How do Live Photos work technically? [closed]

According to 9to5mac:

Details of the file format were tweeted by Daniel Matte after speaking with an iPhone product manager, and are consistent with a brief description in Apple’s iOS Developer Library.

The docs don't go into details, but it seems like it's just a set of files:

The data of a Live Photo is exported as a set of files in a PHAssetResource object. The set of files must be preserved as a unit when you upload them to a server.

It's a bit disappointing, because they doesn't sound very interoperable or convenient.