Microsoft Unhappy With HP's iTunes Decision

rbrandis writes "The general manager of Microsoft's Windows digital media division David Fester has suggested that iTunes' emerging dominance would be bad for consumers, because it would limit them to the iPod, as opposed to limiting them to Microsoft based products. In a moment of what must have been an attempt at ironic humor he said, 'Windows is about choice - you can mix and match software and music player stuff. We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services.'"

i do have a choice

and i choose to not use your "enabling" products

Re:i do have a choice

"We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services."

Does anyone else cringe when you see/hear the words "choice" and "Microsoft" in the same sentence?

Re:i do have a choice

"Does anyone else cringe when you see/hear the words "choice" and "Microsoft" in the same sentence? "

I might if I were low on karma. :)

Re:i do have a choice

"We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services."

Does anyone else cringe when you see/hear the words "choice" and "Microsoft" in the same sentence?"

Now where exactly does it say microsoft in that sentence?

Re:i do have a choice

"We believe you should have the same

choice when it comes to music services."

Microsoft keeps using that word... I do not think it means what they think it means.

-- james

Re:i do have a choice

Just with a different emphasis, it makes perfectly sense:

"We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services."

Bad for consumers?

I think what he really meant is that is would be bad for Microsoft.

Re:Bad for consumers?

You must be new... that's what it has ALWAYS meant.

Re:Bad for consumers?

Much as I distrust Microsoft in many things, I find it hard to believe that Carly Fiorino has anything ethical in her heart, given what was done to the technologies that Compaq pioneered since they were bought by HP, and her view on moving jobs overseas.

Re:Bad for consumers?

so what, exactly, is unethical about moving jobs overseas?

Taking peoples livelyhood away so that you can live your own pockets with a few more millions, and pay some overseas people a wage that will never allow them to buy all these products your company is selling.
Why do people think this form of globalization is going to better the world. People like her only care about bettering their own bank accounts.

Re:Bad for consumers?

Sadly it isn't just her. She works for the shareholders.
The problem with your oversimplification is that it implies a single point of blame when the blame is really with our whole capitalist system that demands shareholder value at all costs.

Re:Bad for consumers?

the blame is really with our whole capitalist system that demands shareholder value at all costs

I am sorry but that is such a crock. First of all your phrase "shareholder value" is so general as to be meaningless. Market capitalisation of listed companies is built on two ideas; dividend income from operating profitable businesses and amortised values of future earnings, largely through growth. Funnily enough both these factors are also definitions of shareholder value. Look at the PE of a banking stock compared to say a biotech stock. Capitalism is built upon a number of simple principles, one of which is risk versus return. History shows so many examples of capital investing in risky projects and generating the appropriate return when those projects succeed. The entire rail industry in the 19th century was essentially privately funded. Would "shareholder value at any cost" have been able to justify those projects?

If there is a criticism to be levelled at shareholders today, it is the fact that they have failed to accept risk and return and in fact you could argue that it is risk averse investors that are driving the lack of forsight in the flows of capital. It is pretty tough to blame capitalism as a whole. Certainly one cannot blame Capitalisms principle of "shareholder value at all costs" since no such principle exists.

Please note. That is not to say that Capitalism does not have problems, just that they are not the one you mention.

Re:Bad for consumers?

The entire rail industry in the 19th century was essentially privately funded.

Not true. Actually, the rise of the rail industry in the gilded age (1866-1901) is an excellent example of the weird mixture of private monopoly and state intervention, unfortunately typical for American capitalism. If there is a large project - such as "we need railroads to connect our cities" or "we need broadcaster to provide us television" or "we need weapons to combat communism", it is indeed given to private hands. But since it is so important, private enterprises receive substantial state aid (such as advances in government bonds) and become strong enough to influence politics by financing the politicians back. That's how the famous military-industrial complex works (and just because you heard this name in some Oliver Stone movie, it does not mean it doesn't exist).

For example, Tom Scott, a typical railorad tycoon, had a deal with the Republican presidential candidate Rutherford Hayes - "I will help you win the 1876 election, you will subsidize my Texas and Pacific lines when you'll get the office". Scott has helped, Hayes has won, railroad was subsidized. Government also kindly provided troops to break the railroad strikes of 1877.

Re:Bad for consumers?

Oh cry me a freakin' river. What kind of car do you drive, mrkslntbob? What kind of shoes are you wearing right now? Do me a favour: look at the tag on your shirt? Where was it made? How about that computer you're typing all this on - where did all the RAM in it come from?

None of you whining geeks cared one whit about the livelihoods of the Detroit automakers, American tailors, or consumer electronics while all THAT was shipped overseas, but now that it might actually affect YOU, it's time to take a stand and put a stop to it, right?

Sorry, but hypocrisy is one of my hot buttons. You've benefitted from overseas outsourcing for years, with your cheap clothing, cars, and electronics. Well guess what - your job isn't so sacred either. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Get over it.

Good for HP, good for consumers

Its a fairly standard bussiness tack. Want to break into a new area, license an indirect competitor's technology. Example: honda wanted to create the passport, a small SUV, so the first two years the re-badge an isuzu rodeo. Then they are in the market early and have the time to develop their own machine.

In this case it serves another bussiness strategy. Windows Computers are commodities, and among brands with a rep for quality the only distinguishing feature is low price. Dell or HP: buy the cheaper. The only way to beat this game is the way apple does it: differentiate yourself. If you buy dell then you are buying WMA. if you are buying HP you are buying into AAC. One presumes that the computer will come with software that makes it work slightly better with its native player.

Finally it looks like AAC is about to win. Nokia, panasonic, amybe even RealPlayer are all going to support AAC.

so HPs move is good for HP. They get room to develop their own. they are in the market early with no R&D costs and differnetiate themselves from dell.

consumers of course benefit too. HP and others will eventually be making players to compete with ipods. That will bring down prices.

As an ex-DECcie I can't let that stand

given what was done to the technologies that Compaq pioneered since they were bought by HP

Sorry pal, the most notable engineering effort by Compaq was marketing.

Compaq essentially was a marketing organization and box assembler, which made too much money and bought a couple of enterprise computer companies (in hopes to get a foothold into their customer base).

Digital Equipment [wikipedia.org] (or DEC as we preferred to refer to it) on the other hand was an engineering company (which was later part of its downfall) and the technologies you are referring too where hatched at DEC.

Notable engineering efforts where (leaving away very ancient history) the Alpha AXP chip (which introduced 64bit processing 10 years before Intel could even come up with a workable prototype and Itanium "steels" a lot from alpha), or clustering, which worked seemlessly and transparently in 1988 (probably before that), while other "clustering" technologies, most notably under HP/UX, seem to be a bunch of hacked together scripts, which provide a never ending nightmare (specifically after major migrations). I could continue with some of the best compilers and a development environment, which would still put a lot of modern stuff to shame.

Compaq had no fucking clue what they where getting and they where even more clueless in the realm of enterprise customers relying on rock solid, mission critical iron. Uptimes for such customers (for example the Amsterdam coppers [linuxsa.org.au]) is measured in thousands of days and they tend to take a dim view on the infamous CTRL-ALT-DELETE "error correction" procedure.

I absolutely agree with your statement regarding miss Fiorino, though.

NEWS FLASH!

Microsoft not happy that people take advantage of their own non-Microsoft monopolies!

Why don't they sue Apple ? Hell, iTunes is bundled with OS X! Because they'll bundle a music store with media player soon enough... and try to kill iTunes completely.

Re:n002 fl45h!!!!!!111

Now it's my understanding that pdf is a shortened form of the word pedofile. Is this incorrect? It always worried me when I was younger that corporations would only give me product information in pdf format...

Younger!?! Please don't tell us that you are old and still this stupid.

It never occured to me to associate pdf files with Michael Jackson.

Re:n002 fl45h!!!!!!111

The correct abbreviation for pedofile[sic] is "pedo" (as you will see very quickly if you happen to stumble upon alt.sex.stories). PDF is "portable document format".

--

gnaughty [sourceforge.net] - easy free porn

The correct abbreviation for pedophile coming from someone who's pimping his own porn gathering software. Now I've seen it all.

Re:NEWS FLASH!

Of course, it speaks volumes that Microsoft is sufficiently concerned about the Apple/HP agreement that they bother to fire up the FUD Cannon(tm) so soon. Seems to me that having this agreement come out on the heels of the IBM desktop migration announcement might be turning up the heat in Redmond...

We can only hope.

Re:NEWS FLASH!

I think the bigger issue is with Microsoft bundling technologies with the OS that are impossible to remove from the OS.

If you buy Mac OS X and don't want iTunes, simple. Drag the iTunes app to the trash and it is gone. No registry mess, just a clean simple removal. Try that with Internet Explorer. I'm betting you can't.

There is nothing wrong with bundling, per se. It is when you use illegal tactics to force people/manufacturers to use your solution instead of an alternative.

Deleting QT != Deleting Quickshow

>QT is MacOS's audio/video API. You can drag the
>QT player to the trash just fine, but deleting QT would
>be a bit like deleting DirectShow.

Sorry, you're free to delete Quicktime.framework if you see fit. It is located at /System/Library/Frameworks/Quicktime.framework . Also, Mplayer OS X and Microsoft Windows Media Player works just fine on all Mac OS X boxs without using any Quicktime libraries at all.

How the comment is modded as "score: 3, informative" is beyond me.

Re:NEWS FLASH!

If you buy Mac OS X and don't want iTunes, simple. Drag the iTunes app to the trash and it is gone. No registry mess, just a clean simple removal. Try that with Internet Explorer. I'm betting you can't.

I just trashed Internet Explorer, now I'm sending this message from the public library while I reinstall Windoze. Doh! ;-)

Re:NEWS FLASH!

I'm still quite irritated with Apple for choosing to remove the Internet PrefPane, and wish more people would e-mail Apple about this.

They would, but they are unable since removing their Mail.app.

choice?

ROFL! Talk about naked FUD. Choice, choice, choice. Yeah, that's the Microsoft Way, isn't it? NOT. What hypocrisy!

naked FUD?

Cripes, when did this happen? I'm out of it for a little bit, and Microsoft becomes a spamming outfit! Naked FUD, Enlarge your CHOICE, end-user license SECRETS, listen to music FROM YOUR HOME...

Re:choice?

Microsoft offers choices...

- Your free web-based e-mail account can end in either msn.com or hotmail.com... your choice!
- You can browse the web with either Internet Explorer or MSN Explorer... your choice!
- You can read your e-mail with Outlook Express or Outlook... your choice!
- You can use Windows XP Home or Windows XP Pro... your choice!
- You can use WMA files with any music player that has paid the appropriate fees to Microsoft, plenty of choices available in the market!
- You can get WMA files from any music service that has paid the appropriate fees to Microsoft, plenty of choices available in the market!

Re:choice?

You can use Windows XP Home or Windows XP Pro... your choice! Incorrect. Microsoft is not able to force you to run a Microsoft operating system.

MS can't exactly force you to install their OS but in the past they were known to coerce vendors into only offering MS operating systems on every machine they shipped if they wanted to buy Windows at a steep discount. If not the vendor was free to 'choose' to offer another OS and pay for Windows licenses at a price that would make them uncompetitive in the low-margin commodity market that PC sales is/was.

This tactic made is a little bit tough to 'choose' BeOS or OS2 before that.

Re:choice?

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable, predictable and normal business tactic to me. Do you have similar feelings about McDonalds only selling Coke and not Pepsi ?

You wanna talk drinks? Okay, let's talk drinks.

Let's say 95% of the population were hopelessly hooked to Coke because of unknown addictive agents within it. It tastes like crap - but everybody uses it cause they're hooked. Pepsi tastes way better, but it's not a substitute because you can't get the same fix that you can from the unique taste of Coke. Also, Coke users become extremely hyper and start babbling in a language (Coke-speak) that only other Coke users can understand. Workplaces decide to standardize on Coke-speak, so you must drink Coke if you want a job and be able to communicate.

Because Coca-Cola controls 95% of the drink market, they can raise their prices sky high and get massive profits. Let's say McDonalds objects - they are making crap margins on their "dollar ninety nine" meals already, but what can they do? Even though Coca-Cola is gouging them, McDonalds has no choice. If McDonalds doesn't sell Coke, they will lose 95% of their customers who will go to Burger King (or some other crappy fast food joint) for their Coke fix. So what does McDonalds do? They comply, of course. And other fast food joints, faced with the same dilemma, are also forced to comply to stay in business.

Now initially, McDonalds sold Coke plus a variety of different drinks from some other companies. It did this because to provide variety and because other drinks were cheaper than Coke to resell. Coca-Cola then politely asks McDonalds to include (bundle) its entire family of drinks, such as Vanilla Coke (Office) and to exclude the other companies' drinks. "And if not?" "We will raise your price of Coke", Coca-Cola replies. "What?!" "So don't buy from us then", mocks Coca-Cola. Faced with razor thin margins now (but still manageable) vs. losing 95% of their customers, McDonalds agrees to an "offer it can't refuse".

So then a new company comes along and creates a revolutionary new business based on designer cups (so sue me, I couldn't think of an internet browser analogy in the soft drink world). The new designer cups become really hot and take off all over the world. The new company (let's call it Netscup) becomes really successful.

Coca-Cola sees this new industry and gets jealous. They want a piece of the action. Why not use our addictive drink to force Netscup out of business so that we can monopolize the lucrative designer cup business as well? Coca-Cola has no idea how to make cups, but they try anyway. They are a poor imitation of Netscup's products, but Coke doesn't care, as they are making billions off Coke and can afford to give away the cups for free. Even though the cups are free, people still prefer Netscups because of their superior quality and the originality factor (they were 1st).

Coca-Cola decides it's time to get down and dirty. It contacts all the restaurants and fast food joints and offers them an ultimatum: Coke must be sold (or bundled) in Coca-Cola cups. Furthermore, Coca-Cola decides to "choke Netscup's air supply" by offering incentives (such as a cheaper price of Coke) if Netscup products are *not* sold at the locale. Pretty soon Netscup finds their revenues drying up because all the restaurants turn their backs on them. They are forced to cut prices, and are losing increasing amounts of money every day because Coca-Cola just happens to have Coke. In the meantime, Coca-Cola throws a billion dollars into developing their line of cups, and eventually the cups improve to that state where their quality and their cost (free) are more worthwhile than Netscup's still slightly superior, but more costly (not free) cups. Coca-Cola then goes for the jugular by engineering Coke and their cups so that Coke is only effective when it is served in Coca-Cola cups. Serving Coke in other cups proves to be toxic to the drinker. Coca-Cola then claims in court that Coke and the Coca-Cup are actually one product,

Re:choice?

Wow, I could sure go for a Coke now.

Re:choice?

This come from the Iraqi information minister? The Windows people are just shitting their pants because this will mean HP will beat them to market, they will have cooler designs and a better infrastructure in place when the battle for music dominance begins. This is a wedge into their tight little monopoly and they are freaking out. I am sure Apple will find a way to screw this up though.

I have to admit, this is horse pucky.

Microsoft shipped Internet Explorer 4.0 with Windows 98. Consumers had a choice then on whether or not to use IE... but they used IE.

Now iTunes is shipping with Windows on HP machines. Consumers have a choice on whether or not to use iTunes.

Sounds like the same "choice" as before--so what could Microsoft possibly be worried about? What reason do they have to worry?

You get three guesses, and the first two don't count.

Re:I have to admit, this is horse pucky.

Consumers had a choice then on whether or not to use IE... but they used IE.

Most of the time they don't even realise they have a choice. Most "consumers" I know call IE "The Internet."

Re:choice?

The only thing worse then an evil bastard is a whining evil bastard.

Re:choice?

You can play protected AAC on exactly ONE player right now, the iPod. In a couple of months you can play them on two: The iPod, and the HP Digital Music Player. When iTunes remains the dominant online music store throughout this year, other MP3 players will jump off of cliffs to get AAC compatibility so they have a prayer of even maintaining their meager market share.

The completely static "X doesn't exist NOW, so it never will" reality you live in must be tremendously boring.

Re:choice?

AAC belongs to the same guys that made mp3, the Fraunhofer Institute. [fraunhofer.de]

Apple is only one of many companies *using* AAC

Apple is only one of many companies *using* AAC. Apple did not invent it. Apple did not invent it. Apple did not invent it.

"AAC was developed by the MPEG group that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony, and Nokia"
http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/aac/ [apple.com]

"MPEG-4 AAC has been specified as the high-quality general audio coder for 3G wireless terminals. Apple Computer has incorporated MPEG-4 AAC into QuickTime 6 and iTunes 4, as well as the latest version of its award-winning iPod portable music player. The Digital Radio Mondiale system (the next-generation digital replacement for radio broadcasting under 30 MHZ) builds on the audio coding of MPEG-4 AAC."
http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/stan dard.html [vialicensing.com]

Re:Apple is only one of many companies *using* AAC

This is wrong. Er, sorry, WRONG.

FairPlay doesn't belong to Apple, but to Veridisc, and anyone can get a licence, just the same for AAC. And Apple won't earn a dime on it.

check it out on Veridisc website [64.244.235.240]

Re:choice?

How many times must people say this, you can easily convert from AAC, AAC is not Apple owned and is an MPEG standard (any company could add AAC to their player if they care to). iTunes music store is the most stress-free and has the best selection of music, therefore the "lock-in" you experience is what you trade in for not wanting to kick someone in the groin for the inconsistent licensing agreements.

It's completely moronic when people blame a company that's doing something that other companies never tried (a better codec, less restricting DRM, seamless integration) all while people are rooting against them. If you're going to blame someone, blame the other companies for not supporting AAC in their players, Apple is already working on Windows Media for iPod.

Re:choice?

iTunes was and is a very bold move to find a way to reach some sort of compromise between the record companies (and RIAA) and the consumers. The manner in which people obtain, manage and listen to their music has changed drastically over the past 5 years and no amount of trying to re-close Pandora's box is going to make things return to what the labels would like to think of as "the good old days". The paradigm shift has started. It takes a great deal of vision, big cajones and some luck to successfully ride the tsunami of a paradigm shift. Needless to say, attempting to do so will gain you a large number of critics, as Apple has witnessed. The whole codec/DRM/player saga is just starting and there are going to be a number of less-than-perfect solutions at first. At least there are some companies willing to stick their necks out to try and find a good answer.

Re:choice?

Except that you aren't REQUIRED to use AAC. There's this other format that iPod will use. Maybe you've heard of it.

It's called MP3.

So much for vendor lock-in. 'Course, if you really want to use AAC, you could use iPod or this from Nokia [mphone.co.uk] and while we're talking about Nokia, what about that cool new N-Gage [cellular.co.za] . Then again there's this new model from O2 [theregister.co.uk]. And of course, it won't be long before you can buy HP's iPod clone.

Re:choice?

if you want to use your purchased music from apple you can (as of righ tnow) play it on exactly 1 portable device, the ipod.

And exactly every single CD player in existance (including all portables) if you have a burner.

WMA's can be played on virutally any major mp3 player (except the ipod).

Every major player except the #1 player? Cute : )
And as far as I know, if you buy DRMed WMA: No CD burning for you!

Re:choice?

here's the deal. You buy a AAC you can play it on exactly (1) player

Ok, here's the deal. You buy a WMA you can play it on exactly (1) OS.

You buy a WMA you are LOCKED into Windows. So when you want to play that WMA music you bought on your new computer and it'll have to be money sent to Microsoft. That's vendor lock-in.

You buy a AAC you can play it on Windows or OS X.

So AAC is about choice. You see?

Re:choice?

Speaking of not letting facts get in the way.....

WMP9 for OS X doesn't support the DRM used by the music stores. Haven't you paid attention this entire thread to the distinction made between AAC and AAC + Fairplay? The same distinction is made between WMA and WMA + DRM.

And none of the music stores will let you buy their music from an OS X machine. ITMS has two major platforms supported for purchasing.

This isn't spin. It's fact.

....just out of curiosity

If HP/Apple can get iPods to chat with HP Windows boxen, can we get them to talk to Linux as well? Has this already been done?

Re:....just out of curiosity

Don't iPods already work with Windows? :) I don't think they are that picky about which hardware is running the OS. So, I'm sure they do work with "HP Windows boxen" (when did that become plural for boxes?). In addition, there are several ways to get iPods to interoperate with Linux [google.com].

Re:....just out of curiosity

"HP Windows boxen" (when did that become plural for boxes?)

About the same time "moosen" became the plural of moose (as in "I see a flock of moosen").

(props to Brian Regan)

Re:....just out of curiosity

Well I've been using an ipod on a Linux box for the past 3 months and it works great. Check out gtkpod.sf.net and be amazed :)

Re:....just out of curiosity

Don't iPods already work with Windows?

Well, they did, but Microsoft will have a critical patch out soon to fix that problem.

Re:....just out of curiosity

The *real* question how soon will it take for some enterprising individual to be able to play the songs they bought on iTunes Music Store under Linux?

Jon of DeCSS fame has already done this [slashdot.org].

Somebody has to say it...

Windows is about choice

Tell me Mr. Smith, what good is to have choices if they don't work?

Apple's iTunes just works... it's that simple.

Somebody has to say this too...

You can have any color as long as it is black!
- Henry Ford

People may hate Windows Media Player...

As bad as people may hate Microsoft or Media Player, it does support multiple players and platforms - not just the iPod. A list is available at http://windowsmedia.com/9series/Personalization/Co olDevices.asp [windowsmedia.com].

Terribly, terribly grateful

I am ever so grateful that once again Microsoft is looking after my best interests. We can all sleep well.

Re:Terribly, terribly grateful

It was awfully, awfully kind of you to say so.

Re:where do these funny points come from?

Little elves in the sky. Very tiny ones. They sprinke the funnyness all over, and it land on every post, but only sticks to the funny ones. Same with the Insightful Angels, Interesting Sprites, Informative Fairies, Troll (what else) Trolls, Flamebait Devils and Redundant Redundant Redundant Orcs.

What confuses me is Dell's response....

Dell says this:

"According to the New York Times, Dell also suggests HP is making a mistake. A Dell spokesman said: "We expect competition and it's good for customers. Over time, however, customers will want industry standard choices.''"

I am no English expert, but it sure sounds like they are tryin to say that WMA should be the only game in town, and are at the same time trying to play it off that they 'want' competition.

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

Over time we will see the industry decide what will be used as a standard for the distribution of digital audio, I guess Dell and friends just don't want the "industry standard" to turn out to be MPEG-4/AAC.

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

Actually, you're reading the whole article wrong. The article isn't about the music format -- it's about the music service. You're probably right in that Microsoft wants WMA to be the leading digital format, but what they really want is for a ton of companies to be offering music services, all competing against each other and, hopefully for MSFT, all using WMA. The primary benefit, of course, is market share.

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

I think you're right. According to Carly,

"The next big thing isn't the next gizmo or killer app or hot box. Customers want all this to work together and they want a seamless approach. We're very much going to make sure that the Microsoft and Apple worlds work together. That's part of the power we bring to this thing."

meaning HP is treating Microsoft as just another supplier, where Dell can't.

So, IMHO, because HPs CEO has more balls ;^D than Dell's CEO, they're willing to go against "industry standards", namely anything Microsoft tries to cram down thier throats, and give customers what they want.

Yay competition!

Soko

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

Uh, 99% of Dell's business is selling Windows boxes, and they're making good money at it. ~15% of HP's business is selling Windows boxes, and they're losing money hand over fist at it. I'm sure HP would just LOVE an excuse to get out of the PC and Laptop business, and focus on other areas where they can make a profit. Now, which one of the two can AFFORD to piss off Microsoft?

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

Over time, however, customers will want industry standard choices.

A clue for Dell: iPod and iTMS is the industry standard.

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

I am no English expert, but it sure sounds like they are tryin to say that WMA should be the only game in town, and are at the same time trying to play it off that they 'want' competition.

Doubletalk is doubleplus good!

Its a sentence constructed in a way that is meant to make its readers come off with a feeling that 1) Dell wants what's best for them, 2) Dell made industry choices based on what is best for the costumer (damned lie), 3) Dell's choice will become a standard, and therefore: if you buy a different standard than what Dell is selling you will be buying something that will be nonstandard in the future (ooooh, bad!).

In other words: FUD.

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

How is Quicktime part of this discussion? Apple's iTMS is in AAC format. The iPod supports AAC, MP3, Audible, AIFF, and WAV except WMA.

AND btw, AAC *is* an industry standard. It's just not the one Microsoft wants. WMA, on the other hand, is *proprietary*, and is not a "standard" at all. Just like all the other Windows stuff, the like to call it "the standard" simply because it's popular, and because they get away with it. Another example of doublespeak!

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

I liked this bit:

"Microsoft's WMA"

"Dolby's AAC"

Which of those companies do you expect to have a higher quality audio codec? Dolby...where have I heard that name before...Oh yeah, just around nearly every single stereo system sold for the last umpteen years. Oh, and "She Blinded Me With Science"....

Rewrite that statement as:

"Microsoft's Car"
"Ford's Car"

See what I mean?

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

How is Quicktime part of this discussion? Apple's iTMS is in AAC format. The iPod supports AAC, MP3, Audible, AIFF, and WAV except WMA.

Actually Apple's iTMS music is in MPEG-4 format, which is virtually identical to the Quicktime container format. The MPEG-4 format was adopted from the Quicktime format. The music in the container format is AAC which has been encrypted by FairPlay, a DRM encryption scheme.

If you look at the files you download from iTMS they have the file extension ".m4p" which stands for MPEG-4 Protected. Tunes that you encode yourself using iTunes AAC are given the extension ".m4a" which stands for MPEG-4 Audio.

The iPod supports both MPEG-4 Protected and MPEG-4 Audio. Both formats use AAC to encode the audio signal. iPods also can play MP3, Audible, AIFF, and WAV.

Re:What confuses me is Dell's response....

"Industry standard choices" means WMA, WMV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4.

Non-industry standards are Vorbis, FLAC, among others.

Well, either Vorbis is a standard because it's an effective and open standard, or you're talking about "Industry Standard" in terms of what gets most popularly used, which is, I assume, what you mean.

Welcome to Apple's plan: AAC will be an industry standard by that measure very soon. Especially if they keep having sponsired song giveaways on iTMS. Industry standards can (and will) change.

Jedidiah.

HP kills DRM (yay Carly)

It has always been questionable as to whether they would get DRM to work in the first place. Now along comes HP, trying to make what are essentially incompatible DRM systems work together, and still protect content. The closest analogy I can think of is trying to have make a marriage work with two spouses at the same time.

Anybody who has installed any kind of media player on Windows knows what I'm talking about... it's almost impossible to assign specific file types to Window's Media Player, QuickTime, RealPlayer, Winamp, etc., without all of these applications trying to steal the right to handle these file types out from one another. Now the same thing is going to happen, but with DRM in the mix?

It's going to be a zoo. Nobody is going to stand still for this, especially when people start losing the right to access content they've already payed for.

And just wait till this shit starts happening to everybody's porn collection. People will be running amok in the streets.

Wrong.

This is the same 'No American has a God given right to a job' Carly that said that EVERY HP product coming out after Q2 2004 will have DRM built in. Hell, she even wants to make recording like a VCR on your HP impossible unless the copyright holder agrees.

She is no ones friend save for herself and her fellow exec. She thinks nothing of the employers/users/shareholder of HP.

Heh, Fester

Actually makes it sound pretty reasonable if you just imagine that it's Uncle Fester [toyadz.com] saying it.

Choice?

Windows is about choice...


Theres a catch 22 here, you have to use windows to have... ummmmm..... m$ make your choice for you.

MS = Choice = BAH!

Crap Microsoft, Crap indeed. You are now lying through your... well, backside. MS = Choice my arse.

Microsoft is ALL about cornering you into using MS products...

PRIME example is their damn Movie Maker 2... quite nice program to use (I haven't used iMovie, so I can't compare), but then try and save... "Hmmm, I'd like to save to an open format that pretty much anyone can play... VCD or SVCD, or perhaps just plain MPEG would be nice." "Hmmm, I seem to ONLY be able to save to MS formats unless I have a few gig free to save out to a straight DV dump and then use someone else's program to convert to a more user friendly format, so really I'm forcing anyone who wants to watch movies I've made to have an MS compatible player"

"Hmmm, MS can blow me, and blow me hard"

Re:MS = Choice = BAH!

Except that, Apple gives you the free iMovie App and allows you to save in DV and any quicktime supported codec (including DIVX if you install the plug-in) etc. So, yeah, I'm going to gripe about substandard "free" software from Microsoft.

This is hilarious...

...considering that HPs decision to add WMA support to the iPod means that the iPod will *be* a Microsoft-enabled device.

Betamax vs. VHS

Yes, it is an old example, and yes, it is simplistic-- but it is still very relevant: Betamax vs. VHS.

Sony had a superior quality format for videotape (betamax), but wouldn't share with anyone. Meanwhile, Panasonic, Philips, and others all got together and agreed on VHS format. Competition brought lower priced machines, and eventually VHS killed betamax for home use.

Microsoft is half-right: it is about choice-- but it must ALL be available for choice: the hardware, the OS, the apps, the data format. Only true, open standards under a GPL, LGPL, or other similar "free to evolve independent of any single vendor"-type license will work in the long run.

Re:Betamax vs. VHS

Sony had a superior quality format for videotape (betamax), but wouldn't share with anyone. Meanwhile, Panasonic, Philips, and others all got together and agreed on VHS format. Competition brought lower priced machines, and eventually VHS killed betamax for home use.

So, seems like Apple is aware of this and thus sharing with quite a few people: Pepsi, Windows, HP, etc. And they certainly haven't been timid about signing up as many celebrities as they can to promote the iPod and the iTMS. It would've been kind of hard for a movie star to walk around with their betamax player, but the iPod is the new Air Jordan.

Honest Question

Is there anything preventing other companies from making an mp3 player that would play iTMS files? I realize that other companies can make players that play the AAC format, but is Apple preventing them from accessing the DRM?

can someone clarify

but can't all these players play mp3's? I've got an iPod and other than the slowness of using iTunes I've had no problem putting MP3's on it. Isn't that a free choice that I have, or are they trying to push people into using WMA or AAC only, in portable music players? And (as the article suggests) if they are working on playing wma on iPods, is there even a problem here?

AppleTurns

AppleTurns site translated it this way:

Check it out, this was the best a company spokesperson could muster to undercut the announcement: "Windows is all about choice... we believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services." Translation: "Use any service you want as long as it sells Windows Media, buy any player out there as long as it plays Windows Media-- but for heaven's sake, don't buy one of those wretched iPod thingies or we'll be completely boned with our whole plan to monopolize digital media commerce and then we might actually have to start innovating for our paychecks for a change." Or, to put it a little more succinctly, "you can have any color you want, as long as it's black."

iPod vs Dell DJ

The bottom line is that the iPod and iTunes provides a better user experience.

I had a 5gb 1st Gen iPod, and I now have a Dell DJ (Dell gave me the credit, Apple wouldn't).

I prefer the iPod.

The DJ works ok, but the user experience isn't as good.

There's no way to stop a playing song. Only pause it.

Syncing music is not intutitive.

Navigating through the tracks on the DJ takes FOREVER.

It's just not as well thought out as iTunes and the iPod are.

I'm thinking of selling my Dell DJ on eBay, and buying an iPod or an iPod mini.

Choice!

Windows is about choice - you can mix and match software and music player stuff. We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services.

Do not laugh at our choice. Microsoft is all many choices. We have so much choice it is silly. You must not listen to the apple! We will crush the infidels with all the choice that we are having!

Sincerely, Microsoft Information Minister

Choice? Oh, that's rich.

Windows is not about choice - it is about having developers and service providers further entrench the Windows hegonomy, with little to no effort on the part of MS.

HP made a choice, as the market seems to be doing as well.

Let's see how well Microsoft lives with this.

Oh, and to all of you who say "Watch how high the price of Windows goes for HP", Microsoft won't dare do anything of the sort. Having both IBM and HP actively looking to kill Windows is not something Microsoft shareholders would appreciate.

Soko

If Microsoft's so pro-choice...

Then why does it do everything possible to destroy it? Lotus 1-2-3 for Dos, WordPerfect (countless times), DR-DOS, OS/2, OpenDoc, Go/pen computing, Netscape, Java - and those are only the examples I can think of off the top of my head.

In fact, there has never been a more monopolistic, closed technology advocate than Microsoft. If someone comes up with something original, or something that's superior to anything Microsoft can engineer, then they'll be driven into the ground by the full force of the Microsoft machine.

I use Microsoft products (eg, Windows 2000, Office) and I also use non-Microsoft products that compete directly with the company's offerings (eg, Opera, Winamp). I'm not pro- or anti-Microsoft. What I am is pro-choice. And, frankly, that's one thing Microsoft can accurately never claim to be.

After all . . .

If you can't beat 'em, FUD 'em.

Remember, kiddies, that Microsoft is never about competing. Otherwise, they'd still be working on IE for Mac OS X, instead of complaining that another browser beat them.

Take your toys and go home, I say. We don't want you here.

Gollum!

MS: Where would you be without me? (gollum gollum). I saved us. It was me. We monopolized because of me!

HP: Not anymore.

MS: What did you say?

HP: Apple looks after us now. We don't need you.

MS: What?

HP: Leave now and never come back.

MS: No!

HP: Leave now and never come back!

MS: Arrrgh!

HP: LEAVE NOW AND NEVER COME BACK!

[HP is panting and looking around and realises MS is gone.]

HP: We told him to go away! And away he goes Preciousss. Gone, gone, gone, HP is free!

this and that

Windows IS about Choice.
Also,
Slavery is Freedom
and
War is Peace

If I remember my Orwell right.

Apple Choice vs. Microsoft "Choice"

There're two basic methods of Innovation at work here, Apple's brand and Microsoft's. Microsoft wants to leverage the choice of software tools made by third-party developers (that they haven't driven under by co-opting technology from) to promote a "choice" among applications on the Windows platform.

Apple wants to provide the "choice" of a Non-Windows platform and non-Microsoft technology. And Apple, for all their ills as far as co-opting technology in ways distressingly similar to Microsoft, has never been known to utterly decimate the competition or actively belittle or disparage them. What Apple does when they add new features to the OS is to simply set the bar higher for 3rd party developers.

Apple bothers me in some things, but when it comes right down to it, I don't see Apple trying dirty tricks in the background to drive anyone away from creating music services for the Mac platform. Microsoft would just -love- to push vendors into a MS Music Store lock in.

Re:Apple Choice vs. Microsoft "Choice"

Microsoft = "embrace and extend" - aka "we'll use rabid business practices to force you out of existence and call it 'innovation'"

Apple = "our product is smaller, lighter, faster, more stylish, and in almost every way better. And it has a slick marketing campaign. You Suck."

Of course, the clearest indication of choice in this issue is right before your eyes

• iTunes for Mac OS
• iTunes for Windows
• Windows Media Player for exactly how many non-Microsoft Operating Systems?

Had to say it...

All your choice are belong to us!

The first thing Carly has said that I like...

HP believes that it is better positioned than any other company to bridge the gap between Apple and Windows. Fiorina told the Times: "The next big thing isn't the next gizmo or killer app or hot box. Customers want all this to work together and they want a seamless approach. We're very much going to make sure that the Microsoft and Apple worlds work together. That's part of the power we bring to this thing."

This is probably the only remotely interesting initiative HP has embarked on since Carly took over.

Let's hope it's more successful than most of them have been.

Lots if iTunes-compatible players

As you can see in this document [apple.com], iTunes supports quite a lot of different third-party players, including Nomads, Rios, and others.

What these other players do NOT support is AAC-DRM files like those sold by the iTMS. I'm sure Apple would be happy to license their DRM scheme to a third-party mp3 player if they wanted to do so and the price were right. Money talks.

every zealot's wet dream!

Microsoft said they were about choice! Now the linux zealots can all flame them on slashdot and go to sleep happy. The apple users can chime in their love for ipods and itunes. The windows fanboys can chime in how wma is surperior and that it will take over and crush apple and linux. Once the rubble has settled the 1862 ogg users can tout a new media format world order and reign for the next 1000 years. Good times a commin'!

If microsoft did this once a month, IT productivity would go up 10%.

Waiting for MS to annouce its own music service

Wow! MS is complaining about lack of choice. That caught me off guard.

Its my belief that MS feels it can no longer expand on its computer and software business. It is now trying to buy out and/or control large amounts of digital media e.g. an ISP, MSNBC, XP Media Edition, Media Player, X-Box, Hotmail and so on. In other words, MS is only complaining because iTunes' success is going to hamper - to some extent - its ability to dominate the digital music format.

Some of these business units, admitedly have not experienced great success. But, what happens if MS decides XP ME which is hooked up to your television only works with their music service, you can only use their media player and you can't setup a regular POP3 account and instead have to use Hotmail (== advertisements)? I think this will inhibit competiton!

WHO is David Fester?

"We are going to produce a patch that should be up within a week," said Microsoft's David Fester, group product manager for Internet Explorer. "We'll put up that patch as quick as we can."

Internet Explorer Bug Makes a Return Visit [wired.com]

In 1998 he was the management flunky most directly responsible for all those MSIE bugs.

"On the one hand, they say they're pursuing standards, but they're implementing and pushing proprietary technology with their development community," Microsoft product manager David Fester said. "Microsoft has pledged 100 percent standards support for some time. The truth is in the pudding and the products."

Pot, Kettle Black (netscape, microsoft , standards, name-calling) [com.com]

Wednesday's Windows Media announcements are specific to XP, said David Fester, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Digital Media division. "These are companies that are doing things specifically around XP," he said. "As you know, our Windows Media effort is broader than just XP."

Windows Media announced for MAC/Linux/Solaris (not) [com.com]

"This is unprecedented, but we realized we need to work together [with Netscape] for the common good. We decided we should not propose separate standards for privacy software." David Fester, Microsoft, June 97

More Outright Lies from David Fester [tprc.org]

Tell me again why I want to listen to *anything* this man has to say.

This is still about choice

'Windows is about choice - you can mix and match software and music player stuff. We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services.'

The fact that HP chooses to clone the iPod, or include a music player designed for a certain format doesn't limit anyones choice. These HP boxes are still windows machines, and will support all of the MS 'standards'.

As I see it; this doesn't harm consumers, and only angers MS because HP is not promoting the windows format.

bizarro world

Does this mean that Microsoft is now beleaguered?

It all boils down to one thing for me:

Microsoft wants everyone to use their WMA technology, obviously developed by Microsoft.

Apple wants us to use AAC, developed by Dolby.

Last time I looked my stereo, TV, DVD player, Car Stereo, etc etc etc all carry the Dolby logo, not the Microsoft logo.

It's a simple choice.

History repeating itself (sort of)

This is 1984, all over again. Only this time, the roles are reversed.

This is affirmed by the fact that the 1984 ad that was played during MWSF had an iPod digitally grafted on to the woman throwing the hammer.

Apple is now the dominant manufacturer of portable music playback devices and has assumed the role of IBM. The licensing of the iPod and iTMS is a move straight out of the IBM playbook 20 years ago.

Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio format

The quote originated on Connected Home Magazine. The news editor is Paul Thurott. Paul also runs www.winsupersite.com and www.winnetmag.com/windowspaulthurrott/ as well as a few other MS Fanatic sites.

From one of the sites... ...Paul is also the author of WinInfo Daily UPDATE, the Windows Informant, a daily news and information newsletter for Windows users, and the News Editor for Windows & .NET Magazine, where he writes a weekly editorial for the popular Windows & .NET Magazine UPDATE newsletter and a monthly news column called Need to Know for the print magazine. Paul is also the News Editor for Connected Home Magazine, ...

So we know it's biased already - no need to re-state to obvious.

Life imitates parody...

Three months ago I saw this parody article, and now it's come true. Some the quotes in it are now downright prescient:

Under Anti-Trust Pressure, Apple Releases iTunes for Windows [ridiculopathy.com]

Because MP3 is the standard...

The two protected formats under contention ( AAC and WMA ) are each trying to go a different way.

WMA is all around a myriad of different choices for PRODUCERS of music to say what kind of DRM they would like protecting the file. No burning to CD's or listeing to in leap years? Got the bug to just drop a licence for anyone with an email address containing numbers? That's fine, because the user is licenceing the file.

AAC under Apple is around letting USERS have the choice of what happens with thier music - any protected AAC file has the same level of protection, whcih is marginal and does not hamper most peoples use of music. Furthermore the protection is arranged in such a way that the USER owns the music.

Players are supporting one philospohy or the other basically... probably closer to the truth though is that everyone assumed WMA would be the dominant format (because Microsoft never looses, right?) and decided forking over licencing money was a nessicary cost of building a player. Right now we are in the ramp-up phase where companies are swimming over to Apple's boat, they just haven't got there yet.

Probably in the next year we'll see some dual players from people who licence AAC but have already paid the Microsoft toll.

Have you counted?

Go to BestBuy or CircuitCity or any electronics store, and count. There is at most one player that plays iTunes music: iPod. There will be several players from several different companies that play WMA.

In this case, Microsoft is right. Of all the DRM'ed music formats, Apple's verison of AAC offers the least choice to the consumer.

Choice? I'll show you choice.

MSSpeak - We give you CHOICE in the PDA market

Real World - We charge all vendors equally and make all our money off of the applications you have to buy to interact with these devices. MS Office, Exchange, and we make it next to impossible for someone to convert Lotus Notes into your Windoows CE, er Pocket Windows, er Pocket Windows 2002, er 2003, er hey you need a new PDA every year from our 'choice'

While my Palm 3.0 OS still works and I can still load what's latest and greatest on it.

MSSPeak - iTunes is a closed format, they don't offer choice.

Apple makes a player. It uses FairPlay's DRM. Apple doesn't own fairplay, and there is nothing stopping anyone from releasing players and/or portables to support this. Though people haven't, except one major one... HP.

However here's another handy dandy pocket windows media os that you ahve to buy all new items for in six months or so that should do everything but support AAC from Apple, but that's OK we have WMA and it even has a true lossless CODEC for you audiophiles - Apple Doesn't! Their software is lossless! BTW our Pocket Media OS will let you play a widescreen movie on a 2" LCD and you'll like it because we said so. Apple is insane saying that no one wants that because we make it and you buy it because we said it's there!

Whatever. Granted other than AAC that iTunes using being a bit to tight on the compression for my taste *I* like it and I've bought a few hundred songs. Would I care if it died tomorrow and some other vendor came out with a killer app? Heck no, but then again iTMS is the only one in the 10s of millions of songs sold. If 5% of the computer population can do that....

Lets prove MS Wrong...

If Microsoft is wrong then we should be able to design and build a third party media player that can play iTunes Music store songs and a plugin so Winamp can play them.

Otherwise Microsoft is right... Oh wait you can just Burn a CD in iTunes and rip the CD into mp3 right in iTunes. Nevermind cary on nothing to see here.

Irony!

WTF are you talking about? The OS doesn't support devices or software. Hardware vendors produce drivers; that is why Microsoft is able to (legitimately) claim that 70% of all MS-Windows failures are due to bad drivers. It is the hardware vendors that produce the drivers to the OS, not the other way 'round.

Same with software. Software is targetted *toward* an OS; the operating system is (hardly) never written towards an application.

Microsoft has made a company from destroying competition, yet (ironically) a lot of software is targetted toward the MS-Windows operating system.

This is due mostly to Microsoft's early control of the hardware distribution chain. By controlling the software that was installed when there was very little choice, they have managed to lock out other software from being included today. Since that control translated to 90% desktop market share, other software companies felt they were safe targetting the MS-Windows platform.

Apple does not have a history of driving other software companies out of business by bundling their own software with their OS; Microsoft does have that reputation. So your comments are extremely ironic, and display a certain ignorance of history.

Re:Windows *is* about choice

Apple supports a very small select group of software and hardware.

Truly, you've got it backward. Apple supports plenty of players [apple.com]. The manufacturers of some of those players and many others, on the other hand, don't support Apple. The upshot is that you can't do as much with those players as you can with a player that supports AAC and FairPlay.

You can still use iTunes with your Rio or whatever, to play MP3's that you've ripped from your own CD collection. You just can't use it to play music you've purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

This is all pretty understandable, as those manufacturers had to take a guess at which way the online music market would go. It looks like they might have got it wrong this time, but as soon as it's clear that that's the case, they'll jump to build AAC/FairPlay compatible devices. You can be sure that Creative Labs and the rest are not going to stand around looking stupid for too long while Apple and HP eat their lunch.

Ohh no!

Everyone isnt using windows for everything! How terrible!

This is all about MS history biting them in the ass. Their previous records of ass fucking every possible partner has gotten into the heads of people. You cant trust MS and thus you team up with ABM.

I agree with Microsoft

It's a bad idea -- not because it somehow promotes an Apple monopoloy, but because no one wants WMA playback on thier ipod.

Can you imagine

Microsoft is saying this AFTER HP and apple have decided to add WMA support to the iPods;
my two cents; if microsoft comes out with a better product, with all the features they promise - they have nothing to worry about - BUT HOW CAN they whine about a product just because it is good and it is not theirs?

The difference between Apple and Microsoft?

Apple calls their MP3 player the iPod.

Microsoft calls their MP3 player the much snappier "Mobile Entertainment Device".

'nuff said.

Get ready for Microsoft v. Apple

I am not an antitrust lawyer but it seems to me that Microsoft is setting the foundation for impending litigation if it finds itself unable to innovate itself through Apple and it's music store.

"As most here incredibly well versed in, manufacturers are forbidden by law to compel their customers to purchase an unwanted product as a prerequisite to buying another product. (read operating systems forced upon buyers) This illegal practice is known as "tying."

"Findlaw.com defines tying as "an arrangement or agreement in which a seller will sell a product to a buyer only if the buyer will also buy another product."

Findlaw.com further discusses tying:

"Sellers with more than one product may seek to tie the sale of one (which the customer presumably desires) with that of another (which it presumably does not want). Such tie-ins are governed not only by the general language of the Sherman Act, but the more particular provisions of Section 3 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits such arrangements if the likely result is substantially to lessen competition. Tie-ins are per se unlawful if the seller possesses sufficient market power in the tying product, and coerces the buyer to take the tied product as a condition to obtaining the desired product.
(Walt Pennington - desktoplinux.com)

It seems a logical step to say that Microsoft will argue that Apple is tying the sale of it's music (which microsoft will argue is the desired product) with that of its music player (which, Redmond will - perhaps tongue in cheek in front of consumers who LOVE their iPods - say is the unwanted product.)

I think it is an interesting possible move, if one that may be bad for the industry. I think that people should be able to use the players they want for the music they OWN - imagine only being able to use a sony compact disc player for sony signed artists - but the pay to download music infrastructure just isn't ready at this point in time for fracturization. Apple isn't making any money on the music, just the players. Until money can viably be made, pay to download music services will be close to a precipice that can only be avoided by at first solidifying and standardizing the content and the distribution method.

Overall Responses

I've read through this thread and have some overall responses and see some common misperceptions. First, Fester's comments are not about AAC or the iTunes app - they were about the Store, iPod, and iTunes in combination. Second, Fester is right that music purchased from iTunesMS can only be played in an iPod and iTunes because apple wraps AAC up in a proprietary and unlicensable DRM. Once you wrap a 'standard' codec up in such DRM, it's no longer a standard from the all-important interperability standpoint. third, WMA and WMDRM are freely licensable to ANY music store, device vendor, or software developer to use as they see fit on ANY platform. That's why both are supported in multiple vendor devices (Creative Labs, Rio, etc...), software tools (Adobe, Real, Musicmatch, Winamp), and music stores (Napster, Musicmatch, BestBuy). You may be opposed to WMA for other reasons, but it currently comes closest to replicating the world users currently enjoy, where CDs from any store can be played in CD players from any vendor.

Re:choice

Wait.. what? I would fill up the gas in my car if my sister wasn't a lesbian.

Re:choice

What?

iTunes doesn't require you to have an iPod. It works fine on your computer. And it's the only solution that allows you to take the files you buy from it, unprotect them, and turn them into whatever format you want.

I know, you'll call me an Apple apologist. Whatever. I guess I could call you a Microsoft apologist and it would make as much sense.

Re:choice

iTunes will upload and download songs from many MP3 players, including these [apple.com].

The only limitation is that you cannot play AAC protected (iTunes music store) files on these third-party players. But a quick capture/rip (or just use Audio Hijack to capture the stream to MP3) takes care of that limitation.

Re:Can someone explain to me why

Easy - Apple doesn't own the copyright to the music and the record companies won't let Apple sell the music unless some form of rights management is in place. If they were allowed to do so, I'm sure they would have preferred to sell raw AAC files without any rights management.

I think its cool that Apple managed to get the record companies to agree on a system as liberal as iTMS. You can burn an *unlimited* number of *unprotected audio CDs* with the only restriction that a particular *playlist* can be burned a maximum of 10 times. (Not a big deal, just make a new playlist with the same songs or, for that matter, just make a copy of the *unprotected audio CD* you already burned 10 copies of!)

You can authorize 3 computers to play the protected files directly and you can backup the protected files to any type of media you like. You can play the protected files on as many iPods as you want, etc...

Re:Can someone explain to me why

MP3, AAC, Ogg, WMA and most (but not all) CODECs are 'lossy'. So, if you take a raw bit stream and encode it with ACC, you lose some quality. Not very much.

To play this back, you need to convert it back to raw bits again. Now, you can capture those bits (Audio Hijack does this), and save the file, but it will be huge. (You encoded using MP3 etc becuase you wanted to save space).

If you reencode this with any lossy CODEC, including the 'original', you will lose some more information. Probably enough that you will notice that the quality has degraded.

So, the DRM in AAC stops you making unlimited copies of the original file. (Well, you can copy them, but they will only play on a limited number of machines---keyed to the embedded DRM info.) You can of course burn the tracks to CD---which copies the raw bitstream. You can make an unlimited number of copies of this (though iTunes won't let you make more than 10 copoies of a playlist, but that is mere inconvenience). You can also re-encode using another DRM free CODEC, but if that CODEC is lossy, the quality will be degraded. Probably noticeably.

Note again though: any time you reencode between lossy CODECs, you will lose some quality. This has nothing to do with DRM.

In conclusion, you are right. A copy is going to be lossy, except if you burn to CD (which is easy).

Re:choice

Apple and HP aren't forcing anyone to buy an iPod, or use the iTunes music store. Yes those things are interdependent, but if you don't like that, show them by buying a different mp3 player, and using whatever software and online music service you want.

Oh yeah, but Apple prevents you from doing that by abusing their overwhelming monopoly in order to get you to do what they want.

No, wait, that's MS...

Except in this case Apple is forcing users to use their superior mp3 player to interface with their superior online music store. And if you don't agree with that appraisal, fine, but then why do you care? Just use something else. If there was any real competition to the Apple/iTMS combination nobody would be whining about this.

Re:What would Michael Crichton say?

Then a strange alien "virus" kills the survivors.

Except it will mutate into a harmless strain just before the hero dies! I generally like Crichton, but God I hate that book.

Re:Isn't he right?

correct me if I'm wrong, but you can only listen to iTunes content on an iPod.

You're only one 'Burn' button away from a DRM free CD you can play anywhere. (which is a good idea from a backup standpoint)

Re:Isn't he right?

I really have to agree that m00nun1t has a point. Be honest with yourselves and think about how we would we be reacting if the situations were swapped. We would be accusing Microsoft of embracing and extending the AAC file format with their fairplay DRM. We would attack them of vendor lock-in by bundling iTunes on all version of their OS, and not licencing the DRM to other companies. We would attack them for their anti-competitive vertical integration, and plans to dominate the market. And we would be weakly praising Apple for at least being a little more cooperative with their proprietary file format.

Second, about the openness of file formats I would rank them from best to worst as such:

ogg = completely open standard
mp3, m4a = open standards, but patent encumbered
wma = proprietary, but widely licenced
m4p = proprietary, no 3rd party licences (yet)
Now I can can convert between any of these formats but I will loose quality in doing so. In order to listen to the music in the quality that I purchased it I have to stick with players that can play that file format. Apple's m4p provides the least amount of options for that case, and is the least open.

I do recognise that they had to have DRM to appease the Record Labels. But I don't know that they would get rid of the DRM if they could. Remember, Apple is subsidizing iTMS off the sales of their iPods and dropping the DRM would open the market up for competition. Then you have a bunch of people buying music off iTMS (which costs Apple money) and playing them on less expensive third party AAC-players. Knowing Apple, they will resist clones for as long as possible.

I promise you if the tables were turned we would not be giving Microsoft the credit that we are giving Apple, and if you look at history, Jobs really is no more commited to open standards than Gates. I like the work Apple does, but I am very reluctant to invest my money into a music collection where my continued listening is entirely dependant on a single company - that's the whole point of an open standard after all. Especially when higher quality, more open alternatives [wikipedia.org] exist at comparable prices.

Re:Isn't he right?

Not compeletely. You can only listen to iTunes Music Store protected AAC files on iPods, Windows computers and Macintosh computers.

iTunes itself allows you to create unprotected MP3 and unprotected AAC from your own music collection and do whatever you want with them.

I do not believe Microsoft's Windows Media Player for the Mac allows listening to protected WMA files, so in that regard the WMA format is more locked in than AAC (currently).

Also if you look at Buy.com's music store you'll see that instead of Apple's flat and mild DRM policy (same policy all songs), music company's can restrict you to how often you can copy music to your player and how many times you can play a song and if you can burn it to CD (the ability to do this may be in AAC files, i'm not sure, but it has not been enabled)

so no, currently the itunes is not as restrictive as Windows Media Player, but the protected AAC's can only be played on iPod players (if Apple gains a large enough share of the online music world -- say 90%, there may be an anti-trust law suit against them for not allowing the songs to be played on non-Apple devices)

Kevin

Easier to let it be

Why would we make up stories about corporate stupidity. Honestly, many of them are so contradictory and say such stupid things that they make themselves look far dumber than we ever could.

I particularly like the Microsoft=Choice part... which is only true to the extent that it is "Choose, but only from the selection we give you."

Re:Isn't he right?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can only listen to iTunes content on an iPod.

You can play DRM-encoded AAC iTunes content on iPods, other iTunes equipped Macs and PCs, burn the content to CD, and stream your AAC library to other Macs/PCs on the local network.

However, it doesn't matter. You could turn your argument on it's head and state that you can only listen to DRM-WMA content on DRM-WMA devices (and exactly how many WMA devices currently support DRM-locked WMA files?), whereas you can listen to DRM-encoded AAC files on any iPod/HP Music Player/Mini iPod or iTunes equipped Mac or PC.

Both would still pale in comparison to the number of devices that can support MP3s. Microsoft is pissed because the choices that HP is offering doesn't include their brand of proprietary lock, weakening the chances that WMA will become the new .DOC of the media world.

Re:choice

I hate to point out the obvious, but I use iTunes and I do not have an iPod and I'm sitting in my living room enjoying beautiful music off my stereo that I got from iTunes. All I have to do is burn a disk. La dee dah. One of the biggest misconceptions is that one needs an iPod to use iTunes. Tain't so.

And in this instance, you're wrong.

AAC isn't a proprietary Apple technology, and there are other AAC players available. [ciao.co.uk]

Re:Other AAC Players

AFAIC, only iPod can support the m4p file format. There were rumors that one of the Nokia phones could, but I think that that ended up being tracked down to a typo. I know that none of the Panasonic players can support it.

If you think about, it since iTMS is being subsidized by iPod sales, if Apple were to allow others to make m4p players they would have people buying stuff off of iTMS (which costs Apple money) and playing it on less expensive third party players (which earns Apple nothing). Coupled with Apples past behavior, it is my opinion that they will avoid iPod clones for as long as possible.

If I am incorrect it would be good to know. I really like Apple's work, but am always wary of them because Jobs has a history of being just as agressive as Gates, and even more reluctant to standardize.

Re:And in this instance, you're wrong.

AAC isn't a proprietary Apple technology, and there are other AAC players available.

I am sick and tired of this Red Herring of an argument.

It doesn't matter if Apple used the "ultra supreme, open standard, endorsed by RMS, JWZ, and YHWH file format", the second they encrypt it using proprietary DRM, it becomes proprietary. Period. Can I play it on my standards-based AAC player? No, therefore it is not an open standard. It is embraced and extended.

Second, it is irrelevent that iTunes the software can rip, and play strait AAC and burn m4p to CD. MusicMatch's software can rip, and play straid mp3 and burn DRM'ed WMA to CD. Does that make the WMA good? Then why does Apple doing it make m4p good?

Please stop using this argument. It is a half-truth and you will end up decieving some poor dude into thinking that he can play iTMS music on something other than iTunes and iPod.

4 steps for iTunes without an iPod

I hate to waste a comment on this but:

If you want to play an aac file an 'mp3 player' (term used genericly) that isn't an ipod - this is what you do:

1. Plug in the mp3 player.
2. Click on the song/songs you bought. click 'Advanced', then click 'Convert Selection to MP3'.
3. Wait.
4. Drag mp3's out of iTunes, on to mp3 player.

In fact -- you can use these same steps to convert any format that iTunes reads into an mp3 or your non ipod mp3 player. Anyhow, the only problem is when the DRM battle has escalated to the point where there are no longer mp3 players on the market, then you will have to make a choice between camps.

Re:Isn't he right?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can only listen to iTunes content on an iPod.

OK, Let's see if I can clear this up for you.

iTunes can handle several different audio codecs. Most of my files are MP3s, but some are AIFFs and some are AAC. That being said, I can sync and listen to ALL my MP3s and AIFF files on ANY player that can understand them. You don't need an iPod to listen to MP3s from iTunes - almost any MP3 player will do.

iTunes Music Store on the other hand only provides AAC encoded content. You must have a device capable of playing AAC files to play this content - or, you can make a playlist, hit "burn" (you don't even need a CD - there is software that can make a "virtual" CD") and you now have all your purchased content in 128 Bit MP3 format. Yes, one extra step, but easy to do and it's then DRM-Free. I do this so that I can play my purchased music on my MP3-enabled CD player in the car or in my office at work. So the long and short of it is, iTunes content isn't only AAC DRM'd Files.

Hope that clears it up. Don't listen to the FUD put out by those who seem to feel threatened by it. iTunes is an excellent player/organizer in it's own right and doesn't need an iPod to work.

And you can resolve that by

a) Dropping AAC and go WMA only on iPods or
b) Support as many formats as possible, and let the "huge number of devices" start supporting AAC instead. Guess which one Microsoft favors?

Microsoft should be glad for this decision. The iPod was in a position to make AAC the only commercial format on the scene, with their combined iTMS/iPod power. Instead, I assume that Microsoft will now start getting royalties on every iPod sold.

Personally, I think Apple fumbled the ball on both the mini-iPod and this. They should have made it cheaper to catch the mass market, and kept it MP3/AAC only to keep competing WMA shops out.

I think Apple simply isn't ready to change that much. With these moves, they're aiming up to be a niche player in a Microsoft (WMA) market yet again. They should have gone for broke and taken the market. Then they could be licencing other players to play iTMSs protected files, not the other way around.

Kjella

Re:choice

a) wtf? iTunes doesn't require an iPod, I shop iTunes on occasion don't have an iPod, and I burn CDS. b) How does the HP deal reduce consumer choice, XP has Media Player built in, there's no removing it. So now if you buy an HP you get both. I see no reduction in choice there.

Choice in the Microsoft World

Microsoft wants to create a platform that is used by every man, woman and child, from the day they are born, in every facet of their life.

By platform I don't just mean Windows desktop PC's... the XBox is one small step for Microsoft, one giant leap for world domination. Consider that Bill Gates' house is one of the most technology-driven pieces of real estate in the world. Imagine if 10 years from now, it was like that everywhere; running all MS software.

Choices MS wants to give you:

What wallpaper do you want?
Will you use XP Home at Home, or be a rebel and use XP Pro?
Will you buy a Dell, Compaq or HP computer to run Windows on?
Which charity would you like to see Bill Gates donate to this year?

The Microsoft Way isn't about eliminating choices; it's about controlling all available choices.

Re:Poster is a moron or a spin doctor.

Microsoft has never written software that forces a customer to use specific hardware.

Ah, quite the contrary. Microsoft forces specific hardware manufacturers to only use Microsoft software.

If Microsoft could get WMA to catch on bigtime, here's what would happen:

The licensing cost for WMA technology would become so high that it would only be affordable when purchased at "OEM volume." Part of the discount would include requiremnents that players supporing WMA can't support other competing codecs like AAC or Real or (dare I say it... I dare!) Ogg Vorbis.

In other words, we would be limited to Microsoft-based file formats, Limited compatibility with non-Windows OS, DRM, and so on. You're trying to tell me that the bright side is that we could get a player from any number of manufacturers, and I'm telling you you're wearing glasses so rosy this Apple Lisa looks like a strawberry iMac.

This, my anonymous coward, is Microsoft's business strategy. It is called "embrace and extend."

They've "embraced" the mp3 player and are now trying to "extend" their Windows monopoly to include that piece of the hardware market. For this nut to turn, the demand for their entry at the pony show, the WMA format, has to be a hell of a lot stronger than it is now.

I will not speculate on how Microsoft might pull that off, however if anyone from Microsoft is listening I'm willing to demonstrate for a mere six figures.