On June 15, 1987, Trevor and his team, which included inventor Steve Wilhite, released an enhanced version of the GIF called 87a. Dr. Wilhite has been at the forefront of the treatment of sleep apnea using dental implements for over 20 years. GIF Inventor Steve Wilhite was honored with a 2013 Webby Lifetime Achievement award for inventing the GIF file format in 1987. The use of customized oral devices has been evolving and has been an area our practice has been passionate about. The creator of the GIF image format, Steve Wilhite of CompuServe, when deciding on the pronunciation, said he deliberately chose to echo the American peanut butter brand, Jif, and CompuServe employees would often say “Choosy developers choose GIF(jif)”, playing off of Jif’s television commercials. Afford Your Care. Listen to Dr. Wilhite on HPR2’s The Body Show here. That's a picture of him from the October 1987 CompuServe magazine to the right. During Tuesday's annual Webby Awards ceremony, GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) creator Steve Wilhite put to rest the question of the animated images' correct pronunciation.