And music in AAC

The third aspect in which Apple insists on standards is the AAC music format. You may argue that the FairPlay DRM protection used by Apple is neither standardized nor open, but this is the norm for successful music protection (no user consciously uses the pseudo-standard OMA; it is only used by distributors of paid ringtones to lock ringtones).

However, AAC is a standard music format specified under MPEG4, and unless the band requires FairPlay security, iTunes will play AAC songs on any player that supports this standard.

A few years ago, Apple rejected Microsoft’s proposals to also use WMA format songs in the iPod, arguing that it was a proprietary format and that Apple wanted to stick to open standards. With this move, Apple cut Microsoft off from a large part of the music market, and Microsoft has yet to find a convincing response. The Zune player was definitely not the answer (given the results).

The context of this story

And music in AAC

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