This is exactly why I refuse to buy a IPod. If Apple were to make a IPod that plays MP3's directly I would buy one, but I refuse to be a slave to ITunes.

AAC is not proprietary, and several other devices (e.g. PSP, Sony Walkman Digital Audio Players, Walkman Phones, N-series Phones from Nokia...) can play it

AAC is not proprietary, it's the mp4 format. Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

According to wikipedia, the AAC format is also supported by Creative Zen, Microsoft Zune, SanDisk Sansa, Sony Walkman and PSP, and others. I think this article needs some serious reconsideration.

MP3 and AAC both require proprietary patent licenses. Apple (and Amazon) should support a truly open format like Ogg Vorbis (which is incidentally far better technically than MP3).

I will try to be a little bit more polite than ARock84. In your article you say, "Because Apple still encodes songs using the proprietary AAC format...". AAC is not an Apple proprietary (or for that matter any company's proprietary) file format. Wikipedia has the following about AAC:

"Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at many bit rates.
AAC has been standardized by ISO and IEC, as part of the MPEG-2 & MPEG-4 specifications. The MPEG-2 standard contains several audio coding methods, including the MP3 coding scheme. AAC is able to include 48 full-bandwidth (up to 96 kHz) audio channels in one stream plus 15 low frequency enhancement (LFE, limited to 120 Hz) channels and up to 15 data streams. AAC is able to achieve good audio quality at data rates of 320 kbit/s for five channels. The quality for stereo is satisfactory to modest requirements at 96 kbit/s in joint stereo mode, however hi-fi transparency demands data rates of at least 192 kbit/s (VBR), as with MP3.
AAC's best known use is as the default audio format of Apple's iPhone, iPod, iTunes, and the format used for all iTunes Store audio.
AAC is also 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, Nseries Phones from Nokia, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007), the Nintendo DSi, and the MPEG-4 video standard."

Also to address tenney67, iPods play MP3's natively along with the following file formats:

MP3 VBR, AIFF, WAV, M4A AAC, M4P AAC, M4B AAC, Apple Lossless, AA (Audible Spoken Word file format)

"I will try to be a little bit more polite than ARock84. In your article
you say, "Because Apple still encodes songs using the proprietary AAC
format...". AAC is not an Apple proprietary (or for that matter any
company's proprietary) file format."

You're missing the point. Yes, as Wikipedia says it was standardized. But legally implementing the standard requires the use of several proprietary patents. See http://mp3licensing.com/

Apparently Mr. Broida failed to do any research for his blog post. AAC, Advanced Audio Coding, is a standardized, a proprietary format.

From Wikipedia:
If a digital audio player doesn't support a modern standard like AAC, that is the fault of the manufacturer, not Apple. Many manufacturers, such as Sonny, Microsoft, Nintendo, Creative, SanDisk, and Palm, Nikia, Samsung, RIM, and Siemens, to name a few, do offer AAC support.


A "purest" would not purchase music in a lossy format at all (unless it was not available in a lossless format), most likely by purchasing the CD. They certainly would not use MP3 when a superior standard like AAC is available. Nor is a "purest" likely to purchase a digital music player that does not support AAC.

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