Safari to Support WebM Video Playback
Safari features support for WebM video playback in the second beta of macOS Big Sur 11.3 Beta, indicating that Apple’s browser will finally support the format after failing to do so for almost 11 years.
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WebM also has a sister project called WebP for images. Last year, Apple added support for WebP in Safari 14, so the company’s approach to more niche media formats appears to be softening. WebM support still appears to be unavailable on iOS, but in light of these developments it would be unsurprising if Apple’s WebKit engine added support for it too in due course.
On Catalina, WebP files launch Preview, which can’t display them, and Safari 14 can’t open them, either.
Previously:
Update (2021-03-15): Noah Gilmore:
Turns out that WebP, the web-optimized image format developed by Google, isn’t supported natively by UIKit. Luckily it’s not too hard to implement support for it with the help of a small library and some deeper UIKit APIs.
