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Apple's iPod Chip Supports WMA?
John writes "Chip manufacturer Portal Player in Santa Clara builds the embedded PP5002 chip in Apple's iPod (allowing the playing of AAC and MP3). It has emerged that the chip firmware, by default, allows the playing of WMA. However, for some reason this is locked by Apple."
LMFAO!
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Ya, I can't imagine why they'd like to prevent the proliferation of a competing company's formats. Very strange...
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
I wonder what in the world that reason could be, maybe theydontwannahavecompetitionwithitunesmusicstore ?
Yeah, for some reason....
This is the same chip used by other MP3 players other than the iPod, which begs the question, why aren't more people supporting AAC on their players. >50% market share should be justification enough, nevermind the subjective debate of which format has higher quality.
">50% market share should be justification enough"
Only a small fraction of music files are AAC, and it is no surprise that most stand-alone digital-music-file players ignore the format.
The thing is, that chip sounds like it's a specialized decoder for 2-3 music file formats. It's not a general-purpose comuting chip, which would be required for interpreting OGG. The extra games are probably handled by a separate processor that handles the playlist management software.
why would it be active? Wouldn't Apple have to pay for those rights to use it?
In addition there is also a royalty involved. For WMA this is true but for AAC you pay only an upfront fee ($15000) but no royalties. That might be a reason not to support WMA by default in the iPod!?
"However, for some reason this is locked by Apple." How about because they didn't pay for it?
Wait a minute... I don't own an iPod! Or any .WMA files! GAAAH!
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
This isn't as simple as Apple not flipping the iPod WMA bit just to flip off Microsoft,
although that's the implication in the article.
Well yeah, the chip supports it. but that's just a small part of the total system.
Apple would also have to integrate WMA into iTunes for Mac and Windows.
To really do it right, it might be added at a lower level into Mac OS X as well.
That now ties Apple into paying M$ royalties on iTunes and iPod, perhaps even
OS X, and having to continually disclose to M$ on the number of units sold and to who.
I think that Apple would want to avoid any further entanglements with M$ if they
can be avoided. They know well what happens when you dance with the devil.
Apple has probably suffered more from Microsoft's abusive practices than anyone.
And one more thing... Drop the constant whining about OGG. Please.
This is no different than Microsoft wanting to push their own formats above all others.
That "massive bailout" was 150 Mil in non-voting stock. ...that show 3 guys as the Mac creators. Gates is one of them.
Neither massive, nor a bailout.
I think maybe you mistook Bill Atkinson for Gates.
next, I'm waiting for someone to bring up Xerox and one button mice.
It was indeed a bailout. It was termed so inside the tech world, and also in the "secular" business press at the time. Do you want some of the many many examples?
I think maybe you mistook Bill Atkinson for Gates.
No, I think I am capable of recognizing the fellow without his customary Borg implants. M$ was in deep with the launch of the Macintosh.
Why does everyone confuse begging the question and raising the question. Begging the question means that the personing answering the question has just rephrased the question instead of actually answering it. I think we all know what "raising the question" means.
Anyway, you have raised an excellent point!
From a November 1997 Wired article:
"...January 1984 launch, Gates shifted gears and decided to put Excel onto the Mac first. "We bet on the Macintosh, hoping Windows would come in sooner rather than later," Raikes remembers.
It was a big wager, indeed. Gates committed fully one-third of Microsoft's programming resources to the Macintosh, putting Jeff Harbers in charge of the project. "We were complete Mac fanatics," remembers Harbers....
"I remember having a meeting with Ballmer and the [Microsoft] Mac team," Gates says. "We were all saying, 'Jesus, you know, Apple may not do this well.' And Ballmer said, 'Well, we can help them. But we have to assume they're staying awake at night worrying about these same things.'"
As someone who actually read and was mystified the first "Smalltalk" articles in "BYTE" magazine about Xerox's new invention, I know that Apple was a latecomer to the GUI game. They were the first latecomer, but a latecomer nonetheless.
have given me another reason to never switch to OGG.
As if there weren't enough.
The pain of moving all my files.
The lack of a good portable player. I like my mp3 portable cd player and mp3 playing dvd player.
The constant explaining to people when I tell them I use OGG ( "OGG what's that? Oh it's music, like MP3.")
If OGG is better then MP3 it's only marginally better.
The only reason that I have any AAC files in my collection is because of iTMS.
Sorry, wrong, it is a general purpose chipset. See:
http://www.amd.com/de-de/FlashMemory/FlashApplicat ions/0,,37_1736_6577_8011,00.html
Which states:
The PP5002 SuperIntegration(TM) System-On-Chip features dual ARM7TDMI (R) microprocessors.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
Here is the PP5002 spec: http://www.portalplayer.com/products/documents/500 2_brief_0108_Public.pdf
WMA is indeed supported.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
well said. with the worst DRM ever implemented in a downloadable audio file, I just don't see any advantages to WMA, including sound quality. AAC sounds SOO much better because Dolby Labs actually know what they're doing.
Wish I had mod points today so I could mod this up. It's not Troll; everything this guy said is true, except about the posters (I wasn't around in '84 so I can't say whether it's true or not).
(Posting as AC since I work for Apple).
I just don't see any advantages to WMA, including sound quality. AAC sounds SOO much better because Dolby Labs actually know what they're doing.
;-) Despite all that, I wouldn't doubt that Dolby still knows quite a bit more about what they're doing.
:-)
In all fairness, M$ does spend plenty of money on non-software R&D, including the salaries of very smart engineers who know how to design audio codecs. I live in the Seattle area, and one of my family members is involved with the local section of the AES (Audio Engineering Society). They had an all-day seminar recently about "Sampling, Conversion, and the Limits of Hearing" (I unfortunately didn't get to attend), and one of the speakers was an engineer at Microsoft. His bio says he's only been there for a little over a year, so he probably didn't influence the current WMA codec(s) much. And maybe they hired him to help improve the WMA codecs, because they didn't know what they were doing when they did the last ones. But MS must have more of a clue than you give them credit for. BTW, I have no personal opinion about WMA quality because I've never encountered it. I do, however, have an opinion about its DRM scheme...
Microsoft may be evil, but they do spend money on that kind of research and they do know what they're doing, at least in this area and at least since this guy was hired. Perhaps that's because Gates most likely leaves this guy and his colleagues alone--he's not dictating codec design like he dictates Windows' design.
If you are so inclined, you can probably find the info about this presenter and the seminar using Google, but I won't link to it (don't want to kill their probably-low-capacity server, among other reasons). Sorry.
Not only is it a general purpose chip, but the iPod linux folk have successfully installed linux on it and then successfully decoded ogg files in real time. I can't even fathom why Apple hasn't included ogg for their players, the processor can handle it.
Help I'm a rock.
The advantage would be that if you have a wma file you could play it on your iPod, no? Or is it easy to convert between them?
Currently hooked on AMP
(Posting as AC since I work for Apple).
Huh-huh. If you really work for Apple, then you'd know the stuff about Microsoft "bailing out" Apple was a bunch of huey.
Not only is it a general purpose chip, but the iPod linux folk have successfully installed linux on it and then successfully decoded ogg files in real time. I can't even fathom why Apple hasn't included ogg for their players, the processor can handle it
ah, but can the battery handle it?
-and occasionaly a giant moose.
Coupla years ago, I helped write the microprocessor reference manuals for the PP5002C.
There's nothing WMA-specific about the chip. It's (as the above poster noted) basically two ARM7 cores, cache, and some I/O logic that makes it especially well-suited to low-power devices.
Portal Player did not design the PP5002C for the iPod; it is equally well at home playing AIFF, mp3, AAC, whatever - another WMA-compatible player could as easily use the PP5002 as a CPU - but an extremely capable little media CPU is all that it is - there's nothing WMA specific about the PP5002.
No offense to your +5 informative or anything but that has absolutely nothing to do with what I posted. What I posted is that Apple should create an open plugin system for the ipod so that other (good) file formats could be supported. I didn't say anything about this current chip.
Don't go telling the mods that though, they need someone to modbomb totally unfairly. As far as they're concerned, I must be a mac basher. The irony is that I'm typing this on my ibook.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
"Huh-huh. If you really work for Apple, then you'd know the stuff about Microsoft "bailing out" Apple was a bunch of huey."
The bailout event was well documented in the business and tech press at the time.
...the zip drive has never had as huge popularity as a storage medium as the floppy, partly due to high media prices, high drive prices and shoddy manufacturing processes (the dreaded click of death). I'd be surprised if more than 5% of computers had a zip drive.
I am NaN
I've had several friends who have been ready to iPods, only to ditch it due to lack of WMA support. The way they see it, there is only one player that supports ACC, and many more that support WMA, and they don't want to invest in a format that's not going to be around for a while (the whole Beta-Max vs. VHS quandry). Want to compete better with WMA, Apple? Then you must, MUST find more companies to support your format. Either that, or break down and support WMA. Either one of those will make the iPod look like a more versatile player, and more people will buy into it. Until then, their losing customers...and it will start to matter after a while..
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
The bailout event was well documented in the business and tech press at the time.
What was well documented was the amount of assets Apple had at the time. A 150 million dollar stock buy plus an undisclosed settlement with a company that has over 2 billion in liquid assets does not a buyout make.
Go back to your bridge.
So, uh, does that mean it could play OGGs?
Lalala
Looks to me like Apple's planning on buying the license to decode WMA in the somewhat near future, then giving iPod owners that ability in the form of a free or not-terribly-expensive downloadable patch. At least, that's what I would do.
HP branded iPod AND iTunes. HP PCs? WMAs? No problem.