Why safari do not support images of webp format?

Webp is a format that belongs to Google. Apple and Google are always at loggerheads over web formats. For example, a Mac cannot view 4K content on YouTube because Googles uses its own 4K format and Apple refuses to support it. It’s all about using web standards instead of proprietary ones. Apple is pretty strict about which formats it supports. You can submit feedback but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. There are converters available that will convert webp to .jpg, however.

You can also try a different browser if you like. Chrome is a Google product so I would assume it supports the format. Firefox might be another browser to try.

webp is NOT next gen anything. It’s a proprietary Google format. They own it and it has not been accepted as a web standard as of yet. The format has been the focus of criticism by web developers who say it does not outperform .jpg This is exactly what Microsoft used to do when it put out Active X and only IE on Windows could access websites that used it. That you have decided to use .webp for your web development is, of course, your business but don’t be telling Apple that they should get with the program. It’s not their problem.

You can use the <picture> element to specify a fallback JPG/PNG file, although <picture> is not supported by Internet Explorer 11 and older. This would give you webP for all browsers except Safari/IE.

References:

https://caniuse.com/#search=picture

https://caniuse.com/#search=webp

Please submit a feature request/feedback to Apple.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/safari.html