ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) is Apple's lossless format, functionally equivalent to FLAC in compression and quality, and the native choice across iOS and macOS pipelines. Apple open-sourced it in 2011, but its real advantage is ecosystem: it is what the Apple Music lossless tier and the Apple device chain expect, packaged in MP4/M4A. Choosing between ALAC and FLAC is almost entirely about tooling rather than sound — Apple-centric workflows reach for ALAC, the broader open-source world for FLAC. Both halve a WAV losslessly; both are wrong for low-bitrate streaming, where a lossy codec belongs.
