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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))"
This is interesting. I think I'll open my iPod to check this out...
Oh. crap! I destroyed the thing just by taking the back cover off! Time to dig out another $300 and go back to the Apple Centre.
I wonder what in the world that reason could be, maybe theydontwannahavecompetitionwithitunesmusicstore ?
WMA is an M$ virus. The less it propagates the better off humanity is.
Yeah, for some reason....
Ipod needs support for OGG! Yes, been said before. But ideally, people could write their own plugins for the ipod. I'd love to be able to play my SPC files (SNES music, tiny ass files) on an ipod, or even in itunes for that matter! All they'd have to do is make an open plugin system like Winamp/XMMS. I love apple, but supporting WMA is just dumb imho when there are better formats / ideas that need attention too.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
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.
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.
"Apple has probably suffered more from Microsoft's abusive practices than anyone."
Abuses? Apple would have died without the massive cash bailout Microsoft infused them with a few years ago. Microsoft also helps make the Mac a viable business platform by keeping it up-to-date with Office. (so many times I'm told that the Mac is a viable business computer just because it has Microsoft Office!).
Going back even further, I've seen the original Mac posters for computer stores from 1984, that show 3 guys as the Mac creators. Gates is one of them.
I think Microsoft wants Apple around so it can point to Apple and say "See? Look at Apple. We're no monopoly!" whenever antitrust concerns come along.
This is no different than Microsoft wanting to push their own formats above all others.
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.
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
"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.
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.