Apple’s Live Photos can now be embedded on the web

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Live Photos are magical.
Live Photos are magical.
Photo: Apple

Apple has paved the way for its Live Photos to takeover the web with a new JavaScript API that makes it easy for developers to embed the moving images onto websites.

The new LivePhotosKit API was unveiled today by Apple on its developer portal along with documentation on how to use it. Once a Live Photo is embedded on a webpage, visitors can make it move by hovering over the Live tag.

Live Photos made their debut on the iPhone 6s, giving users the ability to relive moments with short video recordings from the moments before and after a photo was snapped. The pictures also include sound to make the experience more immersive.

Even though Live Photos have been around since 2015, they still haven’t received wide support on social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter. By creating a new API, Apple is hoping to increase the use of Live Photos now that more devices can capture them.

Live Photo capture is currently only available on the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, SE, 7 and 7 Plus. To extract and embed the Live Photos to the internet you’ll need a Mac or PC running Windows 10.

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