Live Photos are an Apple technology that allows a single photo to be both a still image and, when activated, a short video with movement and sound. Imagine an animated GIF with audio, automatically created from your photos, and you have a pretty good idea of what Live Photos are. But there's a lot more to iPhone Live Photos than that.

Live Photos were introduced in September 2015 alongside the iPhone 6S series. Live Photos were one of the flagship features for the 6S, as they utilize the 3D Touch screen that was also introduced on those devices. Since then, the list of devices that can support Live Photos has expanded significantly and is no longer limited to devices with 3D Touch screens (which is a good thing; Apple has discontinued that technology). To use Live Photos, you will need:

Live Photos work on a background feature that many iPhone users aren’t aware of. When you open the iPhone’s Camera app, the app automatically starts taking photos, even if you don’t press the shutter button. This allows the phone to take photos as quickly as possible. Those photos are automatically deleted when they’re not needed, without the user ever being aware of it.

When you take a Live Photo, iPhone doesn’t just take a photo—it takes a photo and saves the photos it took in the background. iPhone then saves photos from before and after you took the photo. This way, iPhone can stitch all those photos together into a smooth animation that lasts about 1.5 seconds: that’s the Live Photo.