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.
Sunday September 13, 2026 3:00 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Update 10:04 a.m.: iOS 27 is rolling out now, though it may take a bit for all users to see it, so keep checking!
Apple is about to release iOS 27, which will finally deliver more advanced Siri AI capabilities as well as a variety of other refinements, improvements, and new features to iPhones. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and Apple announced at Wednesday's iPhone event...
Monday September 14, 2026 9:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Update — 10 a.m. Pacific Time: Apple has released iOS 27.
During its iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo event last week, Apple announced that iOS 27 will be released widely on Monday, September 14.
iOS 27 should be available around 10 a.m. Pacific Time / 1 p.m. Eastern Time today via the Settings app, under General → Software Update.
Below, we have highlighted eight new features and...
Tuesday September 15, 2026 1:43 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple today announced a new subscription initiative that turns paid iCloud+ subscriptions into a broader services bundle in more than 100 countries.
In select countries, Apple says every paid iCloud+ plan, including the cheapest 50GB tier, now includes Apple TV and Apple Arcade "at no additional cost," while family sharing extends the storage, TV and Arcade access to up to five people....
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*.
On MacOSForge, Apple has announced that they are releasing the Apple Lossless Audio Codec as an open source project:
