Something about Apple audio file formats

I always hear about someone couldn't play some audio on Mac. So in this article, I'd like to show which format is Apple defined and how to play other audio files on Mac.

There are three audio formats defined by Apple:

• AIFF is used to store uncompressed audio data.
• CAF is used in Apple QuickTime, iTunes and other media player and creator.
• M4A same as MOV, but only contains audio stream.

All of the above audio format files can be played or edited well on iTunes, Quicktime player, FCP, iMovie, etc. Another popular audio format which can be played by almost all players on both Mac and Windows is MP3. MP3 (MPEG-1 Layer 3) defined by ISO-MPEH consists of a raw audio stream compressed in MP3 codec and an optional ID3 tag at the begin or end of the file.

How to convert lossless audio to Mac compatible audio? 

If your original audio file is lossless audio format, like OGG, FLAC, Monkey’s Audio .APE, Wavpack (.wv), TTA or WAV, in order to keep the best quality, try to find a tool to convert them it to AIFF. If lossing quality does not bother you much, MP3 is the best choice.