Audio
Apple's audio stack, from playback and recording to plug-ins, MIDI and spatial sound.
Introduced
2001
Mac OS X
Kind
Framework
Runs on
iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro
Get it from
iOS
2.0+
iPadOS
2.0+
Mac Catalyst
13.1+
macOS
10.0+
tvOS
9.0+
visionOS
1.0+
watchOS
Works in Swift Playground ›3.0+
Overview
Apple's audio technologies cover the whole range: audio sessions and playback, recording and realtime processing with AVAudioEngine, Core Audio for working close to the hardware, Audio Unit plug-ins, Core MIDI and immersive sound with PHASE.
Spatial Audio and head tracking with AirPods let sound place itself around the listener.
AVAudioEngine
Realtime recording, mixing and effects.
Audio Units
Plug-ins for instruments and effects.
Core MIDI
MIDI 2, Bluetooth LE and network MIDI.
Spatial Audio
Immersive sound with PHASE and AirPods.
History
How it grew up.
2001
Core Audio
Arrives with Mac OS X.
2014
AVAudioEngine
A modern graph for realtime audio.
2015
Audio Unit Extensions
Plug-ins come to iOS.
2021
PHASE
Geometry-aware spatial audio for apps and games.