Twitter Now Lets iOS Users Upload Live Photos as GIFs

On one hand, Twitter may be looking tobuild a decentralized social media standardbut on the other, it continues to add some helpful features to the platform. The latest feature will make yourLive Photos captured via an iPhoneor iPad (basically, an iOS device) a lot more useful and likable.

Live Photos is one of the fun standoutcamera features on iOS devices. For those unaware, it not only stores a still image while clicking a photo but also a short 3-second video along with it. You could use third-party apps toconvert the video into a GIFand share it online, but you no longer need to do that as Twitter is now introducing the option totweet your Live Photos as GIFsacross the platform. You can add the Live Photos as GIFs to tweets, retweets with comment, replies, and even DMs.

Twitter hyped up the launch of this feature with a dramatic minute-long video, which you can check out right here:

Give the gift of GIFs. You can now upload your iOS Live Photos as GIFs anywhere you upload photos on Twitter.pic.twitter.com/D8TIfsBwyd

— Twitter (@Twitter)December 11, 2019

If you want totry out the feature, just start writing out a new tweet and select the live photo you want to include in it from the gallery option. Now when you pick a live photo, Twitter will show a GIF button over the picture – at the bottom. Tap the GIF button and you’re done. Your live photo will now be tweeted as a GIF. Super fun, right?

Twitter Preserves JPEG Image Quality As Well

Uploading Live Photos as GIFs is a feature restricted to iOS users, butthere’s another important featureupdate that’s available for all. And it’s a blessing for photographers.

As seen in the tweet below, Twitter is now going to preserve the image quality of JPEGs uploaded to the platform. The compression earlier degraded the quality quite a lot, but your photos will now be crystal clear. There’s a caveat to this feature though.

The image preview (thumbnails) in the timeline will still be compressed and low-quality. You have to open the image to see the uncompressed version, which is understandable. Plus, you can see below that only photos uploaded using Twitter for Web will follow this new compression.

Starting today, Twitter will preserve JPEGs as they are encoded for upload on Twitter for Web. (Caveat, cannot have EXIF orientation)

For example: the attached photo is actually a guetzli encoded JPEG at 97% quality with no chroma subsampling.https://t.co/1u37vTopkYpic.twitter.com/Eyq67nfM0E

— Nolan O’Brien (@NolanOBrien)December 11, 2019

Twitter gives photographers another platform to highlight their art but without the awful compression that kills the essence of the pictures. So, who’s ready to upload a lot more pictures? Let us know your thoughts on these features in the comments below.

Anmol

Getting my start with technology journalism back in 2016, I have been working in the industry for over 7 years. Currently, as the Editor of Beebom, I’m leading the coverage on the website. While my expertise lies in Android, Windows, and the apps world, find me reading manga, watching anime, and playing Apex in my free time.

Add new comment

Name

Email ID

Δ

01

02

03

04

05