HP Working With Apple To Add WMA Support To iPod

iPod Afficianado writes to a short piece at Connected Home magazine in which Paul Thurrott "is quoted as saying that HP's blockbuster deal with Apple will have one exciting side effect. The company will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to the iPod by mid-year."

Comments

Superior?

[Squareball]

Superior??? WHAT??? WMA??? Oh god! Leave it to Paul.

Re:Superior?

[Anonymous Coward]

Superior to unencrypted audio (from a record company's point of view).

Re:Superior?

[Logicdisorder]

There are some people at HP that need to get off the pipe. Fuck WMA, it is crap, total crap. I thought Apple would have told them to get stuffed. Wishful thinking here - they should get OGG support going on the iPod. That is the main reason I will not get one.

Re:Superior?

[DdJ]

I do know one way in which WMA is superior to both MP3 and AAC. There's support for lossless compression in WMA.

Ironically, this makes it the ideal format for recompressing files that you decompressed in order to remove their DRM.

Re:Superior?

[AKAImBatman]

The "WMA superior" troll is not the only thing that stinks here. This is being reported by "Connected Home Mag" which I've never heard of before. It also states that "onlookers were surprised". Surprised where? At the recent Apple conference? We didn't hear it there. At an HP conference? Why hasn't anyone else picked up the story? I think this article is a load of B.S. At least until I see an official announcement from HP or Apple.

Re:Superior?

[Enahs]

OTOH, nobody I've met IRL has ever mentioned anything non-MP3. Not FLAC, not WMA, not AAC. Nobody gives a fuck about either WMA or AAC, except that those two are being crammed down their throats by places like Apple Music Store and BuyMusic.com. Most frequently asked question "can I convert this to MP3, and how will it sound if I do?"

I use Ogg Vorbis, but it's far from trendy, yeah.

Re:Superior?

[afidel]

I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate it.
But, I disklike it. There are many reasons but the main ones are:
1)inferior quality
2)DRM
3)It's being pushed by a convicted monopoly

Point 1 I can easily justify because WMA at the max supported bitrate is the only codec I could detect 100% is a double blind test, codecs tested were LAME VBR with --alt-preset fast extreme, Ogg Vorbis with Oggdrop's max VBR setting, WMA 8 Max VBR setting, and WAV source. Point two should be self explanatory, but if you must know I dislike the idea that I am renting the music from whomever decides my equipment should be blessed to play their format. As to the third I do as much as I can to fight a company that is out to crush all competition no matter what illegal methods they must employ.

Re:Superior?

[hype7]

I wanted it. My brother wanted it. I own a Neuros and he now owns a Karma. Entirely because of the Ogg Vorbis support (I got my Neuros a few days before it became the first player to support Ogg Vorbis because they said they were supporting it and I said I'd buy the first player with support so I did). I spent a bit over $400 on my Neuros, which is what an iPod would have run me. Apple would have gotten my money if they had had Ogg Vorbis support because I don't use MP3.

Whilst they might make a lot of noise here on /. , people who want Vorbis support in their MP3 players are akin to people who want MiniDisc player support in their cars.

They're kinda weird, and few & far between... :)

-- james

Re:Superior?

[harlows_monkeys]

So a closed source, proprietary format that defaults to a lower bitrate is superior?

As opposed to the proprietary AAC format? The only difference is whether you make your check out to Microsoft or Dolby. If you want a non-proprietary format, there is only one choice: Ogg Vorbis.

Re:Superior?

[hype7]

I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate it.

I probably would go so far... and what's more, from a strategic standpoint I don't see why Apple wants to do this.

People are buying iPods - not WMA players. If that's the case, it *makes sense* to tie them to the Apple store.

The number of people downloading from the other stores, when all combined and added up, do not match those downloading from the iTunes store.

So, you're tacitly acknowledging the other standard (and there are no other players that do the same for the AAC standard), and you're encouraging people to download from the other stores.

There are two potential explanations I can come up with: Apple is looking at the iTunes store as nothing more than a figurehead, it's not going to make them money and they want to transfer customers out; or two (and way out in leftfield) HP is acting as a proxy for MS so as to get the #1 portable music player compatible with WMA.

Whilst sure, WMA on the iPod is a good trick to have up your sleeve, right now it just doesn't make sense for Apple to do it...

-- james

Re:Superior?

[b17bmbr]

i've purchased a few albums from iTMS. it comes in at 128k. select the album, burn an audio cd, then put the cd in and re-rip it. sound quality is good. you'd probably need some high grade equipment to tell the difference. okay, so it's not cd quality. fine. but in most mp3 players, i'd say that you'd need some really good ears to notice. and then you can burn an audio cd for playback anywhere without any drm. small price to pay, i'd say. but of course i'm only an afficianado, not a conesieur.

Re:Superior?

[Geekenstein]

Ahem, "convicted monopoly"?

Being a monopoly is not a crime. Abusing a monopoly is. Please remember this. Thanks.

Re:Superior?

[AKnightCowboy]

it comes in at 128k. select the album, burn an audio cd, then put the cd in and re-rip it. sound quality is good. you'd probably need some high grade equipment to tell the difference.

Sounds like a lot of work. What if I just download the mp3 in 192kbps format through Poison and pretend I bought it? Would God still hate me?

Re:Superior?

[You're All Wrong]

That's why he said "convicted monopoly", do distinguish them from those, who by neverhaving bee convicted of abusing a monopoly position, are not convicted monopolies.

Simple, eh?

YAW.

Re:Superior?

[Chmarr]

I think he meant to say "convicted illegal monopoly"

Re:Superior?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a comparison of various lossless formats:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/comparis on.htm

WMA doesn't come out on top.

Re:Superior?

[Durandal64]

AAC is open; you just have to pay licensing fees for it. In other words, third parties can make AAC encoders which yield different results (it looks like Apple's AAC encoder is the best at the moment), but they have to pay royalties. The same is not true of WMA.

Re:Superior?

[ceejayoz]

So, you're tacitly acknowledging the other standard (and there are no other players that do the same for the AAC standard), and you're encouraging people to download from the other stores.

Apple would gain some of the music player market share for those stores' users, instead of being completely locked out. As Apple has already said that iTMS doesn't make them money, and that it's merely supporting iPod sales, this allows their profitable iPod sales to go up even more.

It's win-win for them, as far as I can see.

Re:Superior?

[MsGeek]

Umm...you are obviously not a musician, are you?

My husband is one, and he definitely can tell the difference between something encoded as MP3 and something encoded as .OGG/Vorbis. And there is a difference. .OGG just sounds better to his ears.

This is why he's got .OGG files available for download next to the .MP3 files on his site. He could give a rat's ass about "Free as in Freedom," to him, the advantage is that it just sounds better to his ears.

Clown shoes? Shehyeahright...

Re:Superior?

[DeeKayWon]

WMA lossless cannot be decoded by regular WMA decoders. Microsoft doesn't even make an embedded WMA lossless decoder.

Re:Superior?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on now. You know Microsoft will dissect an iPod the day it's available, figure out some oddity in their WMA decoding, then issue an update to the Windows Media codecs used to encode WMAs to make them unplayable in iPods. Especially since Microsoft is coming out with their own player.

Scoff all you want, but Microsoft has done it before. Multiple versions of Microsoft Windows shipped with last-minute updates that were designed to break Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect.

Microsoft has also done it plenty of times to QuickTime in recent history. Issue an update that "mysteriously" disables some function of QuickTime, requiring Apple to update QT, another update comes out and QT is disabled again, etc.

Re:Superior?

[steve_bryan]

Ha, the Blaupunkt minidisc player in my car can beat up your car audio player. No, seriously, it is great and it didn't cost much because of the opinions of ill-informed people such as you. So I guess I should be saying thank you. It is easy to create discs using my Sony MDS-PC1 using the playlist editing program that runs on Mac or PC. You realize that MD is a popular format in the UK and other non-US location and Sony never gives up easily.

Re:Superior?

[togofspookware]

Besides, it shouldn't be about "what sounds better" at all. It should be about "what sounds closest to the original recording"

Really? Personally, I like my music to sound *good*. This is why I encode my friends' Deftones albums in lossy formats :)

DRM?

[stefanmi]

WMA is supported on more devices and players than Apple's AAC (w/DRM) and the iPod. BUT WMA support is IRRELEVANT if the Digital Restrictions Management that infests Microsoft products doesn't allow me to play it anywhere else anyway. I once had a free offer to download WMA files from some music service and found that once the files were copied to any other computer, they were useless anyway. Copying to a player which did play WMAs was fruitless as well. So the DRM (remember it's Digital RESTRICTIONS Management) is the overriding limiting factor, and not whether WMA is supported or not. All the other online music services are music RENTAL right? If so, I won't participate regardless of the format. Microsoft's argument is irrelevant until the WMA-supporting music services offer more lenient restrictions. I don't want my music to stop after I stop paying $19/month, I don't wanna have to worry if I bought the correct license to burn to CD for every single track I buy!

Re:DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's face it. No matter what Jobs says about the iTunes store being there *just* to boost iPod sales, it's fales. iTunes is a tour de force in the online world right now. The imitators out there suck. Well, some are really cool -- but they don't have even a fraction of the sales that iTunes does. iTunes right now holds a stranglehold on the online music buying industry.

The thing is that you get AAC only....that limits things. So, Apple can either let iTunes die in a decade or so (being generous here) when the iPod dies, or they can totally control the online music buying business.

This is just expanding iTunes into a product who's viability isn't tied solely to the iPod's success. Ogg and mp3 are out because they don't have DRM, but WMA is in because it does. Simple as that.

iTunes is growing up.

Re:DRM?

[TotallyUseless]

Do you know the difference between the iPod, and the iTunes Music Store? The iPod is the only thing listed as getting .WMA support. I would imagine the Store will continue to sell music in AAC format for the forseeable future.

Re:DRM?

[Feztaa]

Digital "rights" management is actually an accurate term, it can just be confusing. DRM manages your rights, that is, it controls when you are able to excercise your rights. In order to do this, it relies on various restrictions, so "digital restrictions management" is generally a better term.

Re:DRM?

[zurab]

This is just expanding iTunes into a product who's viability isn't tied solely to the iPod's success. Ogg and mp3 are out because they don't have DRM, but WMA is in because it does. Simple as that.

It is iPod getting WMA support, as others already stated.

But beyond that, I thought this was discussed several times already in response to previous related stories. First of all, iPods fully support MP3 format, so MP3 is in no way "out" and WMA "in." That's pure nonsense. Second, you can add encryption and DRM to any compression method with relatively same level of effort. There is nothing inherent in AAC or WMA that they "support" DRM and Vorbis and MP3 don't. Any of those streams can be encrypted and wrapped around with their respective containers. No DRM for Vorbis? Bullshit! A simple googling would show you otherwise.

So, moderators, stop moderating this trolling as insightful. If you don't know what you are moderating, then either go find out, or move on to the next post.

Superior?

[neonstz]

...support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio...

Superior? That's a new one.

Superior CRM?

[Esteanil]

"...superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format" ? Superior to *what*, did you say? .wav?

too easy

[mrpuffypants]

Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio

....too easy, I pass.

stupid formats

[seanadams.com]

first of all - superior to what?

secondly: I've had it with the codec wars. Let's let the big music/hardware/software companies keep duking it out and pissing away their resources fighting over mp3/aac/wma. Personally I'm re-ripping all my CDs once and for all to FLAC. If a better lossless codec comes along later, all I have to do is batch process them all and save some space. No worries about finding a new original to avoid lossy reencoding.

As far as my ears can tell, there is no appreciable difference between ANY of the lossy codecs about 192kbps. But they all seem to come with DRM these days, and that's just anacceptable.

Superior...

[jmv]

Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio

Will it also run on Microsoft's superior operating system so it can benefit from superior crashes and viruses?

Not sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure, but it looks like the article says WMA is superior.

Correct me if I misread it, though. Nobody in the comments seems to have anything to say on it.

- foad

Re:Not sure.

[r00zky]

Since it doesn't mentions what it is superior to, i'll concede the benefit of doubt in case it was being compared with the internal pc-speaker.

Steve, how could you?!

[ghettoboy22]

I'd like to see this WMA news confirmed by a few more sources - until then I'll definatly be taking this with a grain of salt. If true however, I guess the only thing I could say is I sure hope Jobs knows what's he's doing. If he goes and supports WMA, it wouldn't be too unreasonable to think the RIAA would want the iTMS to switch to the more restrictive WMA DRM, rather than the AAC I currently favor. If the iPod is going to support WMA, it would have to support the more-restrictive DRM as well.

From a pure "bottom-line" viewpoint, it would mean a big boost to iPod sales, as those people who's entire library is WMA, or even people who use "other" online music services can now enjoy the beauty that is iPod. While not a bad thing, it's still diluting the iPod brand IMHO.

I think I'd rather see the iPod stay AAC only.

Re:Steve, how could you?!

[BasilBrush]

I don't believe for one moment that he did. The only source is Paul Thurrott on winnetmag.com. He is a anti-Apple, pro-Microsoft commentator who's shown zero respect for the truth in the past. Indeed the "superior" reference rather gives that away doesn't it. Actually, did I say commentator? I meant troll.

Re:Steve, how could you?!

[mabhatter654]

But once wmas run on iPod, apple has lost it's edge... iPod would have no distinguishing features from any other player except price...And apple can't function in a price war. That's the beauty of the MS plan. The manufactures of hardware lead a race to the bottom while MS quitely taps all of them for cash without "getting its hands dirty". MS gets a dime from every other service & device...and when pickings get slim steps in and puts the winners out of business if they don't toe MS line.

here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our newly superior WMA overlords.

iTunes, QT and WMA?

[Saxton]

I don't think this is far fetched: WMA on iPods. If there's WMA on iPods, then there's WMA in iTunes. If there's WMA in iTunes, then there's WMA in QuickTime.

Maybe HP will go off on their own branch... but maybe not... just a thought.

-Aaron

Don't Worry...I'm Asking For It

[Jim_Hawkins]

Okay. Yes. I realize the guy said that WMA is suprerior. Now, I do have to say that I have recently been playing around with WMA files a bit.

1.) 64-bit WMAs do have a little less quality than 128-bit encodings of MP3's. However, because 64 is half the encoding of 128, this is only to be expected. However, unless you're specifically listening to it, you may never notice it.

2.) The WMAs are smaller in file size (even at the same bit encoding). This is nice. Especially if you plan to put the songs on some sort of MP3 player with limited memory.

3.) Yeah. The DRM thing sucks. I totally agree. This is why I chose not to go with WMAs in the end. (I was considiring converting my MP3s over.)

WMAs are not all bad. In fact, they do even have good qualities. But, the DRM overrides any benefit that they may have.

Re:Don't Worry...I'm Asking For It

[TCM]

2.) The WMAs are smaller in file size (even at the same bit encoding). This is nice. Especially if you plan to put the songs on some sort of MP3 player with limited memory.

How so? The bitrate implicitely fixes the size of the file. If it's 128kbps MP3 it will be 16000 bytes per second played. Same for WMA or whatever. If it's exactly the same playing time but different file size, then it's not the same bitrate*. Period.

*Only taking into account "raw" audio data. MP3 could have id tags that increase file size by some bytes without adding to playing time. Point remains.

Re:Don't Worry...I'm Asking For It

[harlows_monkeys]

Yeah. The DRM thing sucks. I totally agree. This is why I chose not to go with WMAs in the end. (I was considiring converting my MP3s over.)

It never occured to you to just turn the DRM off?

Without Vorbis, it is useless to *me*

[squarooticus]

Yes, I'm sure I will get plenty of replies stating that Vorbis support doesn't matter. Well, sucks for Apple: they're not getting my $400 because they don't support Ogg Vorbis, the format in which my 1,200 CD's/14,000 tracks are all encoded in. But these are the choices one must make, and they've made the calculation that they can do without Vorbis users' money. Time will tell whether this is a good calculation or not.

Re:Without Vorbis, it is useless to *me*

[Mononoke]

Well, sucks for Apple: they're not getting my $400 because they don't support Ogg Vorbis, the format in which my 1,200 CD's/14,000 tracks are all encoded in.

Well, sucks for Apple: they're not getting my $400 because they don't support Vinyl, the format in which my 1,200 LP's/14,000 tracks are all pressed in.

Somehow, I don't think Apple will miss the money.

Re:Without Vorbis, it is useless to *me*

[matastas]

So, I gotta ask: how many people outside the open-source/Slashdot community are really aware of Ogg? A dozen? Twenty, maybe?

Look, my parents can barely program the VCR, much less decide between audio codecs, and they're typically technologies buyers. They may not get the hardcore geek sale, but they'll get The Masses, and that's where the money is. DRM will give them a backlash, yes, but the codec wars are not fought in the Best Buy crowd. They're fought here. And frankly, we're about the only ones who give a damn.

Give The Masses something that's portable, sounds like a CD, and is flexible, and they'll buy it. Argue with them over open source vs. licensed and bitrates and OHMYGODMYHEADEXPLODED.

You get the picture.

Re:Without Vorbis, it is useless to *me*

[greygent]

Jesus, so don't buy an iPod. The rest of the world uses the MP3 format, so that's what Apple supports.

You shouldn't have picked some smalltime format to encode everything in. It doesn't make good financial sense to support every little "eleet" latest fad format that the relatively small population of Linux geeks whine about this week. Next week, it'll be "GNU KewlAudio" or something.

Apple has heard you and they obviously don't care (as Ogg Vorbis support still isn't there). So, buy something else and stop whining.

In other news...

[boatboy]

...Sony also announced today that it's newest CD player will support the superior 8-track and Vinyl formats. In addition, plans are underway to scrap the existing DVD line of products for the ultra-lo definition VHS format.

Re:In other news...

[Hoser McMoose]

Records often sound good, but it's not because the quality of the medium is good. In fact, it's just the opposite. Many people like the distortion added by vynal records, and most older music was written with the intention that such distortion would be added in. When you listen to the music on a CD with no distortion, it just doesn't sound as good because the original analog was mixed with the intention of getting some distortion on playback.

Sure, encoding to digital will lose you some data, and CDs aren't ideal. The use of a linear codec instead of a logrithmic one seems to me to be it's biggest mistake (this causes some problems at low volumes, which isn't exactly a strong-point for records either).

Most people who think vinyl is a better medium than CDs are under the mistaken belief that a) CD's can not reproduce an analog signal of an exact frequency (they can, up to their 1/2 the sampling frequency of 44.1KHz, ie 0 to 22.05KHz), or b) that the best records and sound system CAN exactly reproduce the amplitude of the sound wave (the signal to noise ratio of even the very best records and sound systems is not as large as the dynamic range of a CD).

Of course, as mentioned above, a more exact reproduction of the original does not always equate a better "sounding" copy.

So, what is the point exactly?

[feldsteins]

So does that mean iTunes will support WMA? I doubt it. Does it mean the iPod or iTunes will be able to play the particular flavor of DRM used in online music stores using WMA? I rather doubt that too. So what exactly does this get anyone?

And who would want to use WMA in iTunes or on your iPod, unless you were at least going to be able to play a competitor music store's goods.

And why on earth would Apple agree to opening up the iTunes/iPod combo to someone elses store?

Re:So, what is the point exactly?

[SugoiMonkey]

Apple doesn't make much money, if any, off of iTunes. They pretty much break even after paying off bandwidth costs and management fees. When it comes down to it they make the most money off the iPod which sells for a lot more than what it costs to make. If Apple could allow the playing of WMA files on the iPod they would have far more people purchasing the iPod; because, to tell you the truth the iTunes music store is pretty limited in size. I'm sure some of the other music sites out there have different collections, unfortunetly (for Apple) in WMA format. Anyway, they'll end up making money in the end.

The "superior" quote comes from Paul Thurrott...

[Senjutsu]

who, as near as I can tell, is some sort of sentient appendage growing on Bill Gates' ass. He has a whole site devoted to his particular brand of hyperactive boosterism.

This doesn't make sense for Apple

[Fortunato_NC]

They promote an alternative to WMA in the AAC format, and it seems that incorporating WMA support into the iPod would only hurt iTunes Music Store, since many of its competitors sell WMA files.

I wonder if WMA will be available only on HP's version of the iPod, and if so, will HP's device support the Macintosh?

Re:Here comes the VORBIS!

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

You're 5... 4... 3... 2... Late...

FP was ages ago.

Hey,

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard of this new audio codec called Ogg Vorbis. Is there any more information about it? I'm suprised no one has mentioned it in this thread yet.

Re:superior

[Darren Winsper]

I've already mentioned this several times before, but when Linux was first put on the iPod, they had an early version of Tremor (An integer-only Vorbis decoder) running at 80% realtime. Seeing as there have been numerous processor and memory optimisations in that time, not to mention ports to other embedded platforms which don't have as powerful processors as the iPod, I'd say the iPod could play back Vorbis.

Hello stuperior creatures

[inkswamp]

I thought laying flamebait in the article summaries died with the end of the "but they ruin it all by having a one button mouse" type posts. Anyway, I'm too tired to make a logical argument against it (and many others have done already) so I'll just fall back on an oldie but a goodie from Usenet. Come along kids... it'll be a trip down memory lane.

Drum roll, please...

The company will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio

You misspelled "crappy."

Ba-dum bum!

(Raucous laughter)

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. I'm here 'til Thursday.

ogg playback in iTunes

[rtm1]

Apple should be opening the code base to allow for Ogg playback

Someone at Apple is planning on iTunes someday supporting ogg playback. They've even got an iTunes-ogg icon all ready for when the day arrives. Go digging around in the iTunes package (at least on OS X) and look in Contents/Resources. They've got a bunch of icons there that they use for mp3, aac, wav, etc files there. Included are icons for wma and ogg. Why would they bother creating ogg and wma icons for iTunes if they didn't plan to eventually use them?

Re:ogg playback in iTunes

[jcr]

Why would they bother creating ogg and wma icons for iTunes if they didn't plan to eventually use them?

Possibly because you can already play .ogg files in iTunes if you have the appropriate QT plug-in installed, as I've been doing for about a year and a half?

Don't read too much into the icons.

-jcr

Re:Ogg Vorbis

[kelnos]

ogg vorbis is not (or rather need not) be DRM free. the ogg container format can certainly accomodate it, it's just that no one has actually implemented a DRM scheme for ogg. that's a common misconception - ogg is a container format - you can put video, audio, whatever in it (altho the original designers only wanted ogg to hold xvid video and vorbis audio, that's changed), any codec. the container format itself is extensible, and DRM can be built into it.

First of all....

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

HP is definitely on my shit list after Carly's little speech: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34804.html

Secondly, another DRM silliness to fiddle with? No thanks. I'm about to stop buying anything produced by Big Music and Big Film.

Re:First of all....

[DoorFrame]

Everyone's always ABOUT to do it. Have some courage and just do it. Don't talk about it, don't whine about, just do it.

Lots of things

[jcsehak]

first of all - superior to what?

1. A kick in the head.
2. Finding your girlfriend in bed with those twins that ride tiny motorcycles and hold the guiness record for the world's fattest men.
3. Poop.
4. Cleaning all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station, but only if all you had was a toothbrush.
5. Contracting one of those tiny fish parasites that swims up your stream of urine if you're peeing into the Amazon and lays eggs in your joystick.
6. Working in sales.

the list goes on...

As for your other part, AAC isn't strictly DRM. It's mp4, with the ability to slap DRM on it when it's made. A normal AAC extension is ".m4a," and a DRM one is ".m4p." I'm guessing they stand for "Mp4 Aac" and "Mp4 Protected."

I just ripped nearly all my CD's to 192 AAC. The general consensus seems to be that the sound quality is indistinguishable from the CD, and damned if I can tell a difference.

You are on the right track

[justMichael]

Rip to FLAC.

Then use this to encode to the codec of the week on the fly.

Yeah it takes more space, but gigs are cheaper than time (my time at least).

Think about it for a second

[JoeShmoe]

How is this really all that unusual? What if Apple released a WinCE version of Quicktime player that let you play Quicktime videos on an HP iPaq? But that iPaq can also play WMV files, so is this smart or stupid of Apple?

I would say smart, because now they have another platform for their content. So isn't the same true for audio? Isn't of looking at it as "Apple is letting WMA infiltrate their iPod!" why isn't it "Apple has expanded AAC to another major portable brand."? You don't think HP has the resources to design their own player? If they had, it would almost assuredly be using Microsoft blessed DRM hobby kit known as WMA. But then HP would need to make decent player software, and find a partner to provide content...by partnering with Apple, they are piggybacking on the success of the existing iTunes client and store. Meanwhile Apple now is selling a player every time someone buys an iPod or the HP version and now has a new customer for iTMS either way.

Apple gets a larger audience used to AAC and iTMS which will someday make a profit, no doubt about it. Maybe right now its a loss-leader to sell iPods, but what do you think will happen next year when music companies post their quarterly reports showing the profits from this major new (and free) income stream? What happens when Apple goes back to renew the contract and says "you know this free money pouring in? Well, you're going to settle for $.30 or we start giving priority placement to indie labels" Not to mention, with the release of GarageBand, Apple is about one puzzle piece away from becoming a completely end-to-end music enterprise, starting with a dude running GarageBand and ending with a thousand people clicking "Buy It Now" on iTMS.

- JoeShmoe
.

Re:Think about it for a second

[Selecter]

Mr. Shmoe is th only poster I have read so far on this topic that

A: makes any sense at all.

B: gets the big picture.

it's all about payback time. Apple lost the battle last time around, and this time they are gonna make Microsoft eat shit. It's all about the player itself and the music store, not what damned format the music is in.

When the iPod plays wma files, any leverage MS had is gone. iPod will GAIN market share, not lose it. It's the op system war all over again, only Apple is fighting the battle smartly this time and using it's competition's strengths to add to it's own, on it's own terms.

One iPod to rule them all. :)

Re: Not all with DRM

[the_2nd_coming]

platform lock-in?

Nero encodes to AAC, Real encodes to AAC and plays it, and there are a number of flash players I have read about over the last few weeks that are supporting AAC.

AAC is a NEW MPEG standard and it will take time to get the penetration that WMA and MP3 have, but eventually, it will be everywhere.

but I guess open to you means that LAME will encode it?

well LAME is illegal anyway since you have to technically pay for an MP3 licenses to encoded in that format......

have fun with your Ogg files and your 5 pound portable music player....I mean laptop.

Re:The "superior" quote comes from Paul Thurrott..

[gujo-odori]

He has a whole site

And I thought goatse was disgusting...

The explanation...

[EduardoFonseca]

Ah... the facts...

Paul Thurrott is the news editor for Windows & .NET Magazine. He writes a weekly editorial for Windows & .NET Magazine UPDATE (http://www.win2000mag.net/email) and writes a daily Windows news and information newsletter called WinInfo Daily UPDATE (http://www.wininformant.com).

from http://www.connectedhomemag.com/Articles/Index.cfm ?AuthorID=879

exciting?

[chunkwhite86]

HP's blockbuster deal with Apple will have one exciting side effect. The company will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio

I'm not sure how "exciting" this is to the average slashdotter. It doesn't mean jack to me, considering all my music is in either MP3 or OGG.

I think that would make a good /. poll: What format do you keep the majority of your music in?
- MP3
- WMA
- AAC
- OGG
- CowboyNeal just sings to me

Thoughts?

You guys take "superior" out of context...

[stefanlasiewski]

No no no, you guys are taking the word "Superior" out of context. This is understandable, since he has a few typos. He didn't mean "Superior Quality". Far from it.

He clearly meant "Superior" as in:

"Superior Officer", you know... the guy at boot camp who tells you to clean his boots with your tounge or he'll kick your ass.

"Mother Superior", the lady who wacks your knuckles with her yardstick and put's soap in your mouth for speaking out of turn.

"Superior", as in "above being affected or influenced; indifferent or immune" BY THE LAW.

They just think they're SOOOOOO superior...

Re: Not all with DRM

[jcr]

Consider this: who's seriously supporting AAC right now besides Apple?

Umm, HP, Pepsi, a bunch of record companies, a million iPod owners, and 70% of the online music buyers?

PLATFORM LOCK-IN.

You can get it for Mac and Windows. Sorry, no Linux, OS/2, BeOS or Amiga support, but there's always something you give up when you decide to buck the trend.

-jcr

Quote from Microsoft: Windows is about choice

[jonesvery]

It's technically a bit offtopic, but apparently MS was taken by surprise by the HP/Apple announcement, and wasn't able to put together a good spin quickly enough. The snip below is from a NY Times article:

Thursday the company appeared unprepared for the Apple-Hewlett agreement, which clearly stung Microsoft executives. They said the agreement would limit choice and harm consumers.

"Windows is about choice, you can mix and match all of this stuff," said David Fester, general manager of Microsoft's Windows digital media division. "We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services."

Priceless... :)

WMA *is* superior

[skintigh2]

Superior number of artifacts even at the highest "quality" setting, superior amount of information lost, superior amount of annoyance to a listener with any amount of hearing, superior at convincing people to stick with CDs, etc. etc. etc.

Licensing Issues

[CatPieMan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, doesn't MS make a lot of money by licensing the WMA technology to other companies (DVD players, Dell [for the jukebox], etc)?

So, if this were to be true, every sale of an iPod would generate revenue for MS.

Somehow I don't think that apple would really let this happen -- at least not to Apple branded models.

-CPM

Re:Licensing Issues

[phillymjs]

Doesn't Microsoft already own a huge chunk of Apple?

No. Below is my canned history of Microsoft's Apple stock, which I keep around to set straight misinformed individuals such as yourself:

August 6, 1997- Microsoft agreed to purchase $150 million in non-voting Apple preferred stock. Note that it was NON-VOTING stock-- so essentially this was just a goodwill investment in Apple. Microsoft was required to hold the stock for at least 3 years before selling. Another clause of this investment was that Microsoft was to continue to produce Macintosh products, including all new versions of the Microsoft Office product, for a period of five years. In exchange, Apple would make Internet Explorer the default web browser on Macs, and not sue the living hell out of Microsoft.* Microsoft has long since sold all of this stock, at a nice profit, I might add. This agreement expired in August 2002, and since then MS has occasionally made noise about discontinuing Mac Office.

* Strong rumors from several sources indicate that the 1997 deal was the public portion of a settlement made after Apple discovered substantial patent and/or copyright infringment by MS in Windows. Word is that there was a meeting between senior Apple and MS officials where Apple laid out the evidence and an ultimatum. Personally, I think there is some credibility to this, as Microsoft rarely if ever does anything that could be deemed 'nice,' especially to a competitor. There is, however, another school of thought that says Microsoft was only acting in their own self-interest, propping up Apple so they would have a competitor to point to when the antitrust thing really built up some steam. I question the use of the term 'propping up,' as Apple had a few billion in the bank at the time and did not need the $150M, and the government would have realized that.

~Philly

From iTunes 4.2 on Panther

[base3]

base3s-Computer:~ passerm$ ls -1a /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources
.
..
Dutch.lproj
English.lproj
French.lproj
German .lproj
Italian.lproj
Japanese.lproj
Spanish.lpr oj
da.lproj
fi.lproj
iTunes-aac.icns
iTunes-aa cp.icns
iTunes-aiff.icns
iTunes-audible.icns
iT unes-cd.icns
iTunes-database.icns
iTunes-device. icns
iTunes-eq.icns
iTunes-generic.icns
iTunes- itms.icns
iTunes-movie.icns
iTunes-mp2.icns
iTu nes-mp3.icns
iTunes-mpg.icns
iTunes-nvf.icns
iT unes-ogg.icns <-------
iTunes-playlist.icns
iTunes-sd2.icns
i Tunes-snd.icns
iTunes-visual.icns
iTunes-wav.icn s
iTunes-wma.icns
iTunes.icns
iTunes.rsrc
iTun esHelper.app
ko.lproj
no.lproj
pt.lproj
sv.lpr oj
zh_CN.lproj
zh_TW.lproj

The nerds are out in force.

[ProtonMotiveForce]

Who wants to bet that over 90% of the replies blather about "Superior?!"?

Get a grip. WMA has been proven time and again to be one of the best codecs in both overall sound and in efficiency (sound per bitrate). This is a simple fact.

Now, next issue - DRM. It's here to stay and I don't have a problem as long as the restrictions are reasonable. If they're not - it's an easy solution. Don't use the service.

Finally, Ogg Vorbis. OK - we get it, it's a good codec. Big freaking deal. It's _never_ going to storm the market. It's not even that much better than WMA - most people would be extremely sensitive to hear any difference.

Oh - and WMA keeps improving. I'd take a $200 bet that in 2 years the latest WMA codecs will sound as good or better than Ogg Vorbis. And then why would anyone use OV?

You're basically marginalizing yourself if you use anything other than MP3, WMA, or AAC.

Re:The nerds are out in force.

[evilviper]

Get a grip. WMA has been proven time and again to be one of the best codecs in both overall sound and in efficiency (sound per bitrate). This is a simple fact.

Feel free to point us to ample data that proves your "simple fact."

It's _never_ going to storm the market.

Yes, and 640K will be enough for anybody, and there's a market for about a dozen computers in the world. Your prediction is just that, and they are proved wrong all the time... Even the best are commonly wrong, and I don't think you qualify for that status.

- most people would be extremely sensitive to hear any difference.

Not true... Encode a WMA and an Ogg at 4Kbps (that's not a typo) and any idiot could tell the difference.

Yes, at large bitrates the two might be indistinguisable to most people, but you could say the same thing about MP3s, or perhaps even MPEG1-layer 1/2. If you are going to limit yourself to 300+kbps, few people will hear any difference between any codecs, limiting yourself to a slightly smaller number is not a fair comparison.

I'd take a $200 bet that in 2 years the latest WMA codecs will sound as good or better than Ogg Vorbis.

Yes, in 2 years, whatever version WMA is up to, will be better than Ogg is right now... Ogg is constantly improving, and will continue to be better than WMA in 2 years.

You're basically marginalizing yourself if you use anything other than MP3, WMA, or AAC.

Every group is marginalized until they've gained critical mass. The early adopters of MP3 were marginalized (I was one of them)... The early adopters of CDs were marginalized... et al.

Re:C'mon! Trolling in the submission?

[tedDancin]

In related news, Microsoft has today announced the successor to its popular WMA format..

.. The new MOD format will allow four independant channels of audio, with a streamlined sampling rate of 22kHz. It is believed Microsoft are releasing the new format with DRM enabled to stem the rising tide of Beverly-Hills-Cop-theme piracy.

A Microsoft representative was unavailable to comment at the time of this submission.

*rolls eyes*

[demon]

Hah. Gee, what a shock. Paul Thurrott whores himself out to Microsoft again. I'm SHOCKED, SHOCKED I say. He's only done it a few times before... not so surprising that he should do it yet again. He's just a pro-MS troll who happens to get paid for it.

Re:The "superior" quote comes from Paul Thurrott..

[Senjutsu]

He has a whole site

And I thought goatse was disgusting...

Yeah, but wouldn't Goatse be a "hole" site?

Look at his other articles

[myov]

http://www.connectedhomemag.com/Articles/Index.cfm ?AuthorID=879

Some highlights:

• Jobs's Disappointing Macworld Keynote Address Makes Even Gates Look
  
  Lost amid all the hubbub of CES was the start of Macworld Conference & Expo, which opened Tuesday with an unexciting Steve Jobs keynote.
  
  
• Will Apple Users Strike Back?
  
  Apple might have to face music of another kind in a class-action lawsuit that will likely be filed this month against the company in California.
  
  
• Microsoft: Get the Facts About Linux
  
  Microsoft, the industry's 800-pound gorilla, has just launched an advertising campaign aimed directly at Linux's OSS solution.
  

Positive MS articles, negative Apple/Linux articles.

What a load of ........

[lost_n_mad]

Has this "reporter" ever done one minute of research? 2 points alone kill his article.
1. Jobs stated in the last conference call (look it up at apple.com), there is no need to work with #2 when they are #1. This was in response to weather or not the iPod would support WMA.
2. Why would Apple allow HP to rebrand their player and gut their online store? Where is the profit? I know the argument of more iPod sales, but if that was all Apple really was after then why bother with the store in the first place? They could have spent that time and money making sure the iPod worked with every format known to man.

AAC wins hands down

[rafer71]

OK, here's a great scientific comparison of AAC, WMA, and MP3, and its all very easy to understand: http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20020712/2u4u -04.html The results: AAC wins. MP3 loses only because it dampens throughout the frequency range. WMA comes in 2nd, but it chops at a much lower frequency than either AAC or MP3. Looks like it gets 2nd place only because its freely available to 95% of the computer users (M$ supporters). Not convincing if you ask me. When asked if he was concerned that Apple only has less than 5% of the market share, Steve Jobs responds by saying that its a larger share than BMW and Mercedes combined have in the auto industry. I love it!

Itunes + sourceforge = ogg

[mistert2]

OS x + Itunes 4 + ( software drop or mac os x hints ) = Happy OGG Listener

I use Amadeus II for my music editing.

I can't believe I can listen to the files in I-tunes, thanks slashdotters. I know one good thing that came out of this "news" article.

Re:The "superior" quote comes from Paul Thurrott..

[DomCurtis187]

And to add to the confusion, check out the screenshots for the Service Pack 2 preview.

Note the title bars -- "Virtual PC". He's running it on a Mac!

So WTF -- is he a Windows zealot or closet Mac user!?

Re:Why?

[larry bagina]

mp3 was designed for speech compression. ogg vorbis, WMA, and AAC are second-generation, designed for music, and have better compression with less noticable loss as compared to mp3.

What is wrong with having more optional features?

[spideyct]

I don't understand why a format is bashed for allowing DRM. It makes it a more flexible format. It helps open the door to content providers that would otherwise be scared off by online content.

But WMA != DRM. It simply supports it.

I have over 3GB of legal, non-DRM WMA files on my computer. The fact that WMA supports DRM does not effect my use at all.

The source of the confusion

[thatguywhoiam]

In regard to the 'superior' comment..

Before more of you go off on a flamewar against poor old Paul - who is a paragon of virtue, by the way - I have taken the time to paste the definition of 'superior' here, and I have highlighted in italics the particular usage that I believe was intended, for the WMP format.

Once you all read this I'm sure it will all make sense.

superior

\Su*pe"ri*or\, a. [L., compar. of superus being above, fr. super above, over: cf. F. sup['e]rieur. See Super-, and cf. Supreme.] 1. More elevated in place or position; higher; upper; as, the superior limb of the sun; the superior part of an image.

2. Higher in rank or office; more exalted in dignity; as, a superior officer; a superior degree of nobility.

3. Higher or greater in excellence; surpassing others in the greatness, or value of any quality; greater in quality or degree; as, a man of superior merit; or of superior bravery.

4. Beyond the power or influence of; too great or firm to be subdued or affected by; -- with to.

5. More comprehensive; as a term in classification; as, a genus is superior to a species.

6. (Bot.) (a) Above the ovary; -- said of parts of the flower which, although normally below the ovary, adhere to it, and so appear to originate from its upper part; also of an ovary when the other floral organs are plainly below it in position, and free from it. (b) Belonging to the part of an axillary flower which is toward the main stem; posterior. (c) Pointing toward the apex of the fruit; ascending; -- said of the radicle.

See? Very clear - the WMP format is an ovary attached to the AAC format, or something, and is just kind of generally flower-like.

Re:The "superior" quote comes from Paul Thurrott..

[CptChipJew]

Actually, I think that's Virtual PC running on a Win XP machine.

Hey. Tell him how you really feel!

[caferace]

The author can be reached pretty easily.

Re: Not all with DRM

[rgmoore]

have fun with your Ogg files and your 5 pound portable music player....I mean laptop.

You mean my Rio Karma? You're off a bit on the weight, though; it's 5.5 ounces, i.e. 0.1 ounces less than an iPod with the same disk capacity. That and its list price is about $50 less. Oh, and it can connect via Ethernet, has standard RCA jacks in its docking station so it's connected to my stereo system whenever it's recharging, and has a Java-based connection software so it can talk to any operating system with Java support.

Re:What is wrong with having more optional feature

[Anonymous Coward]

why would you limit your future platform to play those music files?

15 years from now, if ANY of today's music file formats are still supported, odds are it will be mp3.

mp3 is so universal and easy. play it on mac os 9, os x, linux, freebsd, windows, dos, handhelds of all sorts, hardware players like my pioneer headunit, sony walkmans, game consoles.

hey. you want to limit your options...you go right ahead.

keep convincing yourself you made the right choice.

Re:The "superior" quote comes from Paul Thurrott..

[0x0d0a]

Hey, his home page claims an *entire blog* devoted to non-Microsoft technologies. Intrigued, I cruised over there and was treated to gems like these:


How far behind is Mac gaming?
I had to laugh out loud when I saw MacWorld's hilarious "2003 Game Hall of Fame," which reads like a list of PC games past. Which games made the list, you ask? Well, you'll have to think back a bit, because most of them debuted on the PC one to three years before they hit the Mac. Here are the PC release dates for the mainstream games that made the list (even the bizarro choice, Noiz2sa ["most difficult-to-pronounce" game, duh] was out on the PC first, though I couldn't find a release date):

Zoo Tycoon - Released on the PC October 2001
Unreal Tournament 2003 - Released on the PC September 2002
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 - Released on the PC July 2002
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast - Released on the PC March 2002
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Desert Siege - Released on the PC March 2002
Dungeon Siege - Released on the PC April 2002
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne - Released on the PC July 2003 (the sole simultaneous release)
The Operative: No One Lives Forever - Released on the PC November 2000

On the PC, we're playing newer versions of these games now (I actually have both Tiger Woods 2004 and Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, for example). But the funniest part of this roundup, of course, is the section titled 'Best Place to Get Classic Games." Clearly, that would be the Mac. But serious game players have know this for some time, so it's not a huge surprise. I just think it's interesting to see it so clearly demonstrated.
posted 1/4/2004 10:55:32 PM

and

More egregiously, Apple still locks its customers into their proprietary music store and crappy AAC format.

(I wondered about this -- isn't WMA proprietary, and AAC open-speced as part of MPEG 4, or am I confused?)

AAC vs. MP3 vs. OGG listening test

[tentimestwenty]

This is a critical listening test I did for the various formats and bit rates.

Re:What is wrong with having more optional feature

[Mark Pitman]

They encoded their recordings as WMA files and wanted to share them. What's that? They can't! No one else can play their files because of the DRM in WMP9.

You don't HAVE to include DRM in the files you encode. It is an option that can be turned on or off in Windows Media Player.

Tacit Acceptance, that's what

[RafeDawg]

No, WMA is not the same as DRM, but it is associated with it. When the number 1 digital music player supports a format that supports DRM, that will only make the format more popular, which in turn will lead to the proliferation of DRM.

As for why DRM is bad in the first place, it boils down to a very fundamental debate over property rights and the rights of corporations versus the rights of individuals. Yes, DRM does make new products available, but you have to be remember what you're giving up in exchange, which is ownership and therefore control of the product. The value you place in that exchange is probably related to where you fall on the spectrum between sheparded bourgeoise and intellectual revolutionary pinko. Remember, though, that MS wants their DRM technology to extend through every level of the computer, which is much further reaching than Apple's media-oriented DRM. MS-DRM iniative even bears the newspeak name "Trusted Computing."

Re:What is wrong with having more optional feature

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude - I feel for 'ya. NOT! I would never, ever, willfully waste my time encoding audio into a Microsoft PROPRIETARY audio format. I'm sorry, but doing so is just retarded. If you must degrade audio by running it through a lossy compression algorithm, the least you can do is use a high quality *standard* format such as MPEG. (Layer 2, Layer 3, AAC, whatever variety you choose.)

WMA is not just proprietary, its not even very good!*** I can *always* hear high frequency artifacts in WMA at 128k despite dubious "better than MP3 at lower bitrate" claims by Microsoft. In my opinion, the WMA artifacts are actually worse than MP3. (And MP3 at 128k is pretty bad.)

If you must use lossy compressed audio, good options for you are: use MP3 at a relatively high bitrate. (192k is probably good enough for most people. I can hear artifacts on some limited material at 192k so, if you are a super critical listener, it might be worth it to go 256k.) Alternately, consider a high quality MPEG AAC encoder at 128k or 160k. I have listened to 128k AAC and have yet to find obvious artifacts.

Now if your cool you will give up lossy technology all together and go with FLAC. FLAC rocks! And you dont need to worry about compression artifacts because, well, its lossless!

*** note: apparently with the latest and greatest WMA9 PRO (read, probably not what you used to encode your music library) the sound quality is quite a bit better. That's great and all but there are no players out there that can decode WMA9 PRO - other than a PC. And even if there were, it is still proprietary/evil and you should refuse to use it!

Re:Zen

[harlows_monkeys]

Now why would anyone buy an iPod?

Because iPod works as a USB or Firewire hard disk. Zen doesn't. To store files on Zen, you have to go through their special software.

much ado over nothing

[vnv]

Portable music players are in their infancy. There are over a billion PC's out there, yet merely a paltry few million music players have been sold.

We've got many millions of new customers coming into the market which will drive new music players, new music formats, new music distribution systems, etc.

So far all we've seen is the early adopters playing around with iTunes. By no means has iTunes "crossed the chasm". Once mainstream people really understand DRM music and how it is "resolutionally challenged" crippleware that sells for full price, there are likely going to be big changes in the online music world.

By "crippleware" I mean that you, the buyer, cannot do what you want to do with it. That is why people are using funny workarounds like snagging the temp files from Toast so they can get the unencrypted versions of their songs.

The rate of broadband adoption is slowing in the US. And for the most part, all affordable broadband is very low bandwidth compared to the rest of the world. So at least in the USA as disc-based music gets better and better (DVD-Audio, SACD), the value delivered by the disc will continue to improve vs. what is delivered via the wire.

Finally, at least vs iTunes, actual CD's seem like they are cheaper and easier. You get full songs, no DRM, any/all formats, and to top it off... you get a readymade CD, already printed cover art, already printed track listings, and a jewelbox. All for just about the same price as iTunes, especially if you buy used CD's or Universal's new more affordable CDs.

All in all, it is too early in the portable music player market to worry about the small moves that are being made today. WMA will never be popular in Asia, so it will never be a world standard. There is nothing to fear there. The RIAA-friendly abd special-interest friendly USA and EU are a different matter, though, where Microsoft can use their mu$cle to drive adoption of their format.

This is Paul Thurrott, guys...

[Millennium]

Frankly, I'm at the point where I consider anything by him to be an attempt at astroturfing, nothing more.

Seriously. Take a look at what the guy's done. He runs not one, but two of the major Windows "enthusiast" sites. Design elements on these two sites are so obviously taken from Microsoft that it's a miracle they haven't sued him... unless he is already on their payroll.

I'd say it's time we stopped taking him seriously, were it not for one thing: he's Microsoft's most successful marketing tool ever, in that he's actually managed to garner some measure of respect. That makes him dangerous enough to watch, even if his arguments can be easily exposed for the marketing bunk that they are.

MD Players

[i0wnzj005uck4]

Well, it may be weird to you people not in Japan right now, but as someone currently living outside Tokyo, where *every* car I've been in or seen in showrooms has an MD Player and a DVD navigation system, it seems kind of natural to me.

The only reason I *don't* use Vorbis is because of the lack of player support (and the fact that, on the Mac, I've had too many issues with the Vorbis quicktime plugin that allows iTunes to play the files). Slashdot is about choice, right? If people choose WMA, that's *their* choice. I like AAC at 160; that's *my* choice. If you want to use Oggs, you should be able to excercise that choice and shouldn't be hampered by the wants of the majority.

That said, if you choose a non-standard format (and yes, OGG is non-standard, unless you're one of the, what is it, 2% of total computer users running Linux as a desktop OS?) you're essentially giving up a lot of the freedoms you'd enjoy if you went with the standard. It's a double-edged sword.

Also, while Apple might add WMA support to iPods (thus enabling Windows users who don't know better about ripping CD's to transfer their music collections), Apple will sell more iPods. Period. However, I'm pessimistic that such support will be seen on any but the HP iPod-a-likes. I'm still waiting for someone to reverse-engineer the firmware and add unofficial OGG support...

Re:I'll give negative confirmation

[laird]

I agree, this rumor isn't true (IMO). Right now there are two significant (protected) formats for commercial music publishers -- WMA and AAC with Fairplay. Since the iPod is the market leading MP3 player (55% of MP3 player sales by dollars) and iTunes Music Store is the market leading digital download sales channel (80% of all downloads sold), Apple's in a great position, so publishers will support both formats.

If Apple added support for WMA to the iPod, it would allow music stores and publishers to ignore AAC and publish only WMA and cover all MP3 players. This would ultimately lead to AAC, and then iTMS and the iPod, being marginalized.

IMO, as long as Apple is a significant player they'll be supported, because the labels would rather do business with Apple than Microsoft, and because they prefer industry standards such as AAC over proprietary formats (that they don't control) like WMA. The last thing Apple would do is something that would promote the adoption of WMA...

Wall Street Journal reports Apple rejects WMA

[caudley]

At the end of a story on the HP-Apple deal, the WSJ reports 'Apple executives say their company has no plans to relent' on the subject of WMA. It also quotes Jobs as saying, in regard to Apples strong position in the player/download market, "I think that favors the largest player, which is us by a mile."

Apple has no incentive to support WMA and every reason not to. If the iPod can play WMA, it becomes the defacto standard and AAC is dead.