Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

It plays on iPods and other iOS devices. Other than that, not much -- FLAC's compression ratio is a bit better on average, and more non-Apple devices support it.

The release of this code isn't really all that exciting, as there's already a free reverse-engineered implementation in libav. (It might not support all the modes described in this source release, though.)

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#7

Post by tiles » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 11:56 PM UTC

For those unfamiliar with the site, MacOSForge is an official Apple site which hosts repositories for code included in OS X (see http://www.opensource.apple.com/ and the sidebar)

The announcement with timestamp for today is on the homepage: http://www.macosforge.org/

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#8

Post by tjpick » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 11:58 PM UTC

gtrak wrote: post #2

What's the point of this over flac?

consumer products that actually support it?

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#9

Post by ethank » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 12:02 AM UTC

This is fantastic. Apple uses AAC partly because of the patent royalty (http://mp3licensing.com/) which they have to pay on every iPad/pod/etc sold, as well as because it is just a better format.

MP3 is a total racket held by Thompson Technicolor, on top of being a pretty crap format.

Hopefully this is a portends Apple offering lossless through ITMS on top of the 1080p rights they are hunting down right now.

Re: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source (Apache license)

#10

Post by necubi » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 12:03 AM UTC

There's no mention of a patent grant. Does anybody know the state of ALAC with regards to patents?