Apple Lossless Encoding
Apple Lossless Encoding (also known as Apple Lossless, Apple Lossless Audio Codec or ALE) is an audio codec developed by Apple Computer, for lossless encoding of digital music.
Apple Lossless Encoding was introduced along-side iTunes 4.5 in April 2004.
Apple Lossless data is stored within an MP4 container with the filename extension .m4a. Contrary to popular belief, Apple Lossless is not a variant of AAC, but a totally new codec. iPods with a dock connector and recent firmware can play Apple Lossless encoded files.
Typical compression ratios from AIFF source files on a CD are 3:4, i.e., three fourths the size of the original file.
