Apple releases their Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) into open source Apache license

Apple releases their Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) into open source Apache license

Cupertino Company has jut taken another move which will be probably greeted by the wider community. Audio Codec developed by Apple’s engineers has being now republished as an open source software under the Apache license. Audio Codec supports all Apple devices including iOS devices like iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch but also Mac computers and iTunes. Alac is basically a sophisticated method of data compression which can easily reduce the size of audio files, which size would otherwise be prohibitive especially for handheld iOS devices. Compressed files will keep their audio quality at the same level, so no data is being lost during the data compression. Uncompressed ALAC stream is exactly the same as the original, uncompressed file.

ALAC codec which has being open sourced consists of sources for the complete decoder and encoder. Package also contains a simple utility alacconvert which helps users to convert audio from CAF files to WAVE files. We think this is a great gift from Apple to the open source community. Do you agree? It would be great to see some other companies like Microsoft for example to act in a similar fashion.