I'm hoping future Apple chips have AV1 decode support as well. If Intel, Google, Qualcomm, and Apple all add AV1 support in hardware, it would become the gold standard as far as codecs go. Right now it's all a mixed bag.
b) CoreGraphics and CoreAnimation are underpinned by Metal. If you were building an OS that was going to be used by every device you make (computer, phone, tablet, monitor, watch, TV streamer, headset) would you rely on an open source project that you don't control and may have different values, wishes, roadmap etc than you.
Apple's XNU kernel is a derivation of open source OSFMK and FreeBSD kernels, and Apple's Darwin has large components of FreeBSD userland. They use (se)L4 for running their Secure Enclave.
I remember in the early days of MacOS where entries from the FreeBSD release notes would appears as word-for-word copies in the Apple ones.
Apple's involvement with OpenGL for decades didn't mean they wouldn't abandon it and roll their own.
Apple's involvement with MPEG for decades doesn't mean they won't abandon it and roll their own.
(I don't know codes well, this is an honest question.)
In comparison compression systems designed for playback, like AV1, can have more occasional key-frames (points that you can easily jump to, then work your way to other frames), and it is more ok to have compression artifacts, especially ones that are just going to look like motion blurs when played back.
So the compromises between features and size of the output stream are different.
As someone who mainly cares about blu-ray / large movies, I was under the impression that HEVC was becoming the gold standard. Is that not the case, and/or is AV1 the next iteration, and/or do they solve different problems?
AV1 is supposedly a "free" format, but I wouldn't bet my business on it. The patent situation is unclear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#Patent_claims
Except that's not how legal cases work.
Just because all three of you infringe doesn't mean lawsuits will result for all three.
It's quite likely they would allow Youtube and Netflix to continue infringing to promote the growth and adoption of the codec whilst they go after smaller players who won't be able to put up a fight.
This is why grassroots-scale efforts to defend against patent trolls are so important - you absolutely have to prevent precedence case building for patent trolls or it becomes so much harder down the road.
You can try and invalidate the patent but in a situation like this where the patent holders are serious companies and legitimate innovators it's unlikely to get you far.
And yes it is very common to bully lots of smaller players rather than get into an expensive protracted lawsuit with a large one.
I am not aware of this being the case for either company.
In a lot of jurisdictions a 3rd party can join a lawsuit, it's called an intervention [1].
I'm not fully aware on US law, but e.g. in NL all large internet providers joined a lawsuit as defendants when a copyright enforcer wanted 1 to block The Pirate Bay.
Notice also that the encoder implementation is as important as the codec format itself for the quality/bitrate ratio.
Where are you getting that information?
Paying off _some_ patent holders doesn't put you in the clear for all the others. No licensing pool indemnifies you against all other claims. There's never an exhaustive list of patents that apply to any particular product. "Competing product's patent situation is unclear" is always true, no matter the product (unless it's at least some 20+ years old, which should make it _somewhat_ safe because applicable patents expired). Bringing it up to favor one product over another is FUD though because it's true for the other product just as well.
The patent regime is an extortion racket: patent offices hand out exclusive rights for money, without accepting any responsibility that these rights are warranted. They don't even guarantee that their own catalog is free from conflicting rights.
VVC was finalized in 2020 and there is some influence backing it already where although DVB will evaluate AV1, they've already hopped on VVC.