I think there's an entirety of five people outside of Microsoft who really thinks that Microsoft - or WMA-based solutions - is the best solution out there.
What has consistently grabbed me in discussing iTunes with others has instead been its lack of support for, say, OGG Vorbis or open lossless formats like FLAC. (Additionally, there are people who rely on Winamp plugins to play tracker music, but they're far fewer.)
I don't know why QuickTime (and thus iTunes) doesn't support OGG Vorbis natively in the first place - it's open and there are well-known implementations of it ripe to just 'slurp up'. There are even multiple QuickTime components there already. I think the main holdup is getting it to work on the iPod, evidenced by the fact that iTunes already carries an "OGG" document icon.
That said, I'd also very much like for, when Jobs feels like the iTMS market share is high enough, WMA support. Beating the competition may be a high priority, but interoperating with them for the good of the user should always be higher.
by Jesper — Mar 14
What has consistently grabbed me in discussing iTunes with others has instead been its lack of support for, say, OGG Vorbis or open lossless formats like FLAC. (Additionally, there are people who rely on Winamp plugins to play tracker music, but they're far fewer.)
I don't know why QuickTime (and thus iTunes) doesn't support OGG Vorbis natively in the first place - it's open and there are well-known implementations of it ripe to just 'slurp up'. There are even multiple QuickTime components there already. I think the main holdup is getting it to work on the iPod, evidenced by the fact that iTunes already carries an "OGG" document icon.
That said, I'd also very much like for, when Jobs feels like the iTMS market share is high enough, WMA support. Beating the competition may be a high priority, but interoperating with them for the good of the user should always be higher.