To be honest I kind of understand where Google was coming from with dropping jxl. But now with Apple throwing their weight behind it, the situation has drastically changed. I really do hope they bring it back.
Apple implementing JPEG XL in Safari changes that. Now it's a format with a real chance of being supported across the whole ecosystem.
They same is true to WebP and AVIF?
(AVIF was not supported by all browsers on day 1, obviously, but all the major browsers were governing members of the foundation developing it. So it was much more clear that the backing was there across the ecosystem.)
As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I don’t believe the Chrome team didn’t know Apple was going to implement JPEG XL.
There’s lots of communication between the Chrome and WebKit teams.
It’s going to take more than just Apple shipping JPEG XL to perhaps change Google’s point of view; JPEG XL needs to be seen as a game changer that moves the needle.
This is absolutely ridiculous take given JPEG XL is mainly authored by Google and Cloudinary, with AVIF coming from Netflix & alliance that includes Google.
There is no "competitor" here. Just a format nobody else indicated interest in supporting (notably Apple which forces ~half of mobile marked to have no support, given their browser engine restrictions).
Now that they added the support Chrome can easily bring it back.
2. There has never been another image format that has the level of support or interest as JEPG XL since JPEG becomes the internet standard. And that was before the drama of Chrome dropping support for it.
And web browsers aren't the industry. Adobe added support for it, for example, and it didn't really seem like Google did a good-faith discussion with actual industry players, who range from content creation software to OS makers to other web browsers.
It's also not like there are people lining up to use AVIF right now and Google is still pushing for it.