Apple Adds Support For FLAC Lossless Audio In iOS 11 (thenextweb.com) 49
Reddit users who have installed copies of the developer beta of iOS 11 are reporting that Apple has finally added support for lossless FLAC audio files in their new mobile operating system. The Next Web reports: The functionality was first spotted on an iPhone 6S Plus running iOS 11 Beta 1 and is reportedly available as part of the newly announced file-management app, Files. Up until now, Apple had deliberately opted to ignore offering playback support for FLAC files in both iTunes and iOS -- though there are numerous third-party apps to do the trick. But it appears things are finally about to change.
They finally realized.. (Score:2, Insightful)
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AFAIK, FLAC files are usually smaller than ALAC, not larger, though I guess if users rejected ALAC because of the sometimes extremely bad file size, there's a chance they might not reject FLAC, which I think is more consistent (at a cost in terms of CPU overhead).
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I'm pretty sure the OP meant uncompressed audio (or "HiRes" 24/96 audiophile quackery.)
My view on the respective compression efficiency: Once you're pushing 24/96 recordings, a single track is just plain big. A few kiB one way or another is a pointless distinction.
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Lossless compression is still5- 10x larger than MP3/AAC
NIH to the max, baby (Score:2)
Not only does Apple offer their own, inferior, incompatible format in preference to the industry standard, they also pretend the latter doesn't exist. Apple Lossless has St. Jobs' magical pee all over.
Re:NIH to the max, baby (Score:4, Insightful)
And what would the industry standare be?
Dolby TrueHD?
DTS Master?
MPEG4-SLS?
You gotta draw the line somewhere, and back in 2003, when ALAC was released, there was no clear standard. Even today, the market remains niche enough that virtually nobody cares about FLAC anyway. Most people don't subscribe to the audiophile quackery that believes in golden ears.
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no, when ALAC was released people pissed and moaned that Apple wasn't supporting FLAC which was the de facto standard back in 2003. with your user ID you should know that. the three formats you mentioned were not used in exchanging audio files and are not free formats, so obviously those would have been poor choices.
back in 2003 most MP3 encoders used a low-pass filter as part of the encoding process. you didn't need "golden ears" to tell the difference, you just needed to not be deaf.
if you're saying that
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Let's see... Monkey's Audio, shorten, optimfrog... they were all quite prevalent. I remember when FLAC joined the Xiph project. FLAC was definitely not a de facto format at the time.
The fact that MP3 encoders use a low pass filter at ~15.5 kHz isn't that relevant. It was (and is) inaudible to most people - very few people over the age of sixteen can act ually hear sounds that high. Loud sporting events, rock concerts, etc. all take their toll on the upper end of your hearing range.
I seem to recall it being
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FWIW, I only remember Monkey's Audio as having anything like the popularity of FLAC; Shorten and OptimFrog were very much also-rans, joined also by WavPack. Shorten seems to have died a death but the others appear to be still updated. Personally I used FLAC for archiving and in-home streaming but transcode to Vorbis for listening on a portable player; even if I could hear an audible difference (I can't) then the background noise of wherever I'm listening to a portable player will likely render that "bette
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APE (Monkey's Audio) popularity kinda predates FLAC. Still even Microsoft managed to support FLAC in Windows 10 before Apple added support for it to iOS... There have been portable music players with FLAC support for like a decade already.
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back in 2003 most MP3 encoders used a low-pass filter as part of the encoding process. you didn't need "golden ears" to tell the difference, you just needed to not be deaf.
Almost every single MP3 encoders use a low-pass filter, unless you specifically disable it or use LAME -V0 specifically.
http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/ind... [hydrogenaud.io]
I'm 31 and I can't hear anything at all above 17 kHz. Not a damn thing, not even test tones. I don't give a shit about a lowpass filter at 17 kHz.
Sigh (Score:1)
The purpose of FLAC isn't audiophilism. The purpose is archival. With FLAC, you archvie your cd collection once, and then you have a master copy forever. From that permanent archive, you can make as many different lossy copies as you need, whenever you want, to any format you want, while leaving the originals untouched.
THAT is the purpose of FLAC: to put an exact original copy of your cd collection on your computer. Lossy compression formats simply can't do that -- their purpose is portability.
Re:NIH to the max, baby (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's OSes also don't properly handle the Matroska container by default. Matroska is used a lot in modern multimedia (including a limited subset of the Matroska container used for years in WebM). I think that Apple's choices help render Apple's OSes as also-rans and I wouldn't be surprised if this is based in Apple's preference for patent-encumbered stuff to which Apple is a licensee or beneficiary.
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Apple's OSes also don't properly handle the Matroska container by default. Matroska is used a lot in modern multimedia (including a limited subset of the Matroska container used for years in WebM). I think that Apple's choices help render Apple's OSes as also-rans and I wouldn't be surprised if this is based in Apple's preference for patent-encumbered stuff to which Apple is a licensee or beneficiary.
You are right: MP4, also called ISO Base Media File Format, is an ISO/IEC standard. Its patents can thus be licensed under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND) from its inventors ... Apple (and Panasonic to a minor extent). In practice, everybody seems to be using it for free, so I don't think Apple and Panasonic are big beneficiaries here.
The reason why they won't adopt competing technologies (matroska) is because of the effort they put in developing the QuickTime File Format (.mov) an
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MP4 sucks in comparison with MKV. It's much a much more spartan container format. MKV is also required for hardware to be able to have the DivX logo. So it's real lame that Apple doesn't support it while no one else uses QuickTime but them. Then again they haven't cared about their desktop or multimedia support for yonks. All that matters is how thin is the next device or how the icons look on this iOS version.
Face it, Apple's love for their own proprietary formats of late is making even Microsoft look good
Too bad for Jefferson Airplane (Score:1)
Because airplanes can't cope with flak.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
When connected to an appropriate DAC or headphone connector, the lightning connector delivers raw uncompressed digital audio. You're not just limited to Bluetooth. Also, IIRC, airplay will generally deliver the audio in its native format over wireless, so there's that as well.
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Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
All new iPhones will have to deal bluetooth compression anyway. Maybe I am simply ignorant
You're simply ignorant ;)
The (included) headphone dongle moved the DAC and amplifier outside of the phone case - but it's still there (and necessary). So you can still get uncompressed audio that way.
You can also connect the phone via USB to most DAC devices and play the raw bitstream directly. I do that in both of my cars, and have something similar for my HiFi system at home.
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Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
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The teensy dongle Apple is definitely worse than when the DAC/AMP was built-in -- The SNR is about 5 dB worse for both 16 and 24-bit recordings, and the THD is doubled.
Since loudness (dB) is a log scale -- it works out to 0.05% more noise, and THD moves from 0.001% to 0.002%.
To put that in perspective, you'd be getting noise that's even quieter than breathing, while the signal is as loud as a jackhammer.
And that's assuming you're in a silent, anechoic room. A quiet room in a house will be at least twice as
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Digital output via the Lightning port (presumably there will be Lightning->USB-C audio out adapters)?
Streaming audio to Homepod or other network devices?
Lossless audio is a pretty niche thing to start with... Hell, having actual audio files on your device (instead of spotify / apple music cloud / pandora / whatever) is becoming a niche activity.
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"Lossless audio is a pretty niche thing to start with... Hell, having actual audio files on your device (instead of spotify / apple music cloud / pandora / whatever) is becoming a niche activity."
Apple bought Beats right? In comparison this actually makes sense. Me? I'll keep using crummy MP3s.
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I am not sure what the point of this is. There is no headphone jack to deliver analog audio. All new iPhones will have to deal bluetooth compression anyway. Maybe I am simply ignorant, but this seems like a "innovation" without a point.
AirPods, when paired to a device capable of AAC, use AAC, not that horrid CODEC that "Bluetooth Audio" uses.
Not quite lossless; but a damn sight better than what you are alleging.
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Using AAC over Bluetooth is a capability of the Bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile [wikipedia.org] (A2DP) and not just limited to Apple devices.
Of course it's not well publicised so good luck telling which codec your Bluetooth devices are actually using.
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Using AAC over Bluetooth is a capability of the Bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile [wikipedia.org] (A2DP) and not just limited to Apple devices.
Of course it's not well publicised so good luck telling which codec your Bluetooth devices are actually using.
I know it isn't "Just Apple". I don't think I ever said it was.
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I am not sure what the point of this is.
A lot of the replies here spectacularly miss the point. All this talk about technical benefits and capabilities of attaching DACs to iDevices to bypass bluetooth compression is completely irrelevant to why you would want to add FLAC support to the phone. It's simple:
I don't want to have to transcode formats to take them on the go. I have FLACs somewhere in my house, I want to be able to copy them to my phone and go. I don't want to guess or pick a suitable format. Just copy and play. Quality is irrelevant t
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Interesting)
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This happens more than you think. OSX, but I was trying to attach to my NAS, and Finder just wasn't cutting it. Dropped to a command line, and everything worked fine. Something about Samba v. AFS, IMS.
Occam's Razor: One of the beta testers tried to play FLAC. If you're Apple, now where are you? Gotta keep that "just works" thing going, but....
About @#%#ing time, IMHO.
Always on the cutting edge! (Score:2)
Pffft!
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Who knows. Maybe one day we'll be able to install our own apps on our own phones too. Oh joy.
Bare FLAC only, or also in Ogg? (Score:2)
If this only works for bare FLAC, then this is still kinda nice.
But if it works for Ogg FLAC, then this is a watershed moment, because Apple has been dragging their feet on everything related to the Ogg container etc ever since iTunes and the iPod appeared, and even though Microsoft is adding VP9 etc support they too are still dragging their feet on Ogg.
Support for the Ogg container could signal willingness to start supporting other open formats. If Safari added Opus support it would be a real boon.