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Topic: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC (Read 10371 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #25 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
Now if only Opus could catch on.

Seems inevitable now that Windows and Android have added support for it as a web technology.  The only major platform that doesn't support it is iOS, and that is probably only until Apple gets around to adding hardware decode support to its chips. 

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #26 –
saratoga, Microsoft Edge doesn't support Opus files in the <audio> tag. Opus support was added just for the WebRTC, so it is useless for all other cases.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #27 –
Quote from: VEG on
saratoga, Microsoft Edge doesn't support Opus files in the <audio> tag. Opus support was added just for the WebRTC, so it is useless for all other cases.

It took till Windows 10 for Microsoft to add native FLAC support to Windows.  Opus will probably get there in one of the WIndows 10 updates eventually.  I'm still waiting for Opus to add full ReplayGain support before I use it.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #28 –
Quote from: VEG on
saratoga, Microsoft Edge doesn't support Opus files in the <audio> tag. Opus support was added just for the WebRTC, so it is useless for all other cases.
No, not only for WebRTC. Edge supports Opus (and VP9) on websites using Media Source Extensions, e.g. YouTube. VP8 in Edge is for WebRTC only, though.
Rhythmbox, Flac + Vorbis, Sennheiser HD650 + Sony MDR-XB1000

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #29 –
Yes, Opus is supported in Edge only in the WebM container and by using the MediaSource API. I see on their Platform Status page that 'OGG Container' is 'Under Consideration' and 'Low Priority'.
I haven't tried to see you would be able to playback a WebM/WebA file with only one audio track and no video track.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #30 –
Quote from: Porcus on
- Selling you full-DR mixes? Un-re-masters? 23 "Full dynamic range edition" hits here: https://earache.bandcamp.com/music . Most are actually the original CD master, however there is at least one exception where the original US/European CD was cramped as well.

I don't know if it's the FDR version of Heartwork on Spotify, as I don't have an original CD to compare with. But I have to say, it sounds damn good.

I have to really commend Earache for releasing death metal albums with genuine dynamic range. I wish other labels would follow suit.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #32 –
apastuszak:
Yeah, that's my point precisely. People don't even understand that the zeroes and ones have to be DAC'ed in order to be human-audible. No wonder that snake oil sells ...

KozmoNaut:
There are three versions of Heartwork on Spotify. In the Full Dynamic Range, "Buried Dreams" is 4:00 and not 3:59.
(I actually don't think the remastered version of Heartwork is that bad. The cymbals are not destroyed. Then OTOH I have listened to Death Magnetic during the last hour. )
High Voltage socket-nose-avatar

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #33 –
Quote from: Rollin on
Quote from: apastuszak on
iPhone 7 dropped the headphone jack
Why so much panic about this? Quality of Lightning Audio Adapter is very good - http://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/amp/apple-lightning-audio-adapter-a1749.php

The real complaint is having to use an adapter at all.  If you forget your adapter, then you're not listening to music.  I know people that have bought a half dozen of these things and leave them lying around all over place.

One Mac podcast I listen to, a gentleman went to Europe and forgot his dongle.  Long plane ride with no headphones.  When he got back to the US, he traded his phone in for a 6S.

Other than some placebophiles, I don't hear anyone complaining about sound quality of the dongle.  It's more the fact that you need to use a dongle at all.

I have an iPhone 6S.  As an experiment I bought the dongle and tried to use it for 2 weeks straight and pretended I didn't have a headphone jack.  The fact that I couldn't charge and listen to music at the same time was pretty annoying.  But even more annoying was when I lost the dongle and couldn't listen to music at all.

It would be nice if someone made a "dongle" with a 1.2m cable built into the end.  Or if Apple sold a 10 pack of these.  Or even better if they switched to USB C, which allows analog audio pass-through and sold dongles for 99 cents.
 

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #34 –
Quote from: Porcus on
apastuszak:
Yeah, that's my point precisely. People don't even understand that the zeroes and ones have to be DAC'ed in order to be human-audible. No wonder that snake oil sells ...

I just heard the best placebophile quote today "Even if two pieces of audio equipment measure exactly the same, they can still sound completely different."  It's statements like this that makes snake oil sell.  Placebophiles are so obsessed with their gear, they don't even care about the music.  They talk about how some amp makes an album they have sound more spatial and airy, and look at you cross eyed when you tell them that the album has an album gain value of  -12, and is going to sound like brickwalled crap no matter how much money you throw at your gear.

There are a lot of placephiles that are thrilled that the iPhone "no DAC," because now they can get their own.  When I point out it still has a DAC, you just have no way to access it any more with your headphones, they get all sorts of confused.

It seems the laws of physics and basic electronics escape the average placebophile.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #35 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
I just heard the best placebophile quote today "Even if two pieces of audio equipment measure exactly the same, they can still sound completely different." 
Actually, I don't think that is close to the best/worst. Whether we can "measure" well enough with a microphone in a room is a matter of the current state of the art of measurement gear. But when it gets as specific as the topic of this thread -  lossless codecs where we can "measure" that zero bits differ - then we are really talking. You know, digital audio is allegedly forever corrupted by encoding to FLAC even if it decodes to bit-identical to the PCM. (If only those people knew that .WAV is actually a container format.)
High Voltage socket-nose-avatar

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #36 –
I read the linked thread where the merits of WAV vs AIFF was discussed, with a general conclusion that WAV was slightly more airy and open than AIFF is.

Placebophiles are just unbelievable sometimes.

When it comes to this thread, I now wonder if Apple is going to sell lossless music in CD quality, or if they're going to go straight to "hi-res."

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #37 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
It would be nice if someone made a "dongle" with a 1.2m cable built into the end.  Or if Apple sold a 10 pack of these.  Or even better if they switched to USB C, which allows analog audio pass-through and sold dongles for 99 cents.

There are dongles for under $10 which have a headphone jack and a power port; I bought one for my 6S in order to make sure it worked (eventually I'll own a 7); and sure enough it does.  If I had a 7 and cared about a headphone jack  I'd just leave it attached.  I don't really need one; I use Bluetooth in the car as it integrates with my stereo to allow hands-free calling as well as streaming.  If I really need portable music, my phone doesn't have enough memory for a usable portion of my library anyway; that's what my FiiO or iPod are for, and they're much less hassle to use.

Incidentally, expect all Apple gear to migrate to USB-C eventually.  My MBP has it, and it seems to work with everything from external hard drives to USB thumb drives to video adapters.  Since it's bidirectional, even my VGA video adapter's extra -C port can be used to supply power to an external device or to plug in the AC adapter.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #38 –
If Apple does start selling FLAC it'll likely be the beginning of the true end of the audio CD format.  They will be little point in picking up CDs unless it's a very rare album or some kind of collectable and has no online store re-release or the CD master is better than the re-released iTunes version that's available.  It's not even the matter of if they go high res or just stick to sensible sample rates and bit depths, it's the matter that once they do so at all that kills the format.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #39 –
Quote from: Nichttaub on
Quote from: apastuszak on
It would be nice if someone made a "dongle" with a 1.2m cable built into the end.  Or if Apple sold a 10 pack of these.  Or even better if they switched to USB C, which allows analog audio pass-through and sold dongles for 99 cents.

There are dongles for under $10 which have a headphone jack and a power port; I bought one for my 6S in order to make sure it worked (eventually I'll own a 7); and sure enough it does.  If I had a 7 and cared about a headphone jack  I'd just leave it attached.  I don't really need one; I use Bluetooth in the car as it integrates with my stereo to allow hands-free calling as well as streaming.  If I really need portable music, my phone doesn't have enough memory for a usable portion of my library anyway; that's what my FiiO or iPod are for, and they're much less hassle to use.

Incidentally, expect all Apple gear to migrate to USB-C eventually.  My MBP has it, and it seems to work with everything from external hard drives to USB thumb drives to video adapters.  Since it's bidirectional, even my VGA video adapter's extra -C port can be used to supply power to an external device or to plug in the AC adapter.


I solved this problem by streaming music out of my house.  Now it doesn't matter how much space my phone has.

I need to look for these dongles.  The $10 on Amazon all get horrible reviews.  I got another year on my iPhone 6S.  We'll see where Apple takes this in another year.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #40 –
Quote from: Chibisteven on
If Apple does start selling FLAC it'll likely be the beginning of the true end of the audio CD format.  They will be little point in picking up CDs unless it's a very rare album or some kind of collectable and has no online store re-release or the CD master is better than the re-released iTunes version that's available.  It's not even the matter of if they go high res or just stick to sensible sample rates and bit depths, it's the matter that once they do so at all that kills the format.

You have been able to buy legal FLACs from places like 7digital for a while now and the CD is still around.  The big plus for a CD is no watermarks.  I reached out to 7digital and they confirmed all their tracks contain a digital watermark that is not personally identifiable, but does identify the track as being downloaded from 7digital.  They claim the watermark is not audible, and since it's in the music itself, it hangs around between format conversion.

iTunes selling FLACs does solve a problem for me, though (or even ALAC).  I like FLAC simply because I consider it archival.  And there are often "iTunes exclusive" tracks on some albums.  There are times I have bought the CD and then went back and bought the iTunes version to get the 1-2 bonus tracks (usually at some point when the album is discounted.)  If I could just buy the whole thing in FLAC or ALAC on iTunes, that would be make life easier and cheaper.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #42 –
It's a shame they didn't add support for Opus and Ogg Vorbis.  That, to me, is more important than FLAC support.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #43 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
It's a shame they didn't add support for Opus and Ogg Vorbis.  That, to me, is more important than FLAC support.
According to xda-developers, IOS11 adds some Opus support:
https://www.xda-developers.com/ios-11-android-support-opus-audio-codec-mp3-successor/

Edit: More info
https://hetzel.net/2017-06-12/ios-11-opus-support-in-podcast-feeds/

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #44 –
Opus only in CAF containers?

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #45 –
How do I put Opus in a CAF container with foobar2000?

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #46 –
Agreed on the FLAC iTunes support, would be nice to be able to not have to worry about re-transcoding anything just to use that app and my lossless files.

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #47 –
Quote from: burkjavier on
Agreed on the FLAC iTunes support, would be nice to be able to not have to worry about re-transcoding anything just to use that app and my lossless files.
Considering the new Apple TV presented two days ago now lists FLAC as the supported formats I wouldn't at all be surprised if iTunes adds FLAC support shortly.

Quote
HE-AAC (V1), AAC (up to 320 Kbps), protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (up to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, FLAC, AIFF and WAV; AC‑3 (Dolby Digital 5.1) and E‑AC‑3 (Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound)
https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-tv-4k/specs/
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #48 –
Quote from: Brand on
EDIT: I tried installing the last iTunes (12.7.0.166), but it didn't recognize my FLAC files.

I suppose the phones aren't actually available yet so I assume it'll come in a release before then?

Re: Apple IOS 11 to support FLAC

Reply #49 –
iTunes 12.7 doesn't support FLAC files, but QuickTime on High Sierra does, as does the Finder play preview feature. It even supports embedded album artwork for the icons.
 
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