. If WebM were available on iOS, this new "feature" would not exist. It would exist in the exact same way. Again, webm is a video codec, it competes with h.264/h.265 which is only a sub-component of a "live photo". > There would be a million 3rd party apps already doing this. There could already be a million 3rd party apps doing this using h.264. Hell there could already have been a million 3rd party apps doing this before 2015. Yet there are not. > You've just described WebM Only if you are either completely addled or thoroughly dishonest.

chrisballinger 10y ago

The main reason they don't allow WebM is because only H.264/H.265 are hardware accelerated on iOS devices.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
aphextron 10y ago
>The main reason they don't allow WebM is because only H.264/H.265 are hardware accelerated on iOS devices. And the only reason they don't support VP8/VP9 is because they can't lock it down like H.264. It's the same reason webGL support in iOS Safari took forever. Apple didn't like the idea of developers being able to create and distribute really advanced hardware accelerated 3D games on the iPhone outside of the official app store ecosystem. They need to support open standards for the sake of developers.
- comex 10y ago
  The two things you cited are completely unrelated. edit: the parent replied to me but deleted their post by the time I finished my response; since I spent the time to write it, I guess I'll put it here: > My point is that Apple repeatedly resists open web standards for the sake of maintaining their walled garden. This new 'feature' is just another example of that. > What is this even supposed to be beyond webm/gifv anyways? WebM is a standard for video. "gifv" is not a standard or even a format; it's just what imgur puts in their URLs for pages that play looping silent videos, simulating the GIF experience. You can only watch "gifv" on imgur, though of course any site can play a looping silent video. "Live Photos" is a broadly similar concept to "gifv", in the sense that both are basically just a proprietary brand for a basic UI on top of a video player, not anything with deep technical content. However, the UX is somewhat different. Live Photos combine a high-resolution photo with a lower-quality video, and the video doesn't play until you mouse over. (The actual photo and video are just JPG and MP4, respectively.) In theory, the idea of treating a photo-video pair like a photo could be standardized, but it's not any less standard than gifv, and at least when it comes to display on websites (as opposed to, e.g., photo gallery apps), it's a simple enough concept that there doesn't seem to be much benefit in standardization. Apple released a small bit of code, for anyone to use on their own website, to do the job of drawing the UI and transitioning between the photo and video; of course, this is implemented on top of open web standards. Not sure why you want to crucify them over that.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
dchest 10y ago
Sure, but this just rephrases the question as "Why don't they implement hardware-accelerated WebM?".
- masklinn 10y ago
  Which can then be converted to "Why would they implement hardware-accelerated WebM, what is the value proposition for Apple?" Keep in mind that you need enough value gain for them to invest the engineering and silicon in hardware webm decoding rather than everything else they're doing.

wyager 10y ago

The lack of webm support is one of the most annoying things about iOS safari. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of battery life for a modern open codec!

gpmcadam 10y ago
Is the answer here then to use a third-party browser, like Chrome?
- masklinn 10y ago
  No, because non-jailbroken iOS does not allow alternative browser engines so Chrome/iOS is just a shell around a native webview.

masklinn 10y ago

> Is this why Apple won't allow WebM on iOS? No. That doesn't even make sense. WebM is a video format, it competes with h.264/h.265. Further it's incorrect that they don't allow webm, what they don't is implement and support it — I assume because they already have hardware-accelerated codecs which they're invested in and thus have little use for webm — third-party video players can support webm just fine (VLC supports it AFAIK) > What is this even supposed to be beyond webm/gifv anyways? It's metadata-information on a picture, the main media is a regular photograph (in full quality) and the "live" part is surrounding information (in lower video-level quality) and really quite nice, it provides a loop of live context (the "live" video is 1.5s before and after) for the picture. There's nothing special at the technical level, it's just a video file next to or embedded in the picture file.

aphextron 10y ago
>No. That doesn't even make sense. WebM is a video format, it competes with h.264/h.265. Yes, it makes plenty of sense. If WebM were available on iOS, this new "feature" would not exist. There would be a million 3rd party apps already doing this. Apple simply wants to lock things down purely for profit. >It's metadata-information on a picture, the main media is a regular photograph (in full quality) and the "live" part is surrounding information (in lower video-level quality) and really quite nice, it provides a loop of live context (the "live" video is 1.5s before and after) for the picture. You've just described WebM
- masklinn 10y ago
  > Yes, it makes plenty of sense. If WebM were available on iOS, this new "feature" would not exist. It would exist in the exact same way. Again, webm is a video codec, it competes with h.264/h.265 which is only a sub-component of a "live photo". > There would be a million 3rd party apps already doing this. There could already be a million 3rd party apps doing this using h.264. Hell there could already have been a million 3rd party apps doing this before 2015. Yet there are not. > You've just described WebM Only if you are either completely addled or thoroughly dishonest.