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This is fantastic. Apple uses AAC partly because of the patent royalty (http://mp3licensing.com/ http://mp3licensing.com/) which they have to pay on every iPad/

by ethank 15y ago

This is fantastic. Apple uses AAC partly because of the patent royalty (http://mp3licensing.com/ http://mp3licensing.com/) which they have to pay on every iPad/pod/etc sold, as well as because it is just a better format. MP3 is a total racket held by Thompson Technicolor, on top of being a pretty crap format. Hopefully this is a portends Apple offering lossless through ITMS on top of the 1080p rights they are hunting down right now.

pork 15y ago
MP3 may be a crap format, but it's the VHS of the digital world.
- klodolph 15y ago
  It's the DVD of the audio world, ten years from now. It's supported everywhere. The quality is good enough, but we have better.
DarkShikari 15y ago
This is fantastic. Apple did AAC because of the patent royalty (http://mp3licensing.com/ http://mp3licensing.com/) which they have to pay on every iPad/pod/etc sold Since when did Apple "do AAC"? AAC is a standardized format that makes up part of MPEG-4, contributed to by dozens of companies and organizations. The patent licensing is handled by Via Licensing, not Apple. AAC has patent licensing fees too; over a dollar per device (albeit with a very low cap, IIRC). , as well as because it is just a better format. MPEG-4 AAC was the successor to MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3), by the same organization, so this is no surprise. ALAC was -- for many years -- a proprietary FLAC-alike. There was no real reason to use it except for compatibility with Apple devices, as the two use nearly identical compression methods and the incompatibility is purely gratuitous.
- ethank 15y ago
  Sorry: USE aac. AAC has no patent for streaming or distribution. When we did direct-to-consumer digital sales this is why I used this rather than Mp3, and ALAC for lossless over FLAC because of the support issue. AAC does have a patent fee for codec usage (i.e., devices).
  - djeikyb 15y ago
    Nitpick: AAC (right now) has no patent fee for streaming or distribution. What's to stop them from levying such a fee in the future?
ugh 15y ago
MP3 was great for its time. It’s not a crap format, there are merely better formats available today. They weren’t when MP3 came to the market. (Specifically AAC was developed as a successor to MP3.) I’m also not sure whether this tells you anything. Apple started selling AAC encoded music at a time when no† music player could play it. Many mistakenly thought that AAC was some sort of proprietary Apple codec and it might as well have been. Today more people than ever have an iOS device or an iPod. There is no need at all for Apple to play nice and make sure that others can also use the ALAC. Why should they? Also: What’s the incentive for offering lossless music? No one† can tell the difference. Do you really think Apple will start catering to audiophiles? Because of the switch to flash memory space is limited, Apple’s current devices are not a good match for lossless music. — † Don’t be pedantic.
- ethank 15y ago
  Lossless music - there is an audience for it, and it creates the ability to stratify prices, which the labels/rights-holders/distributors like. See the vinyl boom, hdtracks.com, http://www.becausesoundmatters.com/ http://www.becausesoundmatters.com/, etc. So will Apple cater to audiophiles? No. Will they cater to margins? For damned sure they will if it serves them and those they entice to sign over content. Why would they switch to 1080P otherwise? Also: given device sizes it would be nice to have raw uncompressed/lossless and I could downsample at will to suit specific devices/systems.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Sure it might happen, but it would also confuse consumers. That’s a huge negative point to me. I also don’t see the connection to this.
  - bluedanieru 15y ago
    >Lossless music - there is an audience for it, and it creates the ability to stratify prices, which the labels/rights-holders/distributors like. Yeah, this kind of thinking is pervasive in the music industry which is why I make sure they never get any of my money. You're always paying for the licensing, not the delivery method (so they don't need to replace your CD at cost), unless they can make a buck by making you pay for that, in which case you are no longer paying for the license, but rather the delivery method. As such I don't even know what the fuck I'd be paying for if I bought a song on iTunes or whatever else.
colanderman 15y ago
This article is about ALAC (a lossless codec developed by Apple), not AAC (a lossy codec developed by the ISO and used by Apple).
ootachi 15y ago
This is incorrect. In the past, Apple has tended to prefer patented formats, because they are the holders of many of these patents and so increasing their use benefits them. If Apple had preferred patent-free formats at the time of the iPod, they would have chosen Vorbis, which has an open royalty-free encoder that is superior to QuickTime's rather poor AAC encoder. Since the Apache license grants a patent license, this development regarding Apple Lossless would seem to be a reversal of their previous stances. I'm glad to see it. Edit: That said, I agree with Dark Shikari that it would have been better had Apple Lossless never existed and if they had just used FLAC instead.
- hexley 15y ago
  QuickTime has a poor AAC encoder? I don't think you'll find anyone credible who seriously believes that.
  - ZeroGravitas 15y ago
    I think it used to be just okay, now I believe it's one of the best. http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/igorc/aac-96-a/results.html http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/igorc/aac-96-a/resu... Maybe he was getting confused with Quicktime's rubbish H.264 encoder (or the low quality of the open source AAC encoder)?
    - ootachi 15y ago
      Yeah, I was confused with the H.264 encoder (and the MP3 encoder). My mistake.
- rsynnott 15y ago
  > If Apple had preferred patent-free formats at the time of the iPod, they would have chosen Vorbis, which has an open royalty-free encoder That would have been a good trick, given that the very first release of Vorbis was only a year before the iPod hit the market.

by ethank 15y ago

pork 15y ago

MP3 may be a crap format, but it's the VHS of the digital world.

klodolph 15y ago
It's the DVD of the audio world, ten years from now. It's supported everywhere. The quality is good enough, but we have better.

DarkShikari 15y ago

This is fantastic. Apple did AAC because of the patent royalty (http://mp3licensing.com/ http://mp3licensing.com/) which they have to pay on every iPad/pod/etc sold Since when did Apple "do AAC"? AAC is a standardized format that makes up part of MPEG-4, contributed to by dozens of companies and organizations. The patent licensing is handled by Via Licensing, not Apple. AAC has patent licensing fees too; over a dollar per device (albeit with a very low cap, IIRC). , as well as because it is just a better format. MPEG-4 AAC was the successor to MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3), by the same organization, so this is no surprise. ALAC was -- for many years -- a proprietary FLAC-alike. There was no real reason to use it except for compatibility with Apple devices, as the two use nearly identical compression methods and the incompatibility is purely gratuitous.

ethank 15y ago
Sorry: USE aac. AAC has no patent for streaming or distribution. When we did direct-to-consumer digital sales this is why I used this rather than Mp3, and ALAC for lossless over FLAC because of the support issue. AAC does have a patent fee for codec usage (i.e., devices).
- djeikyb 15y ago
  Nitpick: AAC (right now) has no patent fee for streaming or distribution. What's to stop them from levying such a fee in the future?

ugh 15y ago

MP3 was great for its time. It’s not a crap format, there are merely better formats available today. They weren’t when MP3 came to the market. (Specifically AAC was developed as a successor to MP3.) I’m also not sure whether this tells you anything. Apple started selling AAC encoded music at a time when no† music player could play it. Many mistakenly thought that AAC was some sort of proprietary Apple codec and it might as well have been. Today more people than ever have an iOS device or an iPod. There is no need at all for Apple to play nice and make sure that others can also use the ALAC. Why should they? Also: What’s the incentive for offering lossless music? No one† can tell the difference. Do you really think Apple will start catering to audiophiles? Because of the switch to flash memory space is limited, Apple’s current devices are not a good match for lossless music. — † Don’t be pedantic.

ethank 15y ago
Lossless music - there is an audience for it, and it creates the ability to stratify prices, which the labels/rights-holders/distributors like. See the vinyl boom, hdtracks.com, http://www.becausesoundmatters.com/ http://www.becausesoundmatters.com/, etc. So will Apple cater to audiophiles? No. Will they cater to margins? For damned sure they will if it serves them and those they entice to sign over content. Why would they switch to 1080P otherwise? Also: given device sizes it would be nice to have raw uncompressed/lossless and I could downsample at will to suit specific devices/systems.
- ugh 15y ago
  Sure it might happen, but it would also confuse consumers. That’s a huge negative point to me. I also don’t see the connection to this.
- bluedanieru 15y ago
  >Lossless music - there is an audience for it, and it creates the ability to stratify prices, which the labels/rights-holders/distributors like. Yeah, this kind of thinking is pervasive in the music industry which is why I make sure they never get any of my money. You're always paying for the licensing, not the delivery method (so they don't need to replace your CD at cost), unless they can make a buck by making you pay for that, in which case you are no longer paying for the license, but rather the delivery method. As such I don't even know what the fuck I'd be paying for if I bought a song on iTunes or whatever else.

colanderman 15y ago

This article is about ALAC (a lossless codec developed by Apple), not AAC (a lossy codec developed by the ISO and used by Apple).

ootachi 15y ago

This is incorrect. In the past, Apple has tended to prefer patented formats, because they are the holders of many of these patents and so increasing their use benefits them. If Apple had preferred patent-free formats at the time of the iPod, they would have chosen Vorbis, which has an open royalty-free encoder that is superior to QuickTime's rather poor AAC encoder. Since the Apache license grants a patent license, this development regarding Apple Lossless would seem to be a reversal of their previous stances. I'm glad to see it. Edit: That said, I agree with Dark Shikari that it would have been better had Apple Lossless never existed and if they had just used FLAC instead.

hexley 15y ago
QuickTime has a poor AAC encoder? I don't think you'll find anyone credible who seriously believes that.
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  I think it used to be just okay, now I believe it's one of the best. http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/igorc/aac-96-a/results.html http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/igorc/aac-96-a/resu... Maybe he was getting confused with Quicktime's rubbish H.264 encoder (or the low quality of the open source AAC encoder)?
  - ootachi 15y ago
    Yeah, I was confused with the H.264 encoder (and the MP3 encoder). My mistake.
rsynnott 15y ago
> If Apple had preferred patent-free formats at the time of the iPod, they would have chosen Vorbis, which has an open royalty-free encoder That would have been a good trick, given that the very first release of Vorbis was only a year before the iPod hit the market.