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Apple's needless introduction of ALAC, basically a slightly dumber FLAC, was inexcusable.

by tacos 10y ago

spiznnx 10y ago
There were some vague reasons behind it. Apple claimed it improves battery life for mobile devices (possibly because it is 'dumber') and it's based on the mp4 container format used by other Apple-preferred formats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless#Codec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless#Codec
- tacos 10y ago
  Using the same file extension for non-lossy and lossy music... ugh. If they wanted to sell DRM protected lossless files I'd even cut them some slack, but they didn't. This was just poorly thought out. Likewise both formats are trivial to decode; I'm not buying the power argument. The smaller .flac file likely wins anyway.
  - asabil 10y ago
    Unless you have a hardware decoder
  - TD-Linux 10y ago
    According to rather old Rockbox benchmarks, their implementation of ALAC requires 3-4x the clockspeed as FLAC: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CodecPerformanceComparison http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CodecPerformanceComparison On a positive note, Apple later released a reference ALAC implementation under the Apache 2.0 license, which includes a patent grant, so the damage is mostly limited to consumer annoyance.
  - vizeroth 10y ago
    They could have stuck with the .mp4 extension, but they were attempting to reduce the potential for confusion. It's a file extension, once we embrace the fact that it is just a hint (and can be a lie), it doesn't really matter so much. The MPEG-4 format was based on the QuickTime format, so it shouldn't be any surprise that Apple prefers to go with an MPEG-4 format even when an acceptable alternative is available. The reality is that Apple doesn't support very many alternatives to MPEG-4 formats, and they probably wouldn't support MP3 if it weren't for the fact that they wouldn't have been able to take a significant position in the market for digital media players without MP3 playback. The same will probably never be the case for Ogg or FLAC.
    - tacos 10y ago
      I'm aware of at least two (actual) MPEG-4 lossless formats (MPEG-4 ALS and MPEG-4 SLS). ALAC is just a random format worse than the existing one at the time, stuffed in a .m4a container. (Apparently .caf as well.)
      - vizeroth 10y ago
        MPEG-4 ALS and SLS were standardized after ALAC was released in OS X/QuickTime/iTunes, but yes, those are two more possibilities when you have an .mp4 or .m4a file, and the pile of other extensions they can use.
  - orkoden 10y ago
    All media container formats can contain differently encoded data: avi, mov, mp4, ogg, mov, mkv.
- whyoh 10y ago
  >Apple claimed it improves battery life for mobile devices Is there a source for that claim? I ask because FLAC is generally considered to be faster for decoding. My guess is the MP4 container is the only reason they went for it (that and possible business/ecosystem reasons).

Apple's needless introduction of ALAC, basically a slightly dumber FLAC, was inexcusable.

by tacos 10y ago

Apple's needless introduction of ALAC, basically a slightly dumber FLAC, was inexcusable.

There were some vague reasons behind it. Apple claimed it improves battery life for mobile devices (possibly because it is 'dumber') and it's based on the mp4 container format used by other Apple-preferred formats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless#Codec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless#Codec

tacos 10y ago
Using the same file extension for non-lossy and lossy music... ugh. If they wanted to sell DRM protected lossless files I'd even cut them some slack, but they didn't. This was just poorly thought out. Likewise both formats are trivial to decode; I'm not buying the power argument. The smaller .flac file likely wins anyway.
- asabil 10y ago
  Unless you have a hardware decoder
- TD-Linux 10y ago
  According to rather old Rockbox benchmarks, their implementation of ALAC requires 3-4x the clockspeed as FLAC: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CodecPerformanceComparison http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CodecPerformanceComparison On a positive note, Apple later released a reference ALAC implementation under the Apache 2.0 license, which includes a patent grant, so the damage is mostly limited to consumer annoyance.
- vizeroth 10y ago
  They could have stuck with the .mp4 extension, but they were attempting to reduce the potential for confusion. It's a file extension, once we embrace the fact that it is just a hint (and can be a lie), it doesn't really matter so much. The MPEG-4 format was based on the QuickTime format, so it shouldn't be any surprise that Apple prefers to go with an MPEG-4 format even when an acceptable alternative is available. The reality is that Apple doesn't support very many alternatives to MPEG-4 formats, and they probably wouldn't support MP3 if it weren't for the fact that they wouldn't have been able to take a significant position in the market for digital media players without MP3 playback. The same will probably never be the case for Ogg or FLAC.
  - tacos 10y ago
    I'm aware of at least two (actual) MPEG-4 lossless formats (MPEG-4 ALS and MPEG-4 SLS). ALAC is just a random format worse than the existing one at the time, stuffed in a .m4a container. (Apparently .caf as well.)
    - vizeroth 10y ago
      MPEG-4 ALS and SLS were standardized after ALAC was released in OS X/QuickTime/iTunes, but yes, those are two more possibilities when you have an .mp4 or .m4a file, and the pile of other extensions they can use.
- orkoden 10y ago
  All media container formats can contain differently encoded data: avi, mov, mp4, ogg, mov, mkv.
whyoh 10y ago
>Apple claimed it improves battery life for mobile devices Is there a source for that claim? I ask because FLAC is generally considered to be faster for decoding. My guess is the MP4 container is the only reason they went for it (that and possible business/ecosystem reasons).