Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) is now Open Source

    Apple yesterday (10.27.2011) unveiled the Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) source code on Mac OS Forge under the Apache 2.0 license .

    The published project includes the source code for the ALAC encoder and decoder. In addition, an alacconvert command line test utility is included for reading and writing audio data from and to Core Audio Format (CAF) and WAVE files. A “magic cookie” description for working with ISO base media files (MP4 and M4A) is also included.

    The main advantage of ALAC over other lossless formats is support for iPod, iTunes, Mac OS and iOS devices. The format was reverse-engineered before the release, but now the official status opens the door to the emergence of new software and hardware products supporting the creation and reproduction of ALAC.

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