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Apple's Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) Now Open Source
Revotron writes "Apple has released the full source to their Apple Lossless Audio Codec under the Apache license. ALAC was developed by Apple and deployed on all of its platforms and devices over the last 10 years. Could the release of the ALAC source code mark a possible first step in opening up more of the iOS platform?"
I have no idea
...just use FLAC?
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
but it's still cool nonetheless.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
They open sourced a codec that isn't really used and has already been reverse engineered and people think Apple is opening up?
Am I correct that FLAC is not supported by the iPod, but ALAC is? If we're free to convert between the two now, what advantage is there in using FLAC instead of ALAC?
now it's FALAC, which sounds a bit phallic.
What about patents? Too busy ATM to check.
from ALACEncoder.cpp:256
NOTES
-----
The relevance of the ALAC coefficients is explained in detail
in patent documents.
yet another dick-move-in-sheeps-clothing by apple.
Apple has a lot of patents on audio/video compression. Have they licensed those for free for this implementation? How about another implementation or fork? Will those have the same license?
"The Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) is a lossless audio codec developed by Apple."
I have no words.
Keep in mind any Airplay compatible device can use ALAC, but can't use FLAC. This includes the Airport Express units that have been out since ~2004 or so, and the newer non Apple devices with Airplay compatibility. This is likely a move to assist with 3rd parties wanting to integrate more with Airplay, as the relevant network pieces (Bonjour) are already out there in source form.
Sadly I'm sure most people here will go on and on about how it's not FLAC, and whatever. For once, just at least appreciate that Apple is continuing to throw some interesting things out to the OSS crowd instead of deciding to nitpick it to death. If you don't want to use it, thats fine. Just really tired of the nitpickery and general negative outlook geeks around here tend to have. Cheer up for once :-)
AFLAC
I cannot tell 256kbps VBR MP3 from lossless on my stereo. I listen mainly to classical music.
So now that Jobs has kicked it, should we be expecting more moves like this to make Apple related technology more open?
Looks like I'm buying the White Album again...
If you're a non-audiphile trying to learn how to detect the difference with your ears, I suggest this:
Rip a CD into ALAC. Then re-rip one of the tracks into 256k mp3. Open each track side-by-side in music player apps and set the volume the same. Play each version 10 seconds at a time, paying attention to the perceived location of each instrument in the room.
You may find that it is easier to perceive that location while listening to the ALAC track.
I won't bore you with the scientific details. GIYF.
they only then release the source code because they are forced to, as well. It's a crafty move on their part.
Also, IBM--they've stolen so much from open source and then had to reluctantly give some source code back because they were obligated to.
Also anyone who has ever contributed anything to Linux or GNU only did so because they were legally obligated to after having raped and pillaged from the open source community.
is because you [I'm guessing] are 23 years old and you aren't happy with your life. You want to belong to a club and you want a villain; the club you've chosen is "righteously indignant nerd" and predictably you've chosen Apple as your bad guy.
Is this the beginning of something from Apple, now that Jobs has passed?
I just have to wonder if we're seeing a slight shift on the open front from Apple. Don't get me wrong, I don't think they're doing a 180, but I think they'll open up a few things in the next year or two. They won't be big things, but definitely something to take notice of.
MCA you are totally free to use it, but if you do we will sue you!
Apple is a company whom as patented glossy black, rounded rectangles, sliders on a touch screen and even as far back as the original mac, drop down menus. I don't give a fuck if they mailed me a sausage and cheese basket with a 100$ bill tied into a bow on top along with the source code, I wouldn't trust them further than I can throw my powermac 9600 (which that fucker weights 35 lbs out of the box + all the shit I put into it)
Why, it's the sound of everyone still using MP3s, because no one gives a crap about formats that don't already play on literally everything...
i wear magnum xl condoms.
i have a big penis !
Will you open source blowhards finally give Steve credit for killing off DRM bullshit? Not to mention he struck a major blow against Flash. Why do you guys see him as such an enemy? Because he actually makes powerful products that you don't have to be a total neckbeard to be productive with? Get over it and stop hating.
There's a heck of a lot more to an audio codec than what device may or may not support it, or how good its compression is.
Like what? How much battery power one needs to play back or record on a handheld device that supports it? A lossless codec like ALAC or FLAC has no generation loss at all; a lossless codec produces exactly the same samples out that were put in.
it also made a ton of calls to Qt
Now this gets confusing. Qt is also an abbreviation for the media framework that iTunes uses.
I would say that it's more likely they want to open up the airplay protocol. Encouraging more devices to connect to their devices and enabling airplay on more 3rd party devices.
What? But Apple never give anything back!!!!!!
Two things are interesting about this recent development:
1. It shows that Apple is committed to lossless and might be finally considering doing away with lossy AAC on the itunes store. Finally!!!
2. If you look at the specs for the iPhone 4S it actually supports ALAC!!!!! Now wouldn't that be a breath of fresh air after 15 years of shitty audio
...over my dead body?
Great, does this mean car receivers will FINALLY start supporting a lossless format for once? That way I don't have to waste my money getting an ipod to play lossless songs that bypass the ipod DAC in the receiver and can just use a cheap USB stick instead? My songs are ripped in lossless audio format. Not a lot of options for us folk who like to listen to music primarily in the car only.
Heh.
Rockbox to the rescue! Unfortunately, many of the newest ipod models aren't supported (lack of developer time/interest/hardware ownership) but if you have a supported model you get support not only for FLAC but also for a whole host of other useful codecs Apple refuses to support.
Many slashdotters heard of Rockbox back in the Archos days and have forgotten about it since then. Rockbox continues to get better, and it's worth another look. I just flashed a Sansa Clip+ the other day and was surprised at what Rockbox had to offer.
With the existance of other open lossless formats, that are already well established, ALAC is useless for anyone except Apple and its brain dead customers.
This is just a move by Apple to trick the community into working for them for free; developing apps for a technology that is only usefull to Apple's customers, and will make Apple more competitive when competing devices with native FLAC support emerge.
Btw on the subject that Lossless doesnt sound perceptually better than MP3 is moot, since that all is determined by the source and destination.
If u take a highquality recording encoded at 24bit/192khz and compress it with FLAC and MP3; regardless of encode settings, FLAC will win without a doubt unless the listener is hard of hearing in some way or retarded. Also the FLAC files/bitrate will be much larger than the MP3s since no information is lost.
But if u take a lower quality source such as a retail CD (16bit/44.1khz) and compress it with FLAC or MP3; at bitrates 192K+, MP3 will start to sound very similar to FLAC as the MP3 bitrates approach their maximum at 320k.
All this is assuming that the recording/playback equipment is ideal. Listening to high quality encodes using low quality decoders and/or equipment, will kill the comparison of the encodes.
-HasH
Read it carefully, remembering that the "Contributor" is Apple, and that the "You" is you, the party to whom Apple is licensing the software and offering the patent grant.
It says that if YOU institute patent litigation alleging that Apple's licensed code infringes some patent, then YOU lose the patent grant offered to you by Apple. On losing the patent grant, naturally you become liable to Apple for patent royalties if you ever used or are using this code.
This is no kind offering by Apple. It gives them the power to leave you penniless through punitive damages, court fees and lawyer expenses if you raise a patent suit against them.
Lossless audio compression is pretty brain-dead simple. If you think of how sticking a wav file in a .zip or .gz only saves about 10% of space, (give or take,) the most basic lossless codecs work by essentially zipping the mathematical difference between each sample. Because storing the difference between each sample, instead of the sample itself, is more likely to have repetition in audio; algorithms like .zip and .gz can then be applied.
What I'd like to know is, considering how brain-dead-simple lossless audio compression is, are there technical merits for using ALAC, especially on embedded devices? Does FLAC rely on floating point when ALAC is purely integer, thus making ALAC easier to implement? Is it easier to seek within an ALAC? Or, is Apple's insistance on ALAC purely a "not invented here" mentality?
No, I will not work for your startup
Also,
* FLAC is less compute-intensive for decode
1
2
3
Means longer battery life and/or lower power processors.
FFmpeg has had support for ALAC, both encoding and decoding, thanks to a GSoC student, for more than three years. Just saying...
Has anyone managed to download the source code (except downloading it file by file from the trac browser)?
- Raynet --> .
From OP: Could the release of the ALAC source code mark a possible first step in opening up more of the iOS platform?"
I'm certain this is not the case. Apple has a long history of working with open source but being ultimately closed with the platform.
Apple does make the USB drivers for iPods available for download except with iTunes.
Try taking a fresh PC with iTunes never loaded and plug in your iPod/iPad/iPhone. Your PC will look for the driver and never find it.
Then search for a USB driver on Google.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1538
Once you get that driver, I agree there are many bits of software you can use, but I don't believe there are open source drivers for Apple devices.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Why did Apple come up with yet another incompatible codec? FLAC is available under BSD, and ther eis obviously no difference in quality between ALAC and FLAC.
You did not fix ANYTHING for anyone but yourself, and a few(very few) like-minded assholes.
Fixed THAT for you.
The only reason Apple doesn't support FLAC on their devices/iTunes is because FLAC music usually comes from outside of their iTunes store. And they surely don't want people to not get music elsewhere.
If Apple had any regard for open (source) standards they would've added support for FLAC, since technically it's a good format (maybe not the best, but good) and it's pretty much the de facto lossless standard, even tho lossless in general is not very popular.
And now with open sourcing ALAC it seems like they want to make it more accessible to manufacturers, so that they can freely sell ALAC (lossless) music in iTunes and hardware/software manufacturers will have no choice but to support yet another redundant format (well, if they want to serve Apple costumers).
I wouldn't mind it so much if ALAC had some clear technical advantages, but it doesn't. FLAC is pretty much the same in compression ratio, but is more efficient in encoding and decoding.
I don't want to sound like a fan of FLAC. If you have better alternatives, bring them on. But ALAC is not one, sorry.
IOW, it's business as usual from Apple.
....complete with many fanboys insisting that this is *completely different* to MS releasing a new format (like WMV) that no-one needs.
jobs: you will pry my source code out of my cold dead hand.
god: ok.
Can you just drag and drop a bunch of MP3 files like you do with any non-Apple MP3 player? No? Then it's locked down.
It's nice to see that some people made a reverse-engineered library for emulating iTunes but it still doesn't make it open.
If they launched the whole OS as open source it would be a total bitch slap to Google and the Android platform. I know I would be excited. Hell, I might even turn Apple Fanboi.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
The vast majority of portable, dedicated digital music devices are made by Apple
Among marketers, "devices" has become a euphemism for locked-down appliances, so I got a bit confused.
but plenty of people use their phone or Media PC connected to a stereo to listen to music on.
And plenty of people who carry a cell phone carry either an iPhone or a dumbphone, neither of which is likely to support FLAC.
If you're using itunes (gag) / ipods, use alac. If not, use flac.
Are there any statistics for how many people use iTunes vs. don't use iTunes?
Surely this just means that Apple wants more people using their lossless codec (of rising interest due to cheaper storage) so they can gain market share (by not supporting other lossless codecs on their devices) to gain power in directing the future of this piece of technology?
Just put FLAC support onto iPods FFS.
Who cares. It's too late. I have tons of music from almost 12 yrs now and never actually listened to alac files. Apple remains unknown. It's somewhere out there but no one cares.
Maybe we could call it APLAC, instead. I know a Gilbert Gottfried who wouldn't mind promoting it.
This is really promising, but don't celebrate QUITE yet.
There's a lot of promise here. Apple is releasing BOTH the encoder AND the decoder as open source software, instead of the "decoder-only" trick some organizations use. The Apache licence means that Apple has granted a patent license to use the encoder and decoder software they've released, as well as derivatives of them. And since Apache 2.0-licensed software can be put into GPLv3, GPL2+ and GPLv3 code can use this too. (The Apache 2.0 license is compatible with lots of other software.)
BUT... there may be OTHER organizations who claim to hold a patent that covers ALAC. If they won't license those patents on the same terms, AND a court says that the patents are valid, then this isn't enough. However, there's great hope. Apple has a lot of lawyers; I doubt they'd release this code unless they were pretty confident that no one else held VALID patents covering this. Also, the US courts are just starting to actually have criteria for patents, instead of presuming that anyone who hands the PTO some money should get a patent, so patents that claim to cover this might get rejected in the US now.
were starting to stifle their rant, now i have to endure alac freaks?