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Apple Releases iTunes SDK for Windows

Posted by pudge on from the just-another-drm-system-in-the-os dept.

amichalo writes "Apple's recent release of an iTunes SDK for Windows provides the ability for third party programs, such as WinAmp and Windows Media Player, to support the AAC file format. Ars Technica has additional commentary. The SDK uses the COM interface and supports iTunes 4.5 only."

4 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Re:minor nag by irokitt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Anyone who has written even a simple game under Windows should know the basics of COM and how it works. Ditto for anyone who has done basic coding in C/C++/C# for Windows (and those who use VB for advanced coding instead of using it for a macro/prototyping tool). So quite a few developers are going to read that and chuckle. Of course, that was probably written by some marketing weenie who doesn't know any better.

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    If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
  2. Re:Finally by Adian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think this is just another sign that Apple actually benefits from cross-platform applications. The roll-out of the IPod, then ITunes, it's all ultimately to make Apple products easier to use on Windows, since unfortunately it is running on a large share of home users desktops.

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    Adian
  3. Re:I don't think this does what you think it does. by prockcore · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In fact, many OSX programs expose functionality like this via AppleScript -- a practice I wish were more widespread on other systems.

    Other systems usually go with an object broker, which is much more powerful than (although not as easy as) providing applescript hooks.

    On Windows you've got COM, on KDE you've got DCOP, on Gnome you've got CORBA.

    DCOP is probably the easiest, most flexable, and most widely implemented (Practically every KDE app has DCOP support.. while under Gnome, very few use Corba, probably due to the real/percieved slowness of it)

  4. Re:minor nag by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Obviously there was a little bit of miscommunication between the marketing person who wrote the press release and the developer who told them what COM is.

    Erm, no. Not exactly. Rather, the developer told the marketing guy what COM is, and the marketing guy replied, "Nobody cares about that. Tell me why people should care." The developer then rambled for ten minutes about remote object invocation and locational transparency. The marketing guy got up right in the middle of a sentence and said, "Lets you control iTunes, kinda like AppleScript. Got it. Thanks."

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    I write in my journal