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ashtoash · May 14, 2005, 02:25 AM

View iTunes 4.8 packages, then go into the resources folder. You will see the itunes icons for WMA, OGG. You can drag and drop them on iTunes, it accepts them but won't currently play them..

Angus_D · May 14, 2005, 02:31 AM

Those icons have been there for ages. It supports WMA on Windows.

Millennium · May 14, 2005, 08:01 AM

As I understand things, iTunes can tap into the Windows Media Player code on Windows and use it to convert WMA to AAC, but that's as far as its support goes. Very little Apple code goes into it; just enough to make it automatic.

Busemann · May 14, 2005, 10:27 AM

Apple will never support WMA or OGG. Why should they? WMA is proprietary and owned by MS. OGG has a tiny user-base on both Windows and Mac and no one except a few geeks are interested in it.

Anyone can make CoreAudio plug-ins if they want, though.

Chuckit · May 14, 2005, 10:42 AM

Apple will never support Ogg because it has a small userbase? That's funny.

Busemann · May 14, 2005, 11:42 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Apple will never support Ogg because it has a small userbase? That's funny.

How? If people actually requested it, they would add it. It's not as if there are huge licensing fees involved

Chuckit · May 14, 2005, 11:44 AM

It's funny that Apple, of all companies, would view something as not worthy of consideration because it has small marketshare and is perceived to be mainly the domain of a particular group (sound familiar?).

CaptainHaddock · May 14, 2005, 05:56 PM

If Apple really wants to make the world's most usable desktop software, they'll have iTunes support OGG.

Is usability still a goal of the iTunes development team? I'm not so sure.

In Panther, we could at least use the open-source OGG component for Quicktime. It crashes iTunes in Tiger, though.

Thinine · May 14, 2005, 06:07 PM

What does OGG have to do with usability? iTunes would be perfectly usable if all it could decode was MP3. OGG is completely unnecessary.

Chuckit · May 14, 2005, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by Thinine

What does OGG have to do with usability?

Well, I can't use iTunes to play some of my music if it doesn't support Ogg Vorbis, so...

CaptainHaddock · May 14, 2005, 09:37 PM

Would you say Preview was usable if it only displayed JPEGs? After all, PNGs and TIFs are completely unnecessary if all you have are JPEGs.

Like Chuckit, a portion of my music collection is in OGG and now I can't use iTunes to play it.

Thinine · May 15, 2005, 12:12 AM

Well, I can't use iTunes to write my thesis, but that doesn't affect it's usability one bit. It's usability depends only on how well it's features are implemented and how easy to use its interface is. If you can manage and play music on it without the interface getting in the way or it crashing, then it's perfectly usable. The fact that it doesn't play every audio format out there, whether you have music in that format or not, is irrelevant, since you can still use it to play and manage music.

Chuckit · May 15, 2005, 09:12 AM

The fact that it cannot play or manage my music is relevant to whether or not I can use it to play and manage my music. I don't see how you can argue that a music player that doesn't play music is just as usable as it would be if it did play music.

Oh, and for the record: My Ogg collection is music, whereas your thesis is not. Your analogy is ridiculous. I'm not sure what it was meant to convince anybody of.

Millennium · May 15, 2005, 09:50 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

The fact that it cannot play or manage my music is relevant to whether or not I can use it to play and manage my music. I don't see how you can argue that a music player that doesn't play music is just as usable as it would be if it did play music.

Usability is concerned with user interface, not functionality. A music player that doesn't play a specific format is no different from one that doesn't do word processing. It may be a lack of functionality, but it is not a usability flaw.

Oh, and for the record: My Ogg collection is music, whereas your thesis is not. Your analogy is ridiculous.

No, it's not. Not being able to do somthing that it never claimed to do is not a usability flaw.

analogika · May 15, 2005, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

The fact that it cannot play or manage my music is relevant to whether or not I can use it to play and manage my music. I don't see how you can argue that a music player that doesn't play music is just as usable as it would be if it did play music.

Oh, and for the record: My Ogg collection is music, whereas your thesis is not. Your analogy is ridiculous. I'm not sure what it was meant to convince anybody of.

Most of my music is on vinyl.

iTunes, for some reason, won't play my vinyl albums. This is a HUGE oversight by Apple, and a serious usability flaw.

I demand satisfaction.

osxisfun · May 15, 2005, 11:18 AM

me too.

my fave music is on liniuxcodecneverpayforstuff.oggle

omg . itunes is NOT usable!!

oh wait. i can just re-ripp it to itunes instead. never mind.

Chuckit · May 15, 2005, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Millennium

Usability is concerned with user interface, not functionality.

In UI science, "usability" refers to UI. This is similar to how the term "work" refers to your job in everyday speech, but in technical applications concerns energy. In this sense, "usabilty" refers to the ability to use an app for its stated purpose.

Originally Posted by Millennium

No, it's not. Not being able to do somthing that it never claimed to do is not a usability flaw.

Is iTunes not called a "digital jukebox"? From this, I do not think it's unreasonable to want it to play my digital music. I'm not saying Apple lied in its advertising or anything. I'm saying that iTunes would be a better digital music player if it could play more digital music formats. I don't see how you can dispute that.

Chuckit · May 15, 2005, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by osxisfun

my fave music is on liniuxcodecneverpayforstuff.oggle

omg . itunes is NOT usable!!

Nobody said it was unusable. Way to both miss the point and not contribute anything to the conversation.

osxisfun · May 15, 2005, 11:40 AM

If Apple really wants to make the world's most usable desktop software, they'll have iTunes support OGG. .

its called sarcasm. way to miss it.

and as others have been pointing out the whole use of the word "usablity" is incorrect.

In regards to software "usablity" refers to interface and human interaction. Its does not mean lacking in features.

the quote above is saying that unless itunes supports OGG then its not the most "usable" desktop music player.

Chuckit · May 15, 2005, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by osxisfun

In regards to software "usablity" refers to interface and human interaction. Its does not mean lacking in features.

You're arguing semantics. Do you have nothing better to do with your time than try to annoy people? I've already explained the terminology used here, so you can't possibly still be misunderstanding.

analogika · May 15, 2005, 11:47 AM

Well, this is beside the point, but no: more features != usability.

iPod is arguably the most usable portable mp3 player, despite the fact that others have far more features. Its usability by design is what allowed it to become such a runaway success.

That is not to say that some iTunes users, especially those switching from Linux, couldn't benefit from .ogg support.

OTOH, I've been playing .ogg files in iTunes for YEARS using a freely-available codec plug-in, so I'm not entirely sure what everybody's complaining about. Though I do admit that I've since transcoded the five or six albums in .ogg to Apple Lossless...

osxisfun · May 15, 2005, 11:52 AM

relax. take breath. Nobody is trying to annoy anyone.

I am talking about CaptainHaddock's post as i quoted before specifically. CaptainHaddock has a different defination that you and I.

So sorry to get you flustered.

Chuckit · May 15, 2005, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by analogika

OTOH, I've been playing .ogg files in iTunes for YEARS using a freely-available codec plug-in, so I'm not entirely sure what everybody's complaining about.

Eh, Tiger broke the only codec I know about.

CharlesS · May 15, 2005, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by analogika

OTOH, I've been playing .ogg files in iTunes for YEARS using a freely-available codec plug-in, so I'm not entirely sure what everybody's complaining about.

Well presumably, if Apple were to add .ogg support to iTunes, they'd also add it to the iPod. That's one reason why it'd be nice if they added .ogg support...

CaptainHaddock · May 15, 2005, 06:25 PM

Well presumably, if Apple were to add .ogg support to iTunes, they'd also add it to the iPod."

That would be cool, but not necessary, since I guess iTunes on Windows plays WMA even though iPods don't.

To all you pedants: I know features and usability are not the same thing; and in at least one very valid sense, usability includes features. An iTunes program that had no features and couldn't play any music formats wouldn't be useful or very usable.

To me, usability = It Just Works.

But right now, iTunes = It Just Crashes (when trying to play my .ogg files)

Millennium · May 16, 2005, 05:07 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Is iTunes not called a "digital jukebox"? From this, I do not think it's unreasonable to want it to play my digital music.

I have a fair collection of MOD files, as well as the half-billion formats used to rip sounds from video games. iTunes cannot play these either. It's not reasonable to expect it to play every last thing out there.

Busemann · May 16, 2005, 07:23 AM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Well presumably, if Apple were to add .ogg support to iTunes, they'd also add it to the iPod. That's one reason why it'd be nice if they added .ogg support...

They have limited resources and "adding ogg support" isn't nearly as trivial as it sounds. I'd much rather want them to keep tuning their AAC encoder than spend time implementing OGG Vorbis, and I'm sure most people feel the same way.

Also, Vorbis files need much power to decode, so it would drain the battery faster than both AAC & mp3 on the iPod unless they went through leaps and bounds to optimize it.

Millennium · May 16, 2005, 08:00 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

In UI science, "usability" refers to UI. This is similar to how the term "work" refers to your job in everyday speech, but in technical applications concerns energy. In this sense, "usabilty" refers to the ability to use an app for its stated purpose.

In either case, however, it is a general term, and not one which applies to specific people. Just because you cannot use it for everything you want does not make it unusable. For it to be unusable, the issues at hand would have to prevent an average user from doing what the program claims. Ogg Vorbis is a great format, but those who use it cannot be called 'average' at this point in time, not by any stretch of the imagination.

B Gallagher · May 16, 2005, 08:18 AM

Originally Posted by osxisfun

its called sarcasm. way to miss it.

hmm.. sarcasm always seems to be misinterpreted online...

Chuckit · May 16, 2005, 08:25 AM

The first place the claim that iTunes is unusable came into the thread was osxisfun's parody of CaptainHaddock. Neither of us has claimed such a thing. We are saying that allowing it to play more formats would make it more useful. Once more, I don't see how you can possibly dispute such an obvious claim.

And to those who think Vorbis is such a fringe format that it couldn't possibly deserve support: Vorbis is way more popular than AAC, so even if you view it as a competition (which you shouldn't) it makes more sense to put work into a Vorbis codec than enhancing the AAC encoder. Not that Mac users should be making the argument that large market share is what makes something worthy of consideration anyway.

Busemann · May 16, 2005, 08:32 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Vorbis is way more popular than AAC

No it is not. Not even close.. 20 million iPod users use iTunes, which encodes into 128kbps AAC as default. Then there is the 1.5 million AAC files sold every day

Vorbis is a niche format and that doesn't seem to change anytime soon. With VBR AAC & AACPlus, Vorbis doesn't have the same edge in quality anymore either.

Millennium · May 16, 2005, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by Busemann

No it is not. Not even close.. 20 million iPod users use iTunes, which encodes into 128kbps AAC as default. Then there is the 1.5 million AAC files sold every day

All true, though Vorbis' status isn't exactly verifiable.

Vorbis is a niche format and that doesn't seem to change anytime soon

Actually, I hope it doesn't stay that way. It's a good format, and unlike the other formats out there it's actually open. I'd probably use it myself if iTunes supported it for both ripping and playback.

This said, my ideal music app would have the following features:

iTunes-style organization and searching (my collection is large).
iTunes-style mass tagging abilities (which came in very handy when importing my music), including custom tags.
iTunes-style music sharing capabilities (I use a desktop G5 to serve them up to my wife's and my laptops).
Cross-platform capability, as iTunes has (unfortunately, my wife's laptop is a Windows box).
iPod and iTunes database compatibility (for iPods and our EyeHome).
Either broader file format support or a good SDK for audio plugins.

So for me, iTunes is nearly perfect, and the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. This said, I'd dearly love to see Apple reopen the audio plugin SDK, which they currently keep tightly under wraps for reasons which I completely fail to understand. I want this badly enough that if they were to release the SDK I would start learning about programming audio just to add more formats (Ogg and MOD being at the top of my list, with the various console-ripping formats not far behind). Even better would be an iPod SDK so that these same formats might be added there as well. But to call iTunes unusable just because it doesn't support a couple of formats that it has never claimed to support? I fail to see how that's anything but absurd.

wataru · May 16, 2005, 09:36 AM

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock

That would be cool, but not necessary, since I guess iTunes on Windows plays WMA even though iPods don't.

Read the thread. iTunes on Windows converts WMA to something else, not plays it.