Core Audio

In Core Audio is a set of application programming interfaces ( APIs ) of the Apple operating system Mac OS X and iOS for real-time internal audio processing, as well as the connection and control of external audio hardware.

These interfaces provide the operating system side, a direct connection to the Hardware Abstraction Layer available, making the necessary ability for real-time low latency are possible. For the usage is the front-end developer with many APIs ( Audio Units, OpenAL, MIDI, AudioToolbox, etc.) provided the so-called application level services.

Core Audio was already shipped with the first version of Mac OS X 10.0 and is an integral part of the system. In iOS it is included since version 2.0.