Possible develop middleware for Hardware (on Mac)

Hi, I am curios if it would be possible to develop kind of middleware for hardware components at least on macOS?

The idea is that I would like to be able to have an app for my audio input (e.g., the internal microphone of MacBook but also every other) that can handle the input before it is passed to any other application. Thus it would be possible to apply filters such as noise gate, compression, etc. before other apps like Skype or Facetime or anything else would receive it.

In general it would be a great feature of the OS if there would be a supported way to develop such apps for hardware middleware as an OS extension and distributed via the App Store. Of course with managed access to everything via security settings like there already is for every app.

As described this would enable a lot of features, in this example filters for audio where it can't be applied yet like it is possible in recording software or similar.

This concept could be applied for a lot of hardware, audio input, video input, video output, keyboard (of course as I said with security access management to prevent scamming), and a lot more.

So is there already something similar I could use at the moment for developing an audio filter app? Don't want to buy external hardware as middleware and this can't even applied to built in hardware like the built-in micro.
It sounds like you want an audio unit. See the documentation here:

I don't know if it is possible to do what you are asking. Generally speaking, it probably would not work for other apps. You could release an app of your own with your own audio units. But you probably cannot interfere with other apps' audio processing. At least, that's my guess.
Yeah sorry my question was half a question, half suggestion of macOS side feature for the future, with a supported framework from Apple for hardware input middleware apps. Like OS extensions. Would be cool, but my idea will probably not raise to much attention.

I will have a closer look though to the Audio Unit framework and others. Thx.

There are apps already that create a loopback virtual audio input that you can use. Cool but I wished more like a officially supported framework for intercepting a signal doing some logic on it without loopback since I discovered some apps (video / audio calls such as QQ and WeChat) that do not support selection of the input device within the app. Also applying filters with those loopback solutions is difficult. I came to this because I would like to improve the audio input without complicated loopback stuff for every app that uses the input.

Could be the same for video input, output, data buses, wifi, everything. In the end offering Apple and developers new kinds of Apps as macOS extensions (similar to Safari extensions).

Thx for the reply.
Possible develop middleware for Hardware (on Mac)
 
 
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