Animated GIF is still alive

Over time graphic and video formats have come and gone. And evolved! GIF is one of those graphics formats that has been around for quite some time (1987). Sadly, the inventor of the GIF format, Stephen Wilhite, recently passed away as a result of COVID at age 74. But the file format, GIF (and animated GIF), is still very much alive.

Long surpassed by better image file formats (better compression), GIF is supported by many devices and software platforms. One of the extensions of GIF, the animated GIF is one of the reasons the format is popular. Who does not like a good MEME?

On the Windows platform, support for GIF is standard, and animated GIF can easily be played with the Windows Media Player. Browsers will also show and play GIF files automatically.

Creating Animated GIF files

One of the most known methods of creating animated GIFs is GIPHY. Apart from the online option to create and uploads GIFs through your web browser interface, GIPHY also has an App for iOS, MAC and Android to easily search for GIFs.

Recently even Twitter made it easier to create animated GIFs. Directly from the Twitter App on an iOS device. Simply open Twitter, tap the new tweet button, and then select the camera option. Then tap the record button to record the GIF (the GIF mode is default, but switch to it if not).

Once the GIF is recorded directly from your device’s camera, you simply tap the Use GIF option and tweet your recorded, animated GIF. And yes, I realize my subject matter is not great!!

Keep in mind that animated GIFs take a bit more storage space than regular still pictures. This affects the memory, but also the time to upload, and bandwidth consumption. You might want to use it while on Wi-Fi if possible.

Limitation for the moment is that this feature is only on iOS, and there is no possibility to download the GIF. For that you’ll need a third party app, like Gifitize. Hopefully the success on iOS will lead to the feature being available on Android soon.