I see no point as to why Apple introduced their own format which can't compete with other lossless codecs on the market as far as technical merit is concerned. But Apple does that quite often (Darwin). And then they don't give the users a choice and for some reason that makes them happier as the above post by solaris suggests.

To me, whatever Apple does is to constantly exploit the ignorance of the consumers. Hell, they even screw their customerbase by demanding money for every minor OS upgrade.

This phrase explains it all:
Its beauty is skin deep, its uglyness goes right to the bone.

The reason products like iTunes, Apple lossless, Darwin, etc. are used is because most people are plain lazy. It is also why there are so many bug-ridden, virus-infected, bloated computers in the world and why sub-par companies like MS thrive.

OS zealotry wars are a joy.

This thread got plagued by it faster than usual. Kudos to the posters

I had the same opinion until I read a user report somewhere around here that ALAC/ALE/whatever compresses more quickly on Mactinosh than competing CODECs (I believe FLAC was compared), probably due to differential optimization for the PowerPC architecture and it's SIMD extensions.
Apple could have snagged FLAC or WavPack or whatnot and optimized the hell out of it for PowerPC and added FairPlay in if they needed, but that could have taken nearly as long as just writing their own.


There is something to be said for a single option that actually works correctly most of the time and doesn't require a significant input of effort, time and study to use properly.
Perhaps you'd enjoy it if I railed against people who don't brew their own beer, or synthesize their own biodiesel for fuel? By driving a gasoline engine auto or motorbike you're severely limiting your options on the type of fuels you can run, whereas my diesel VW can run on transesterified soybean oil.
People who don't make their own auto fuel are just plain lazy.

Calling MS a sub-par company doesn't make any sense to me. Companies exist to make money, and MS does that better than almost anyone. You can bitch about their products, but you cannot argue their profits.

You would not be so flippant if you were using an Amiga, heathen!

right, and i don't see pimps and drug pushers going out of business either

you'll be amazed at their ability to dig up the funds, but their practices in doing so can surely be questionable - as is perhaps their marketing approach

...sorry about the slippery slope approach, but your logic needed a kick in the groin


later

OS X has received 21 (IIRC) minor updates, each of which was free. Not that this has anything to do with lossless codecs....


If you're an iTunes user, you had no lossless choice before. Now you do, and that makes some people happy.


Yes, every Mac user is only attracted to the platform out of laziness.