While no one cares much about FLAC use in small apps and hardware devices, were a big company such as Apple – or Microsoft, who doesn’t support FLAC either – to start supporting that format, it’s very likely that someone would dredge up a patent and seek copious damages. Many open source software algorithms can be targets of patent trolls. Supporting FLAC in iTunes and on iOS devices could be a legal nightmare for Apple. mp4 container, and have the same file extension.) (Note that Apple Lossless files look, in the Finder or Windows Explorer, exactly like AAC files, because they use an.

In October, 2011, Apple let the Apple Lossless format go open source, so anyone can use it in hardware or software.

Introduced in 2004, Apple Lossless – sometimes called ALAC – provides the same bit-for-bit quality as FLAC, and is supported by iTunes and iOS devices. (See this article for some examples of Apple Lossless compression results.)Īpple Lossless is Apple’s home-brewed lossless codec. On average, lossless files – in FLAC or Apple Lossless format – are about half the size of the original, uncompressed music on CDs. These are files that use data compression to shrink the size of audio files, the same way zip compression makes an image much smaller than its original size.

There’s no conspiracy or lock-in here there’s a very logical reason why Apple, and iTunes, don’t support FLAC.įirst, a quick overview of lossless audio files. Users are surprised that Apple doesn’t support FLAC files, and generally rant against Apple not supporting open source formats. Any help appreciated.I often get emails asking how to play FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) files in iTunes. I have relooked at your instructions but don't know how to apply these points to latest version of batch converter. If garym is looking at this you helped with my original issues in a thread called Batch Converting dated 07/29/13. I have moved over to a Mac since my 2013 issues and have the latest versions of batch converter but am at a loss where to start in order to maintain the folder structures when converting?Īlso reason I am doing this is that many of my albums when played via iPhone or iPad (using iCloud) don't show track names but list them as genres and I think this is down to using my original converted mp3 file as the source library for my apple music. I'm having a similar problem as all my attempts at converting FLAC to lossless music is showing as lists of songs but not contained within albums. I did batch convert to MP3 a few years ago (with great help from garym back in 2013). I am looking to batch convert my large FLAC library to Apple lossless to allow me to play on the go via all my istuff. Been using dbpoweramp for many years, mainly for ripping CDs to FLAC.

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