[ootachi]

This is incorrect. In the past, Apple has tended to prefer patented formats, because they are the holders of many of these patents and so increasing their use benefits them. If Apple had preferred patent-free formats at the time of the iPod, they would have chosen Vorbis, which has an open royalty-free encoder that is superior to QuickTime's rather poor AAC encoder.

Since the Apache license grants a patent license, this development regarding Apple Lossless would seem to be a reversal of their previous stances. I'm glad to see it.

Edit: That said, I agree with Dark Shikari that it would have been better had Apple Lossless never existed and if they had just used FLAC instead.

[hexley]

QuickTime has a poor AAC encoder? I don't think you'll find anyone credible who seriously believes that.

[ZeroGravitas]

I think it used to be just okay, now I believe it's one of the best.

http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/igorc/aac-96-a/resu...

Maybe he was getting confused with Quicktime's rubbish H.264 encoder (or the low quality of the open source AAC encoder)?

[ootachi]

Yeah, I was confused with the H.264 encoder (and the MP3 encoder). My mistake.

[rsynnott]

> If Apple had preferred patent-free formats at the time of the iPod, they would have chosen Vorbis, which has an open royalty-free encoder

That would have been a good trick, given that the very first release of Vorbis was only a year before the iPod hit the market.