“As you’ve probably heard by now, Apple just announced plans to ditch DRM for good. That means all songs you purchase from iTunes will arrive on your PC without the usual copy-protection shackles,” Rick Broida blogs for PC World.
MacDailyNews Take: Actually, Rick, they’ll arrive on our Macs. Because we have brains.
Broida continues, “However, this doesn’t give you carte blanche. Because Apple still encodes songs using the proprietary AAC format, your downloads won’t play in many phones, PDAs, MP3 players, and so on.”
MacDailyNews Take: Rick, you ignorant slut, AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is no more proprietary than MP3. AAC was developed by the MPEG group that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer, AT&T, Sony, and Nokia; companies that have also been involved in the development of audio codecs such as Dolby Digital (AC3) and your ignorantly beloved dinosaur MP3. AAC has also been adopted by the major standards organizations including the ISO MPEG (MPEG-4), 3GPP and 3GPP2, DVB, as well as Sirius XM satellite radio.
Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC demonstrates greater sound quality than MP3 files encoded at the same bit rate.
Along with Apple’s market-dominating iTunes jukebox, iTunes Store, iPods, and iPhones, AAC is the standard audio format for Sony’s PlayStation 3 and is supported by Sony’s Playstation Portable, latest generation of Sony Walkman, Walkman Phones from Sony Ericsson, The BBC, Adobe’s Flash Nseries Phones from Nokia, Nintendo’s Wii, the Nintendo DSi, Creative Zen Portable, Microsoft Zune, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows Mobile devices, Epson P-2000 and P-4000, Sony Reader, Sonos Digital Media Player, SanDisk Sansa, Roku SoundBridge, Logitech Squeezebox, Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player, Nokia XpressMusic multimedia phones, RIM’s latest series of BlackBerry phones, and the MPEG-4 video standard, among many others. High-Efficiency AAC is part of digital radio standards like DAB+ and Digital Radio Mondiale.
AAC was designed to fix many of the serious performance flaws in the antiquated MP3 format. Improvements include:
• More sample frequencies (from 8 kHz to 96 kHz) than MP3 (16 kHz to 48 kHz)
• Up to 48 channels (MP3 supports up to two channels in MPEG-1 mode and up to 5.1 channels in MPEG-2 mode)
• Arbitrary bit-rates and variable frame length. Standardized constant bit rate with bit reservoir.
• Higher efficiency and simpler filterbank (rather than MP3’s hybrid coding, AAC uses a pure MDCT)
• Higher coding efficiency for stationary signals (AAC uses a blocksize of 1024 samples, allowing more efficient coding than MP3’s 576 sample blocks)
• Higher coding accuracy for transient signals (AAC uses a blocksize of 128 samples, allowing more accurate coding than MP3’s 192 sample blocks)
• Can use Kaiser-Bessel derived window function to eliminate spectral leakage at the expense of widening the main lobe
• Much better handling of audio frequencies above 16 kHz
• More flexible joint stereo (different methods can be used in different frequency ranges)
By the way, Apple’s iPods and iPhones support not only AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), but also Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV out of the box.
Broida continues, “Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to convert iTunes Plus purchases to the universally compatible MP3 format.”
MacDailyNews Take: Only if you own a device that is incapable of playing AAC, should you consider using the antiquated MP3 format. If your devices support AAC, use AAC. AAC is more efficient than MP3, resulting in smaller, better-sounding files that will actually extend your device’s battery life due to more efficient decoding.
Broida’s full article, for what it’s worth, which is nothing, is here.
MacDailyNews Note: Contact PC World Editors at
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Shieldzee” for the heads up.]
Man, this guy is such an idiot. He should research what he’s going to talk about before spewing word vomit out his mouth. Sheesh. *Goes back to reading MacLife*
if you don’t have a kaiser-bessel derived window function, you got nuthin. that spectral leakage will get you every time.
Yeah, I do more research than this just to cover my ass when I post on MDN. This guy probably gets a bigger salary than me for spewing this crap? Ugh.
Seems like the main computer news sites are being usurped by the bloggers who have more current news and more technical prowess and knowledge than your average old-time “professional” tech writer.
I wish authors of tech articles would spend 5 minutes researching the topics they write, but clearly know NOTHING, about. This guy is quite possibly the most misinformed author I have read in a LONG time.
I suppose the next thing he’ll be spouting about is how we should all convert our houses to run off DC power because AC power is Apples proprietary current technology.
Moron. Go find another job – you have failed miserably at this one.
Wonder what would happen if someone told Old Rick that even the Zune plays AAC files? Think he’d be blown away?
I’m sure you could list a whole load of devices that don’t support AAC, possibly more than do, but how many are discontinued and how many have actually been sold? The iPod and iTunes massively dominate the markets for portable and computer based music so people who can’t play AAC are of a tiny minority. The Zune is an also ran and it supports AAC, how many people are seriously able to only use mp3?
Doesn’t matter. No one reads PC WORLD anymore.
Once again, I’m utterly amazed at the level of ignorance which is apparently acceptable in the tech reporting business. How much do these guys get paid again?
Simple research via Google reveals factual, useful information about the AAC format itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding) and other portable music players which can natively play AAC files (http://reviews.cnet.com/4321-6490_7-6625879.html). But apparently reporters such as Rick Broida are paid simply to write whatever they *think* they know, without checking their facts first.
Yes this guy writing this article is an idiot. But I still think MDN needs a hug…. They’ve been on the rag all week….
“You ignorant slut”
I was just about dallig asleep when I read that! For a full five mi utes I was laughing my guts out! Emailer the PC world guys as well. Truly an ignorant slut.
I wanna know where the fact checkers in this article were? Asleep at the wheel?
AAC suffers from stupid naming. If they’d just called it the more logical “MP4” it would already be the dominant format on all devices. Is “they” Apple or the MPEG group? Dunno.
Thanks for posting this. I knew that AAC was a joint development, but I didn’t realize all of the bells and whistles. That the other portable makers hasn’t included support for AAC is their own problem. Assimilate or die!
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
Rick, you ignorant slut,
FYI for those not around in the late 70s, the phrase comes from the ‘Weekend Update’ segment of Saturday Night Live. In which Dan Akroyd would start his opinion attack on Jane Curtin with: “Jane, you ignorant slut,” and Jane would start her opinion attack with “Dan, you pompous ass.”
classic funny stuff, if not politically correct.
Back on topic, it is sad to see how frequently misinformation gets published by mainstream technical journal authors. PCWorld is not alone in this regards. Sometimes I think they must intentionally publish trash opinion just to generate hype, hysteria and readership energy. Sad.
I don’t see how a supposed tech writer from PC World can’t understand this simple formula, AAC=MP4.
Rick Broida is a moron.
Eric Willard is a moron.
Billy Gates is a moron.
Stevie Ballmer is a fatso.
It’s just like the Sony boys and BluRay, nodody else cares but they love it.
Without reading the article, I’m going to assume that at least he didn’t out himself as a complete dork by babbling on about Ogg Vorbis.
This guy really needs to do some research.
This is fine to trash this guy who is a bit ignorant, but has anyone actually tried a DRM free song from iTunes on a device other than an Apple product? (Does anyone even have a device not from Apple which plays music? LOL.)
One would assume that the lack of DRM means it’s playable on any device, but does it actually work and has it been tested?
(I’m sure all 5 Zune owners have tried it already, maybe they can let us know.)
PC World blows it: Calls AAC ‘proprietary’…
AAC with “Fairplay” DRM scheme is indeed proprietary, which MOST of the songs on iTMS are STILL encoded with. Of course the AAC files without “Fairplay” are not proprietary as AAC is a open format.
However since Apple introduced this AAC format (as a way of not having to pay for MP3 licensing and be able to use copy protection schemes) in a massive scale to the world public vs the already established and universal MP3 format which most everyone uses, it’s understandable why there is resistance to the format. The stigatizm of AAC associated with DRM will always be there in the public eye.
What is really going to get people’s goat is now AAC is associated with DIGITAL SIGNATURES ON MUSIC. Because the RIAA sure hasn’t given up, they just changed tactics and give pirates enough rope to hang themselves. In fact the pirate folks recommend not sharing your iTMS songs (DRM free or not), because of the digital signatures imbedded in the music files. Changing format to MP3 doesn’t remove the digital signatures either.
iPods have serial numbers which is transmitted to Apple along with computer serial numbers when iTMS updates iPod software.
Be very afraid.
PC World blows it: Calls AAC ‘proprietary’…
AAC with “Fairplay” DRM scheme is indeed proprietary, which MOST of the songs on iTMS are STILL encoded with. Of course the AAC files without “Fairplay” are not proprietary as AAC is a open format.
However since Apple introduced this AAC format (as a way of not having to pay for MP3 licensing and be able to use copy protection schemes) in a massive scale to the world public vs the already established and universal MP3 format which most everyone uses, it’s understandable why there is resistance to the format. The stigatizm of AAC associated with DRM will always be there in the public eye.
What is really going to get people’s goat is now AAC is associated with DIGITAL SIGNATURES ON MUSIC. Because the RIAA sure hasn’t given up, they just changed tactics and give pirates enough rope to hang themselves. In fact the pirate folks recommend not sharing your iTMS songs (DRM free or not), because of the digital signatures imbedded in the music files. Changing format to MP3 doesn’t remove the digital signatures either.
iPods have serial numbers which is transmitted to Apple along with computer serial numbers when iTMS updates iPod software.
Be very afraid.
Fun & Games:
If one doesn’t pirate their songs, what’s there to be afraid of?!!
Wow….i’d like to quote my college physics professor: ” Do your homework”