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Apple's iPod Chip Supports WMA?

Posted by pudge on from the maybe-because-wma-and-its-drm-suck dept.

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."

2 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. What about playing AAC elsewhere by eroyce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. License fees by StarBar · · Score: 5, Informative
    To decode WMA you will most probably pay an upfront fee which could be up to a six figure USD amount depending on how friendly the license owner might think you are. Software licenses are always negotiable and always depending on how eager you are to get it and how close to the next quarter you are. At least that is my first hand experience having both been a buyer and seller of licensed software.

    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!?