Well, it s not nearly as exciting as a new iPhone, but Apple recently announced a bit of news that will set people in certain circles abuzz. The company s lossless audio codec, ALAC, is going open source. Similar to FLAC, the Apple Lossless Audio Codec offers some file compression while still delivering a bit-for-bit recreation of the original source material. The primary difference being that Apple devices and software do not support FLAC at least without some tinkering but can handle the Cupertino developed ALAC. The decision to release the code under the Apache license won t have much of an immediate impact on your digital audio routine, but expect support for ALAC to start popping up in more media players both hardware and software soon.

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