Apple's Present: iTunes Supports Ogg Files

curious.corn writes "I may be a fool (and a happy Christmas Mac OS X newbie ;-) but it seems that this morning's software update brought a really cool cadeau to Mac OS X. How 'bout Ogg file integration in iTunes? Yesterday evening I could only play them in QuickTime (after downloading a component somewhere) this morning I updated iTunes and am enjoying my old Linux playlists. Buon Natale a tutti voi Edo."

Comments

Nope, no iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

it's that codec you downloaded. It also hooked itself into iTunes. Apple has made it clear they won't support Ogg, at least in the forseeable future.

Re:iPod

[Fuzzle]

No it doesn't. And I can't find this update that the person is talking about. I think he may be mistaken, because the component that he was talking about has always allowed you to play .OGG files in iTunes. Maybe he's just never tried it. Can we get a URL for the update?

Sorry folks...

[Squidgee]

But it seems he's wrong. I just ran Software Update on my iBook, and there is no iTunes update. There is an iPod update, but it doesn't add anything to iTunes; just allows the 'pod to keep track of its battery better, plus some other minor tweaks.

But don't fret! You can run .ogg files in iTunes; in fact, I'm doing so right now! While it may not have been posted on Christmas, and it may not be from Apple, consider it a christmas present anyways. Here it is. Merry Christmas! =)

What Really Happened

[nichrome]

There is no iTunes update that adds OGG support. This is why the original reporter things there is: 1. He installed an open source OGG component for QuickTime. iTunes uses QuickTime for playback. 2. He installed the iTunes 3.0.1 update, which keeps reappearing in the Software Update panel on non-U.S. localizations. 3. He thought the new (=old) iTunes update added OGG support when it was actually the QT component that did it; and the iTunes update didn't actually do anything, since it is an old update that the update server is pushing as a new one.

Silly Penguin...

[Migelikor1]

This article is a bit mistaken. The most recent software update offered by Apple is the the OS X 10.2.3 Update on 2002-12-19. This is information directly from the Apple website.

What the poster discovered is that iTunes uses quicktime to decode MP3s. That's no secret. iTunes can actually play back anything that quicktime can read, so .mpg, .mov, .wav, even .avi and .ogg files with the proper codec will play back in iTunes if they are added to a playlist. I have a couple movie trailers thrown into my playlist...they play back just like audio only tracks. This post is the case of someone feeling clever for discovering a feature in his software.

What would be news is if the iPod's more hardware based decoding gained support for more formats. That is the one that Apple has announced no development for.

How about no?

[Emmettfish]

This story is incorrect as much as a first-person interpretation of events can be construed as 'incorrect.'

Apple does not support the Ogg Vorbis format in iTunes. There is a QuickTime component available that will enable you to play Vorbis files in iTunes, but due to it being a QuickTime hack (as opposed to format support within the application itself), certain things do not work as expected, and OS X will not properly associate Ogg Vorbis files as 'iTunes-compatible.'

So, there's the straight dope. I'm sorry if people are confused and irritated about this; We didn't submit this story.

If you do need help playing Vorbis files, please drop in on #vorbis on irc.xiph.org; Our crack team of off-topic ranters and audio illuminati are standing by 24/7, even during this busy holiday season. :)

As a side note, we're hacking like crazy this week! Want to help out? Stop by the IRC server and join #xiphtech for a quick run-down. Thanks!

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation