“The only surprising thing about the fact that Apple Computer has now locked RealNetworks out of the iPod is that it took so long for it to happen,” Arik Hesseldahl writes for Forbes.com.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, one other thing that’s somewhat surprising is that it took so long for anybody to notice. That has to tell you something about Real’s sales to iPod photo owners at least.
Hesseldahl writes, “Apple Computer, you’ll remember, was ‘stunned’ earlier this year by RealNetworks’ creation of Harmony, a downloadable music format that allows its users to play songs on an Apple iPod. Apple, being rather protective of its digital rights management scheme called Fairplay, wasn’t amused, and promptly threatened to lock Harmony users out of the iPod with a forthcoming software update.”
“That is precisely what Apple has started to do. The software released with its iPod Photo music player renders songs encoded in the Harmony format unplayable. You probably can expect a renewed cat-and-mouse game, but with luck RealNetworks Chief Executive Robert Glaser has learned his lesson about picking a public relations fight with Apple and its CEO, Steve Jobs. And if it can be done on the iPod Photo, it likely can be done just as easily with a software update to other iPod models,” Hesseldahl writes. “Still, there’s a bigger question at stake here, and eventually Apple is going to have to address it. The music industry wants a unified digital standard…”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Actually, there already is a de facto standard. It’s called MPEG-4 Audio: Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) with the market-dominating FairPlay, Apple’s digital rights management (DRM) system – look for the .m4p file extension in your iTunes Music folder. The Dictionary of Computing defines “de facto standard,” as a widespread consensus on a particular product or protocol which has not been ratified by any official standards body, such as ISO, but which nevertheless has a large market share. The de facto standard for digital online music is an MPEG-4 Audio File (Protected) or .m4p. According to NPD, Apple’s iPod holds nearly 68 per cent of the worldwide music player market and iPod’s share of the US hard drive-based player market is 82 percent. Also according to NPD, Apple’s iTunes Music Store holds 70% market share of the paid music downloading industry.
Click the link below to get yours at Apple’s iTunes Music Store while they last 
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First Post.
Doh!
… or that it took so long for someone to notice?
I guess, at least for me, I would see it more of a standard if more than one online music store was using it (perhaps there are more stores, but hell, I haven’t seen/heard about any of them).
ITMS happens to be the biggest online music store and by that account, most of the online sales are using m4p as the format, but I’d like it if most of the online stores were using it instead. Compare the number of stores using it, not the number of sales.
Then it would be the de facto standard. IMHO
Yeah, but the de-facto standard OS is Windows, and the de-facto standard browser is MSIE. I’m not not sure this is a concept we want to spread.
The problem I get stuck with is how MacDailyNews justifies that AAC is the best format out there solely because it is so widespread. MDN tends not to be worried about Apple’s low market share because we know that the OS platform is inherently better. Yet they continue to publish a congratulatory article any time anything claims that Mac sales are on the rise, so obviously we want some sort of increased market share.
Yet at the same time you say “WMA is bad because of it’s low market share.” Well by your theory, if for some reason people start to buy a lot from another Music Store that sells WMA, will you isntead admit that WMA is the best music format out there? And how can you call small market share not a problem for a Mac, but a big problem for a PC, when WMA seems to be MUCH more compatible with computers (i.e. every computer comes with Windows Media Player, but people have to physically download iTunes to play AAC)?
Bob,
Sorry, but regardless of whether we like it or not, repeat after me… “Windows and MSIE ARE the de-facto standard”. It certainly doesn’t make me sleep any easier at night either…. believe me!
It matters not how many online music stores use a particular format. It matters which format most people use. That is the standard and how many standards come to be standards. Early on, there are usually standards battles (see Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD), but the marketplace will usually determine the real standard (see VHS vs. Beta). Right now, MDN is correct, .m4p is the standard. All others are only trying to unseat the standard (and failing miserably, too).
How can Apple’s DRM be considered a standard if Apple’s iTunes and iPods are the only players capable of playing them?
Russell,
MDN never said “WMA is bad because of it’s low market share.” You did. MDN only said that the de facto standard is .m4p. And it is.
MS Blaster:
“How can Apple’s DRM be considered a standard if Apple’s iTunes and iPods are the only players capable of playing them?”
Variety of sources is not a requirement to be a standard. Most people own iPods and most people buy from iTunes, therefore .m4p is the standard.
Russell,
How much more difficult is it to download iTunes than it is to download the number of frequent “updates” that are required for WMP and Windows?
I guess that you don’t have to “physically” download those…
Come back to us when you have a valid point about the compatibility issue.
Keep in mind, iTunes and it’s compatible audio formats play on BOTH OS X and Windows… at Apple’s cost. You can’t say the same for Windows and it’s supported formats.
Actually you can play AAC files through a plugin on WMP…Its called DirectShow
Also, Apples version of mpeg-4 isnt the defacto standard globally as in (ISO)…It’s Proprietary..
mp3, AAC, and WMA are already free standards. WHAT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY WANTS IS COPY PROTECTION! That takes control to make it work (for sure!)
What continues to amaze me is how many writers still seem to be creating their articles about iTune’s and iPod’s amazing market share from the point-of-view that “this can’t be happening, this is Apple we’re talking about”. It’s like their reality shouldn’t allow Apple to be successful in anything.
Opps, my bad! I thought it was “ReelNetworks” and that Harmony was some sorta reel-to-reel unit that they used to b-break DRM, and this was this digitized analog image that you were downloading from them!
Trevor,
I may be mistaken, but Apple does use the standard mpeg-4 encoding, but they contain it in a protection layer (Fairplay) which I think might also be allowed by the standard. Once, authorized for use and decoded, it conforms to the mpeg-4 playback standard.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
Seems like every writer has decided that Apple “broke” Harmony without having a single fact to back it up. Nobody knows at this point anything other than the fact that Harmony songs don’t work with the newest firmware. I don’t recall that Apple said they would break it; I think they said that it may not work in the future. Sure, it might be construed as a veiled promise, but maybe they also knew the direction that their security measures were going anyway, and that those eventual measures would cause problems for any hacks.
It isn’t just tech writers that seem to have this problem; news reporting from any of the networks and any of the media outlets are suffering from this problem. Writers simply do not know how to write anymore. At best they are spouting personal editorials disguised as news.
Sure gets us stirred up though; but I guess that’s what editorializing is supposed to do. It just isn’t reliable news.
In the end, we the readers need to read all this fluff objectively and ask the questions for ourselves, and evaluate the validity of the writer’s argument.
Sizewell
Your Right, I forgot to mention the DRM packaging, which is really the only thing proprietary about it..
So just to clarify….
Apple uses a recognized standard “ACC” (mpeg-4) with the addition of THE de-facto DRM standard “Fairplay” for its audio encoding and playback.
Just thought it needed to said.
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The defacto standard is MP3, which 90% trade illegally in the billions everyday.
So AAC, WMA, Real’s “hack” etc are all minorities actually.
All Glaiser did was cause a problem and make himself look like a fool.
If the music industry wants a universal standard, they should provide one. But we know what happens when they try that.
“The defacto standard is MP3, which 90% trade illegally in the billions everyday.”
The key word was “illegally”… are you happy to base your stance on illegal practices? I hope not.
“All Glaiser did was cause a problem and make himself look like a fool.”, and for that his company won the Billboard Digital Entertainment Award for “Best Downloadable or Subscription Music Service”… must have been a parody award.
Mpeg4 is the new, emerging standard on the internet in particular. The reason it’s a candidate for a standard is that it ‘standardized,’ ie. it’s designed to be player and device independent. So one should be able to create a standards complient Mpeg4 file which will play on computers with Quicktime, or Windows Media Player, or Real – or a phone, or a PDA, or some new portable video player device that may not have even been invented yet.
AAC is the audio part of Mpeg4. I suppose we could expect Mpeg4 video support in all our devices and yet decide we don’t like the audio element and instead demand specific players with their own specific wrapper formats for audio. Why accept convenience lying down?
There’s more to standards than popularity. There’s intelligence.
RePlay
You’re right. Apple said that in the future, with iPod software updates, that it “may not work” with Real. So buyer beware!
I am sure that apple wants to check everytime with Real if it is going to work with their hack, when they upgrade the software.
The writers fail to get this right, and suggest that apple intentionally changed it so that it wouldn’t work, without getting that statement from Apple themselves. I wish people would be more objective, as public opinion gets swayed with incorrect information. That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.