Apple petition to support open-source FLAC lossless audio codec

I encourage all people who are interested in iPods, iTunes, iPhones and Apple TVs being able to natively support FLAC to contact Apple (politely) and ask for Apple to adopt this open-source free lossless standard format (FLAC) in all their audio products. That way Apple will truly have open, standard (read non-proprietary) support in their popular iPod, iTunes and other products that can freely be read by other competitior's software and hardware products.

The more open formats that Apple adopts, the better we all are. Being tied into proprietary Microsoft WMA (DRM and non-DRM) and Apple ALAC formats is not wise in the long run and will require audio conversions in the future. Better to support a popular, non-proprietary, free lossless format now.

Mehr:

Would you like iTunes to support FLAC? So would we!

Due to the design of iTunes, only Apple can add support for FLAC [1]. And why wouldn't they? FLAC usage is accelerating, many bands like Pearl Jam, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Metallica -- the same hip, influential people whose fans Apple courts -- are already distributing music in FLAC format, and users are clamoring for it in the iTunes forums:

* [2] "I have seen a lot of people on live music message boards turn away from the iPod because there are other music players that support FLAC. I am on the verge... and I am an Apple die-hard!"
* [3] "If your source material is FLAC (as many bands have gone this way to distribute online music) your choice is to use another music player ..."
* [4] (many more requests)

Make your voice heard! Fill out the iTunes feedback form (politely!) and let them know. Feel free to also direct them to this page. We at the FLAC project stand ready to help as well.

XiphQT, through tremendous effort by developers, goes as far as possible in allowing some playback capability via QuickTime. But proper iTunes support -- tag handling, no import delays, etc. -- is not possible without Apple.



FLAC support in Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” SDK?
What does it mean "supported (...) via its developer SDK"? That's a quite inaccurate statement and I don't think word "supported" can be used with what there is in the Leopard developer SDK. An example implementation of an AudioCodec built on top of libFLAC is all there is. Without any attempts to support any container file format that is used for FLAC (native FLAC, Ogg FLAC) it's of no use to normal users, and of little use even to developers. And there are no "FLAC tools embedded in the Leopard SDK".

For interested a bit more details on that subject in my post here. =>

ALSO BITTE HIER NACH FLAC FORDERN: