Apple's Windows iTunes SDK

[Windowlicker]

hopefully this will further the use of AAC as a format instead of WMA

yeah. this is why i voted positive.. i don't really care what software people use to play their music. but i do care if there's no files i can play with my itunes. of course that's not what's gonna happen, but the world would be better with no wma at all.

btw if apple lets windows users use aac and convert wma to it and play aac on different apps, why doesn't MS let us convert those bloody wma's to aac?! ;P

 

[YWN]

btw if apple lets windows users use aac and convert wma to it and play aac on different apps, why doesn't MS let us convert those bloody wma's to aac?! ;P

use dBpowerAMP Music Converter to do that, quite nifty tool! Can convert every codec to every codec (or at least, most of the codecs... also wma, rm, mp3, and all can be converted to aac with no problem...) try it some time, it is free and really good...

 

[virividox]

the more aac is mainstream the better; better for hte ipod better for apple, better for digital music

 

[Windowlicker]

There is one thing I like about Winamp vs iTunes. I am a sound engineer and I listen to lots of different mixes of songs and other band songs and things that I will listen to ONCE or a few times and then delete the files. When I use iTunes it puts the songs into my Library by default. I don't have iTunes COPY THE FILE into the library, but it still leaves an entry in the library for the song I listened to a few times, then deleted it. As far as AAC/PROTECTED FILES, I don't ever listen to those once and delete them, so that's a different issue, but still having the option to using a different player is nice.

yeah here's a thing i'd like to be added: a Temp. playlist where you could drop your songs and if you wanna keep em, then stick them to the library. hmm i'm gonna go give feedback right away.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Wow, what planet are you from? Most of the good PC games require at least 768MB of -free- RAM as well as a pretty kick-ass video card.

Bull. I've played some seriously agressive, specs wise, games on my 1.7Ghz/384MB/40GB system. You sure as heck do NOT need that kind of RAM for Windows unless you are talking with world's most poorly programed game that is. At most 512MB should do. Hell my home server is only running 512 and that is a web\mail\DHCP\Radius\SSH\RAS server.

And as for laptops I'm running one with 500MHz\256MB with XP. No problems at all. The other is a 800MHz\384MB XP system that also never runs into the pagefile.

 

[thatwendigo]

Personally, I think the future of Apple may be as a software company, ala Microsoft. Do you know how many people out there would use and pay for products like OS X if they ran on PC hardware?

Hardly any, because people only pay for Windows if the absolutely have to, or if it's bundled with their hardware when it's bought. Apple would die as a purely software company, because even half of their line in hardware is over three times their revenue in software. Combined, they sell some eight times what they do in software in hardware.

For Q2 2004:
Pro Sales (PowerMac and PowerBook) - $685,000,000
Consumer (iBook, iMac) - $475,000,000
iPods - $264,000,000
Software - $213,000,000

Apple made less in software than they did in iPods.

The potential market is enormous.

And flooded... There's no reason to believe that OS X would ever gain a foothold in the PC market, because inclusion of the mass of drivers and other nevessary steps would ruin most of the stability and elegance. The OS would be reduced to a prettier and moderately more secure platform that was far more accessible to the writers of exploits, trojans, worms, and virii, and while there is a lot of inherent security in using a *NIX-derived system, it's not perfect.

Nevermind how Apple would be forced to adopt copy protection to ensure they were paid for the use of the OS... 🙄

Mac hardware, however, will always be a niche market. It is too pricey, you cant build it yourself, and it is not customizable enough.

It's also more stable, less prone to breakdown, and generally more efficiently bountiful in overall features for the price. Believe me, I've done the comparisons, and the only way to consistently beat Apple is to either build your own system (which most home users won't know how to do) or to go with a company that subsidizes their computers off of an electronics market (Sony, HP, Toshiba).

I think slowly, Apple will begin to market more and more of the "Mac experience" for PCs. Then when the time is right, Apple could conceivably strike, and take a large share of the OS market. This might be risky for Apple - but if the company is to grow and not stay RIGHT WHERE IT IS, eventually this need to happen.

Nope. Intel is learning what Apple and AMD discovered years ago, and that's a hard lesson in efficiency over raw numbers. The partners are aligning against Intel and Microsoft both. Look how many are currently on the RISC and Wintel-alternative bandwagon: AMD, IBM, FreeScale, Cisco, Agilent, ATI, NEC, nVidia, PMC, Transmeta, Via, Texas Instruments, Sony, Toshiba, Sun, and Apple.

Note, I am not saying Mac hardware needs to go away, but I think the software by itself is good enough that in the future Apple will be primarily a software producer, and make Mac hardware on the side for those people who want a particularly nice machine.

You obviously don't remember what happened when the clones were allowed. Apple very nearly died.

 

[Windowlicker]

use dBpowerAMP Music Converter to do that, quite nifty tool! Can convert every codec to every codec (or at least, most of the codecs... also wma, rm, mp3, and all can be converted to aac with no problem...) try it some time, it is free and really good...

thanks for advice!! i'll try it! 🙂) still, I'd rather just drop those wma's to itunes and they would automatically convert to aac (or stay wma but work just like any other music file)..

edit. UM.. IT'S FOR WINDOWS ;P so there's no use for it in my case.

 

[YWN]

edit. UM.. IT'S FOR WINDOWS ;P so there's no use for it in my case.

Right, thought u wanted it for Windows, my bad...

 

[TRiPod]

yeah here's a thing i'd like to be added: a Temp. playlist where you could drop your songs and if you wanna keep em, then stick them to the library. hmm i'm gonna go give feedback right away.

ya but think about it. if you're being LEGAL, you can either listen to your song on your cd before importing or lsiten to a preview in iTMS. people dont buy rando crap in the store then throw half of it away.

Don't violate copyright laws.

 

[dontmatter]

Wrong direction

Clearly, this will help the AAC side in the AAC vs. WMA wars, b/c AAC will be more usable, without restrictions as to which players you can use it in. But I don't see what all apple gets from winning this war, at least if they're winning it by losing the itunes vs. winamp war. And, that's exactly what they're doing-now winamp can play all your music, and itunes can only play some of it. Isn't itunes the actual apple product, actually the important thing here? Most PC users I know prefer winamp, except for the use of mytunes and some people who value the searchability and features of itunes. I think apple should make an itunes mini application, that's small, lightweight, perfectly compatible with keeping your collection in itunes (uses same id3 tags, etc.), and of course, both should be able to play MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, OGG, AIFF, Apple Lossless, and have plug in abilities for any other formats. Make it so there is NO advantage to using any other player, but of course have itunes' uber-cool features, interface, etc. But they seriously need to open it up to 3rd party apps to give it different skins, other visualizers, formats, etc.

But this is a bad move, because it makes winamp a better player, and winamp is the competition.

 

[dontmatter]

hmm maybe you should quit whining and learn how to use iTunes before you bash it.

then again, the whole reason for apple is that you dont' really need to learn it....it's so intuitive that you already know. I'll say I always use itunes, and I'm not sure how to play songs without adding them to the library.

 

[usarioclave]

Doo doo dah dah

Bull. I've played some seriously agressive, specs wise, games on my 1.7Ghz/384MB/40GB system. You sure as heck do NOT need that kind of RAM for Windows unless you are talking with world's most poorly programed game that is.

Yum yum! From FarCry, which is a fun game:

Supported OS: Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP (only)
Processor: AMD Athlon 2400-3000+ or Pentium 4 2-3 GHz
RAM: 512-1024 MB
Video Card: 128 MB GeForce 4 128 MB to GeForce FX 5950; ATI Radeon 9500-9800 XT

UT2 says 256MB recommended, but nobody in their right mind would play with less than 768...unless they wanted to get smacked around. Same with Halo

Maybe some of us play Real Games on their PCs...

 

[dopefiend]

UT2 says 256MB recommended, but nobody in their right mind would play with less than 768...unless they wanted to get smacked around. Same with Halo

Maybe some of us play Real Games on their PCs...

Uhh, my laptop plays UT2 with 384megs and a shared memory video card perfectly. No need for any more. What do you mean nobody in their right mind? My minds fine 😀 .

 

[foniks2020]

Open in Quicktime?

then again, the whole reason for apple is that you dont' really need to learn it....it's so intuitive that you already know. I'll say I always use itunes, and I'm not sure how to play songs without adding them to the library.

Have you tried opening the file in Quicktime? That should just play the file without adding to iTunes.

In OS X we just open a Finder window and use the file preview to play whatever, mpg, mp3, aac in a preview pane. Works perfectly for checking out random stuff.

 

[SeaFox]

Real wanted to use FairPlay but Apple said no. If it was so simple to liscense it why didn't Real just do it? I think Apple created FairPlay, or have exclusive rights to it...otherwise real would have jumped on the bandwagon.

It wasn't about Fairplay itself, really. What Real wanted was to be able to play on iPods. Real has no music player, or if they do it's certinly not the most popular digital music player. Apple wanted to keep the iPod iTunes Music Store-only. Real had nothing to offer for what they were asking for.

 

[ClimbingTheLog]

I want apple to do what ever is best for me, as a consumer. So, I want them to open up the iPod, and iTunes. I don't care what Apple's shareholders think

That kind of thinking got Woz to leave.

 

[Mav451]

WinAmp V5 has all these features. You may be thinking of WA2

If Winamp 5.03 could do the iTunes library thing with 3 column (artist album AND genre), then I might consider returning. Even still, after using iTunes, there is NO way i go back to Winamp. Though I admit, the Internet TV is interesting, it is not enough for me to switch back.

If iTunes consumed half the footprint (11MB for me, since it only takes 22MB rite now), there would be NO CONTEST. Too bad Apple will probably continue releasing bloated iTunes for PC...

 

[Highland]

Personally, I've found PCs and Macs to require very similar amounts of ram for the same job. You guys get worked up over nothing!

In my experience (mostly design, retouching and music production), I wouldn't buy a PC or mac (today) with less than 1gb. It's just too cheap to skimp on. It was a totally different situation 6 years ago, when a machine use for photo retouching would have thousands of dollars worth of ram.

WinAMP might be very small and efficient (it is), but I wouldn't call iTunes bloated. If you want a simple player, use a simple player. If you want a player with an integrated html based music store and some of the more advanced features of iTunes, use iTunes. Simple.

 

[Mav451]

I only use iTunes b/c I love the way it handles smart playlists, and obviously the superior organizational format (artist/album/genre).

I still have yet to find another jukebox to do the same thing. None of them can do it. Damn Apple for making me dependent on their software 🙂

*I call it bloated b/c they force Quicktime down PC users throats. I find that unacceptable, but alas, since I use iTunes its not really a choice.

 

[Azmordean]

Wow, what planet are you from? Most of the good PC games require at least 768MB of -free- RAM as well as a pretty kick-ass video card.

512MB is more than enough for most Macs, too.

Funny, heavy PC users always have to find a negative about macs. Before they were too expensive. Now they're memory hogs. Next thing you know, they'll be saying Macs are more insecure than windows - oh wait!

First, you assume I'm a pure PC user, yet, I am typing this message on a new POWERMAC G5 I just laid out the cash for a month ago. Macs tend to need more memory than PCs, that is a simple fact. Its probably because OS X is nicer, has more effects, etc. That doesnt change the fact that macs use more memory. Frankly, that isn't a huge problem in this day of cheap memory. I was merely pointing out the fact that there are many power PC users running 512 RAM - a power mac user wouldn't be caught dead with less than a gig.

 

[Azmordean]

hmm maybe you should quit whining and learn how to use iTunes before you bash it.

I know exactly how to use iTunes. Show me how to make it so when I double click an mp3 or aac it PLAYS in ITUNES (not CrapTime), but doesnt get added to the library, and I'll admit I'm wrong - but I have been unable to find such an option.

 

[Mudbug]

I know exactly how to use iTunes. Show me how to make it so when I double click an mp3 or aac it PLAYS in ITUNES (not CrapTime), but doesnt get added to the library, and I'll admit I'm wrong - but I have been unable to find such an option.

control-click the name of the file, select "open with" in the drop-down menu while holding the option key so it changes to "always open with"...

and tada. No need to get so hostile about it.

 

[Azmordean]

control-click the name of the file, select "open with" in the drop-down menu while holding the option key so it changes to "always open with"...

and tada. No need to get so hostile about it.

Yeah but that would mean to play it in quicktime -- I dont want to play it in quicktime, it is so clearly designed for movies... I'd prefer to play it in iTunes, but not auto-add it to the library. Its no biggie, I wasn't being hostile in general, just to the elitists on here who think I know nothing about computers merely because I dared to say iTunes was imperfect and I don't worship on a mat towards Cuppertino, CA three times a day and burn insense around an image of Steve Jobs 😛.

 

[Rower_CPU]

What I prefer to do is to preview a track in Finder if I know I don't want it added to the Library.

Open a new Finder window in column view and browse to the track, making sure you've got the preview turned on. It's easy.

 

[SiliconAddict]

UT2 says 256MB recommended, but nobody in their right mind would play with less than 768...unless they wanted to get smacked around. Same with Halo

Maybe some of us play Real Games on their PCs...

I run UT2 on 384MB perfectly fine and as for the 512-1GB of RAM: Again poor designing can account for such a necessity. Hell I've run the Half Life 2 Beta on my system and it run pretty dang smooth and that's still beta and isn't even released yet. So please. If you need a justification for your rig fine I'll placate you:

Yes. Yes. You need a 3Ghz, 1GB system to run every new game on the market. Happy now? 🙄