It is pretty much known amongst audiophiles that listening to music in the MP3 format is definitely not the best way to go about it as usually audiophiles tend to favor lossless formats, such as FLAC. However not all platforms support the format, such as Apple’s iOS, but it seems that has changed with iOS 11.
iOS 11 was recently announced and with it a new Files app. For those unfamiliar, the Files app basically provides a central location for various cloud storage services, meaning that users won’t need to open multiple apps to access their files, especially if they use different services at the same time. Thanks to this, it has been noted by a user on Reddit that if you were to try and play FLAC files from iCloud Drive in iOS 11, it will not run into any issues.
The post by atm153 reads, “Yup. I’m as shocked as you are. Throw some FLACs in iCloud Drive or whatever and you can play them back directly on the device in Files. Tested on my 6S Plus on iOS 11 Beta 1.” However this is hardly an ideal experience as it does not appear to be integrated into Apple’s other services and apps, such as Apple Music.
Perhaps it could be a sign of things to come in the future where maybe ahead of iOS 11’s release this fall, Apple could update iTunes where FLAC files will be supported. Either way it looks like this will be closest we will get to iOS supporting FLAC for now.