More details of the Apple/HP iPod agreement are starting to come to light. Many people have expressed surprise that the announcement wasn’t made during the Macworld keynote, where it would have made quite a splash. Apparently, the simple reason for that is that the Macworld keynote was on Tuesday, and negotiations were “completed only after an extensive bargaining session that ran long into Wednesday night,” according to the New York Times.
The agreement…represents a significant departure for both companies. For the first time, Mr. Jobs has stepped away from the self-enclosed Apple-only strategy he has pursued since he returned to run the company in 1997. Meanwhile, Hewlett, the second-largest computer maker in the world, has put its software partner, Microsoft, on notice that it will not necessarily follow its lead in every case.
Additionally, one (and only one) report — that at the moment, doesn’t seem to be taken terribly seriously by most people — claims that HP “will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft’s superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to the iPod by mid-year.” Now, first off, the claim that WMA is a “superior” format is questionable in and of itself (I’ve seen people on both sides of the WMA vs. AAC argument being equally rabid), and tossing that adjective into a single-sentence rumor shows enough bias that many people are discounting this rumor immediately. Additionally, the rumormonger is none other than Paul Thurrott, author of the WinInfo Super Site, who has been known to make some highly questionable claims when comparing Mac OS X and Windows in the past.
However, I’m not sure that this would be an entirely bad move on Apple’s part, if it’s true and if HP can talk them into it. Just as their partnership with HP will be opening up more potential avenues for the iPod and the iTunes Music Store, allowing Windows based iPod users to mix in previously-imported or downloaded WMA files along with their .mp3/.m4a library could give Windows users even more reason to jump on the iPod bandwagon. I wouldn’t be suprised at all if Apple has lost some iPod sales simply because there were people who were interested, but already had a large library of music encoded in WMA format, and would rather go with a competing .mp3 player than face having to re-import their entire music library.
While this may be nothing more than a Windows fanboy’s rumormongering, I’m not so sure that it should be dismissed so casually and out of hand. There may not be any way of knowing the truth until an official announcement is made one way or the other, but I think that there are potential upsides worth paying attention to.
iTunes: “ToriMix v2” by DJ Wüdi from the album Difficult Listening Hour (2001, 46:37).
10 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
I did a quick search and found some software for Windows that will convert wma’s into mp3’s. Granted that this is a software solution and would involve preprocessing by iTunes, but I doubt if a blockbuster deal like the HP-Apple one is based upon a software need such as this.
I was involved in quite a bit of double blind testing of MPEG 2-AAC vs other codecs a few years ago. What we found was mp3 was pretty bad for artifacts (not surprising as it is ancient), WMA was the best when you are looking at sub 64kbps codecs and AAC was a leader at 96 kbps and above. AAC was “transparent” compared with the original CD for the vast majority of untrained ears at 128kbps and transparent for most purposes with recording engineers, symphony conductors and conservatory professors and students at 160kbps and above.
There is no quality reason for going to WMA on an iPod. At 128kbps we have good enough for portable players.
The business reason for HP may be to put the finger at MS, who is trying to control the same ground that HP is … the home digital hub. I’m going to guess that MS is really pissed at HP for breaking ranks and straying from the “one true path of MS goodness”…
Quite apart from the source being a complete flake, this rumour is nothing but wishful thinking on the part of WMA advocates. The move to cozy up to HP has even more to do with preventing Microsoft’s Windows Media format from gaining traction than securing the additional iPod sales that Carly’s far-reaching distribution channels will provide. As the world’s second largest computer manufacturer, HP is Microsoft’s second largest OEM customer, so for them to forsake a Windows Media-based solution in favour of Apple’s open standard AAC-based system is truly earth shattering. It’s no doubt the reason why the New York Times called the deal “a new partnership that points to a major realignment of forces within the computer industry”.
HP does a lot of R&D, designing and building hardware, etc. unlike another big PC “distributer”. I agree with steve…just because HP markets computers using MS Operating System I wouldn’t imagine they would be happy to hand over all developement, ownership and control to them as well for HPs ‘home digital hub’ strategy. They, after all, are NOT just a PC “distributer”. They are not content to let MS pull all the strings. Own all the licenses. Dictate all market directions. Especially when that company has proved itself to be highly unethical.
Its all about audio codes and not the hardware; as this new deal between Apple and HP clearly shows. If Apple decided to support wma(ss) they should have kept this in house and save themselves unnecessary expense and complications.
Of course this fanboy hopes Apple supports their rivals technology; the position that Apple was in before this deal made it at least a possibility for fair competition. But now with this new agreement between Apple and HP, it could allow them to control the entire market
. The fact that Apple would have to write the support for wma(ss) directly into QuickTime is what makes this rumor totally false IMO.
Also, if the Hpod did support WMAs that would totally kill the iTMS. That would mean people could plug their Hpod into Napster and buy songs from them, thus driving iTMS sales down. I also think that the WMA rumor is false. Plus, we all know that Paul Thurrott sleeps with Microsoft. We all know that, right?
The deal between Apple and HP is exclusive. I cannot believe Steve would allow an appledectomy of his iPod.
It would seem to me that the WMA inport feature that would be quiet in the background would be the best thing. Something that would allow you to import WMA files into iTunes but only by converting them to AAC first. Not only would this allow people an easy way to use files encoded with WMA to use iTUnes and the iPod, it would be getting rid of many more WMA files out there.
I pretty much agree on this because HP negotiated with Apple and agree to HP that they put the Apple trademark on the HPod and still share the profit so Apple iThink made a good move. If Bill Gates copied this Apple product again and iThink Apple has to take it back. So Microsoft just leave the HPod and iPod alone for HP and Apple any HP is just a computer maker not a software designer.
Continuing the Discussion