Talk:Apple Lossless Audio Codec

message: * Inside iTunes preferences: "Import using: Apple Lossless Encoder"
* From Apple - Quicktime Player: "Apple Lossless Encoder".
* From Apple - iTunes - Import Music: "Apple Lossless encoder"
* From Apple - iTunes Tutorial: "You can also choose the Apple Lossless Encoder..."
I could go on and on, but I can't find a single example of "Apple Lossless Encoding" mentioned on the Apple website.  Funnily enough, a Google search for site:www.apple.com "lossless encoding" returns two pages that don't actually contain the phrase "lossless encoding". AlistairMcMillan 01:30, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Mentions

message: Quite a number of parts are in need of courses, for example:
:Testers using a selection of music have found that compressed files are about 40% to 60% the size of the originals depending on the kind of music, similar to other lossless formats. Compared to most other formats, Apple Lossless is not as difficult to decode, making it practical for a limited-power device such as an iPod.
Nil Einne 16:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah. I tagged the last sentence as needing a citation. The first could probably use one too, but since it's just corroborating a non-converserial statement by Apple, it's less of a big deal. — Saxifrage ✎ 17:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Well according to the comparison referenced in the article, the decoding speed of Apple Lossless is somewhere between that of FLAC and WavPack.  So while it's not as difficult to decode as some other formats, I think saying "most other formats" is too ambiguous without actually saying which formats you're comparing to.  It is accurate to say that Apple Lossless is suitable for playback on the iPod, however the Rockbox software can also play FLAC, WavPack, and Shorten on iPods.  There isn't anything particularly special about the technology in Apple Lossless, and the fact that it can be played on iPods is mentioned in the preceeding paragraph.  So I don't see any reason to keep this sentence and I'm going to remove it.  --Mcoder 02:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Apple Lossless is based on linear predictive coding.  Encoding the difference between the prediction and the actual signal is referred to as 'entropy coding'.  This subject would be more appropriately addressed in the linear predictive coding article, rather than here. --Mcoder 03:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs sources etc 

message: I would like to see if anyone would object to me adding the link back to our site, The Lossless Audio Blog? Our site tries to bridge the gap between the forums and the various EAC Guides by providing information on getting started with lossless audio formats as well as current news and information. Because the Wiki pages for lossless audio formats are such a great place for those learning about the various formats I feel that our site compliments this and have heard from a lot of users voicing the same opinion.
Thanks for the consideration!
Windmiller 12:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I visited this page and it appears to be one of those commercial sites that try to harvest clicks. There seemed to be zero information there at all, let alone a blog. Telosmachina (talk) 06:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add Link Back 

message: The compression attempt can backfire. I just compressed a 19 kbps WAV file (~500KB) with ALAC (with iTunes 10.6), and the result is a 217 kbps file. So I see there are no sanity checks in the implementation.--67.170.192.66 (talk) 18:27, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: "Sanity checks in the implementation" what's that supposed to mean? Little to no proper explanations in your comments. Explain much further please, if you're gonna bother to edit info on here. Jimthing (talk) 10:27, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: WAV is a container, ALAC a codec. Typical WAV files contain PCM audio with a bitrate araound a magnitude higher than 217 kbps. Your wav file already contains compressed (lossy) audio, there is no lossless codec that can compress already compressed audio further, the same is true for video codecs. (This of course depends on the definition of "already compressed" but it is at least true for common - including older - codecs like mp3, wma, mpeg2video.)--Regression Tester (talk) 11:51, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Why should the format have such "sanity checks" which it doesn't claim to have, nor that it should need to have. There's an old saying in audio engineering (often evident in other fields too) "shit in, shit out" – it sounds like that's what has happened here. Given CD audio in WAV is 1411kbps, ALAC isn't aimed at handling such low quality WAV's; it's aimed at relatively high quality CD audio and higher, at those levels the term lossless then becomes valid, which it certainly wouldn't be at the kbps level you used here. Jimthing (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  worst case 

message: I removed two questions that asked for assistance with using Apple Lossless.  As it states, this is not a help forum nor a place to ask for technical assistance.
Deepcloud (talk) 09:05, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Questions 

message: Is there actually any reason why Apple "created" this format, since codecs like Flac and Shorten already exist?
It seems to me that the *only* reason Apple created this format was so it could have an Apple name.
Basically, Apple just added a lossless format that's actually technically inferior to ie. Flac, just because it could.
Imagine every company that makes MP4 players made their own format.. there's no real rational reason why this format is any good; therefore, I am forced to conclude that Apple only looks at their own interests, and doesn't care about the people.
Prove me wrong, please. Please.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by SeriousWorm (talk • contribs) 00:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that apple simply wanted to provide a lossless option optimized for its hardware in the absence of any established de facto standard. Killakittens (talk) 21:30, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It was my understanding that FLAC was unsuitable for streaming (such as Airtunes) or reading big chunks sequentially from storage (remember early iPods had little hard drives, so any time the drive was powered, the battery life would shorten). What about chapter marks for audiobooks? Also, can FLAC be tagged with metadata, artwork, lyrics, ratings, etc?  Apple Lossless is exactly like an MP3/AAC track in that regard. --68.103.141.28 (talk) 01:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt metadata had much to do with it. FLAC does support metadata and in any case I'm pretty sure the metadata of Apple Lossless is a function of the MP4 container not the codec. I don't know much about FLAC, but from the little I know see no reason why it would be intrinsically unsuitable for streaming or big chunks sequentially and I believe people do stream FLAC. I suspect other factors had more to do with it, probably not so much Apple's desire to have their name but more to have a format they control. Microsoft also has WMA lossless after all. While I can find some sources , I don't know whether there's much merit to mention any of this in the article in which case this discussion is OT Nil Einne (talk) 12:24, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: All of the above and more. My reading on the background to ALAC is they didn't want any potential patent issues, as the development and ownership of the FLAC codec was unclear at the time. However FLAC has since emerged clear of any of these issues; but of course that's with the benefit of hindsight, and Apple clearly wouldn't have known that when they needed a lossless codec for their products, so had to pursue their own highly similar codec instead. As for being "futile", far from it. Apple now have the upper hand in the lossless game after open sourcing the ALAC codec, as it can be used on not only their own iDevice/iTunes products, but also all other manufacturers can add the reference version of the codec (instead of the unlicensed reverse engineered libavcodec) to their supported formats without legal or possible technical issues, whereas Apple will never add FLAC natively into their iDevice/iTunes product ecosystem. Thus both better ALAC compatibility with external docking device manufacturers, and ALAC audio file format sales through the iTMStore seem ever more likely in the future.  --Jimthing (talk) 07:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It was definitely about the fear of patent trolls coming after them; and this applies both to Apple and to Microsoft. (It's not about the actual ownership of FLAC, but rather that it may have used certain techniques that are patented. No one will go after a bunch of free software people; there's no money in it. But if Apple or Microsoft started using them, then there would be a target.) They both created their own lossless formats for this reason. Tossing out the old "control" canard doesn't really apply to a format that isn't widely used, but the point aout FLAC streaming could be true. (Though I have heard that, internally, the iTunes Store uses FLAC to store masters.) But I don't think any of this is germane to the article. Kirkmc (talk) 09:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that's factually correct. I don't believe Apple stores on its server computers so-called "masters", as such objects are the responsibility and ownership of the content owners themselves (record companies, content owners, etc.), or even higher-quality encodes of any content formats (in ALAC/FLAC or anything else). Content owners have to encode and format content into Apple's approved format standards, then upload to Apple using tools Apple provide to do so. Apple have two main methods for content providers to upload content in Apple's approved standards through their iTunes Connect service. If you're big enough and can sell minimum sales amounts (earning thresholds in each territory), then according to this link (http://www.apple.com/itunes/content-providers/music-faq.html ) Apple provide music indie content owners with a piece of software called "iTunes Producer" in which to format their content into music files sellable through the store and in order to upload to iTunes (they can alternatively get an encoding house to do the required encoding), or alternatively they can use an approved aggregator (aggregators: https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa/wa/displayAggregators?ccTypeId=3 ) to do all this on their behalf; especially required if they do not meeting minimum sales thresholds anyway. Certain music-related file types (music videos, ringtones, concert films, and iTunes LP) they sell will require an Apple-approved encoding house to be engaged to so such formatting. It is a similar process for other media types (books, films, apps, etc.). --Jimthing (talk) 23:12, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

text: Eleven or so months later, and here we still are. None of the above has exactly happened. A re-read of that MFI pdf doc makes it sound like lossless is a distant concept — given 'bandwidth', 'storage', 'battery-life', and even 'CPU' are still considerations. Further patience looks to be inevitable, as unfortunately technology has not moved on enough to seemingly allow most of the above to be relevant. Apple's market aims are difficult to tell, and still open to a lot of interpretation (certainly in the media, for sure!). Jimthing (talk) 01:45, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Coming back to this a long time later, I don't know if I'd agree that 'patent trolls' is a separate issue from 'format you control'. A format you control means you have the ability to control what techniques etc you use in it, to ensure that there are none that you believe may violate some patent. Remember contrary to what was said above, knowledge of the development of FLAC is only of limited benefit in assessing whether there are any possible patents issues. We are talking about patents after all, not copyright. You could come up with something completely by yourself but if it's covered by someone's patent your screwed. And it's not like there's some magic way to avoid patent problems, the best you can do is hire fancy lawyers to find all the possibly relevant patents you can and do your best to stay well clear of them. Something which could after all also have happened for FLAC, if anyone wanted to except perhaps by the time anyone cared the bitstream was already frozen so if you found anything of concern you're SOL. (By comparison, a properly implemented clean room engineering of ALAC for example, should only be affected by Apple patents. The fact that whoever implemented it by some definitions didn't come up with anything by themselves is moot. In such cases you do want to know about the history to ensure there's no risk of copyright violation not because of patent concerns.) Nil Einne (talk) 17:37, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Futility of the format? 

message: I'm attracted to Apple Lossless because it's smaller than raw AIFF/WAV, can be tagged with metadata, and it's very easy to use with iTunes/Pod/Phone. But I'm concerned for the future. I know I can re-rip Lossless into other formats, but "what if" some day there's no more iTunes or Apple? --68.103.141.28 (talk) 01:04, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This isn't really the place for such questions. I suggest you try the WP:RDC for factual questions. However no one can predict the future so this isn't a factual question. However it isn't necessary to rerip, simple conversion programs exist which can convert Apple Lossless into other formats such as uncompressed PCM wave or AIFF or some other lossless compresion like FLAC. As mentioned in the article, this includes open source utilities. So it's likely you will be able to decode and convert Apple Lossless in the future, even if no program supports it, if you are able to modify the existing code or willing to pay someone else to do it, to work on whatever modern platforms existthen. Alternatively you can use either an uncompressed format like PCM wave or other lossless compression format, perhaps one like FLAC which is widely supported by the open source community and so may be more likely to survive into the future. A final possibility would be to use Apple Lossless for now, but reevaluate every 3 or 5 years in the future or something of that sort whether it's still prudent to use it and if not, mass convert all your files to whatever format you feel is best then. BTW as far as I'm aware both FLAC is capable of support metadata as mentioned in the article, as is RIFF wave of course. --Nil Einne (talk) 12:15, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  (under "Futility of the format?" topic above, see my "All of the above and more..." comment.) Basically the future's a lot brighter now the original reference version has been open sourced by Apple ;-) --Jimthing (talk) 07:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future proofing the format 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Apple Lossless. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120620124229/http://craz.net:80/programs/itunes/alac.html to http://craz.net/programs/itunes/alac.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 19:15, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: no participation, but moved as a BOLD move as the nomination is reasonable and apparently nobody is disputing a move.  ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:42, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Apple Lossless →  – "Apple Lossless" is no longer used in any primary sources, e.g.:
https://macosforge.github.io/alac/
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212183
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/05/apple-music-announces-spatial-audio-and-lossless-audio/
(Exception: In the ReadMe.txt on the Codec's GitHub, it's still mentioned as "Apple Lossless", but the "About" section on the right still calls it the Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC).)
The seems to be no persistent usage of "Apple Lossless" in third-party sources; sources usually cite the full name (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) first, and continue with the abbreviation (ALAC).
Even though the current title is slightly more concise, I think the official, full name is more appropriate, since the short term "Apple Lossless" isn't the more common name. Andibrema (talk) 15:26, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 21 October 2021