On MacOSForge, Apple has announced that they are releasing the Apple Lossless Audio Codec as an open source project:
The Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) is a lossless audio codec developed by Apple and deployed on all of its platforms and devices for some years now. Apple is making the Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) available as an open source project. Full details can be found on the Apple Lossless Audio Codec project page.
The Apple Lossless Audio Codec is a similar to other "lossless" codecs such as FLAC which offer audio compression without any loss in audio information. ALAC is said to compress files only by "about half" as compared to the originals.
Formats such as MP3 and AAC are considered "lossy" and result in much greater compression but at the cost of some fidelity. The main advantage of using ALAC over competing lossless formats is that ALAC is supported by all of Apple's iPods and iOS devices. The format had already been reverse engineered prior to this release, but this opens the door to even more products supporting both ALAC creation and playback.
Monday October 19, 2026 9:37 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today sent out invites for an experience in Los Angeles on Wednesday, October 28, and the "Pro and tell" tagline on the invitation likely means that the rumored MacBook models with touch-enabled OLED displays will stick with MacBook Pro branding instead of the once-rumored "MacBook Ultra" name.
The long-rumored "iPhone Ultra" ended up being named iPhone Duo, so speculation that Apple...
Tuesday October 20, 2026 11:12 am PDT by Juli Clover
With just three days to go until the iPhone Duo is released, Apple is getting ready for the launch. Behind the scenes, the App Store now has screenshots of Apple's built-in apps running on the Duo. We've seen some apps in marketing materials, but images of the ones we haven't seen give us an idea of what it will be like using the iPhone Duo day to day.
Many apps are shown in landscape...
Monday October 19, 2026 9:05 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple's Greg Joswiak today hinted at new product announcements coming next week, sharing a social media post that says "Can't wait to pro and tell next week."
Rumors suggest Apple is planning to debut the new MacBook Pro with an OLED touchscreen display, an M6 entry-level MacBook Pro, an M6 iMac, an iPad mini with an OLED display.
Can't wait to pro and tell next week....
The main advantage of using competing lossless formats is that they are supported by ALL devices on any platform.
They're not. Many devices do not natively support FLAC. iOS devices will natively support ALAC, so that will outnumber "all devices" as you put it.
Can someone explain what "half as much" means? I though the ALAC didn't create fidelity loss. Or is some compression possible without such?
It doesn't create loss in sound. It's a lossless format. What they mean by compression is the file size. So if the original file is 30MB, ALAC compression will make it 15MB in file size but still sound like the original, with no loss of audio.
Android's market share has long surpassed that of iOS. I'd say theres little debate over which open source format will have more success.
Not to start a platform argument, but Android's marketshare may be bigger than the iPhone's. But if you include all iPods (non iOS ones), iPod Touches, and iPads, that market size is certainly still bigger than Android. In terms of devices which support ALAC.
Good news for widespread support, but one wonders why Apple didn't just go with FLAC in the first place.
As with most things Apple, presumably because they thought they could do better. They don't tend to do anything that they don't think is an improvement on something that already exists. If I recall correctly, isn't ALAC about half the file size?
The main advantage of using competing lossless formats is that they are supported by ALL devices on any platform*.
Apple's first foldable iPhone, with a book-style design featuring a 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner display with a minimal crease down the middle.
On MacOSForge, Apple has announced that they are releasing the Apple Lossless Audio Codec as an open source project:
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