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Opensource Apple Lossless Decoder Released
Cody Brocious writes "David Hammerton has released version 1.0 of an ALAC decoder. This allows users of operating systems not supported by iTunes/QuickTime to listen to their Apple Lossless files, a proprietary competitor to FLAC. This is a large leap forward in audio codec interoperability, and paves the way for an ALAC encoder." The site also asks for additional help on the project.
I don't think so. The truth is, most people who play music on their computer don't know the difference between lossless and lossy, and usually still don't get it very well even after you try to explain it to them. To them, music is mp3, although they may be vaguely aware of other formats such as wma and perhaps (if they own an iPod) AAC.
The people who use lossless encoding and understand what it is and what its benefits are are a much more technical crowd.
So while the Mac fanatics will of course use Apple Lossless because it's produced by Apple, many other people already have most of their CD collection encoded in FLAC and are probably happy with FLAC's less (not?) patent-encumbered, open source nature.
You know, open formats and all that.
I personally wouldn't even consider Apple Lossless. FLAC is an open, documented format with encoders and decoders that work on every platform imagineable. Not only that, but FLAC is a very competitive format, being as good or better on average than essentially any other lossless format out there for most samples.
Simply put, FLAC is a well known and trusted brand among people that know about lossless audio compression, why it's good, and why they should use it. Apple lossless is some other proprietary format that might (due to patents, for example) eventually require a license to be able to legally decode.
And I think I speak for most people that have already encoded hundreds of CDs losslessly for convenience and storage when I say, thanks, but no thanks.
Free Software for me.