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Apple's Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) Now Open Source

Posted by samzenpus on from the free-music dept.

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?"

6 of 526 comments (clear)

  1. Why not... by Lanteran · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...just use FLAC?

    --
    "People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
    1. Re:Why not... by Tr3vin · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you use and iPod, FLAC isn't going to play.

    2. Re:Why not... by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Informative

      It seems like FLAC has a slight compression edge

      Not according to this table.
      http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless_comparison

      Note for the compression ratio, smaller percentage is better. ALAC is slightly better than FLAC. But it's so marginal it makes no difference.

    3. Re:Why not... by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And going with a locked-down, Microsoft-created format is better how, exactly? And iPod/iTunes was compatible with MP3 from day one. I don't know any non-nerd who uses Vorbis or FLAC.

      And at least Apple had the insight of going with AAC, developed by Dolby, instead of trying to re-create the wheel like Microsoft always does.

      Take a screenshot with Windows: Microsoft BMP. Like there wasn't enough graphic formats at the time.
      Take a screenshot on Mac OS X: 24-bit PNG (Open format which already existed).

      Default audio format with Windows: Microsoft WMA. MP3 and VQF were available at the time.
      Default audio format with Apple: AAC (developed by Dolby)

  2. Re:Useful for Airplay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Geeks don't tend to just get negative for no reason whatsoever.

    LOL thanks I needed that laugh. Please do go on believing your opinions are objectively better, though. It's lovely to see that level of arrogance justified.

  3. Re:Useful for Airplay by schnikies79 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Geeks are biggest fanboys on the planet. They get mad and everything, reason or not.

    --
    Gone!