AeroPlayer Adds AAC Audio Support

> >You can un-protect your purchased music and then use Itunes to convert it to MP3 < <

Is there an advantage in converting to mp3 when you've got an unprotected AAC file?

The iPod range of players aren't the only AAC music players but they're undeniably the most famous AAC players. Many players can play unprotected AAC quite nicely, even some mobile phones (e.g. Nokia 6230); the iPod range are the only players capable of playing DRM protected files from the iTunes Music Store.

Pfft! AeroPlayer...Pocket Tunes? Bah, they're both amateurish audio programs that offer inferior user experiences. Some of the necessary features are there, but the applications are overly complex and poorly designed. These are fine for Palmy geeks, but can't be taken seriously as legitimate media players. What Palm OS REALLY needs (if the platform is to become a SERIOUS media platform) is industry support from established (read: serious) media companies that know how to design simple elegant innovative user interfaces instead of relying on the work of hobbyists who frankly don’t understand how to design media player interfaces for mobiles devices. PalmOne should partner with Apple to develop iTunes for Palm OS, just as Motorola is doing with its phones. At least encourage Real Networks to get serious about developing a REAL version of RealPlayer instead of the crippled wheel-chair bound piece of....software, that we see today.

Microsoft has done a great job creating a simple elegant media player interface for WMP 10 on Windows Mobile (though the playlist/track access metaphor absolutely sucks), which is why I’d like to see them open their Windows Media platform for Palm OS. Possible...but not likely.

Tapwave has the right idea. They've partnered with Virgin to deliver music downloads to Zodiac users...all 200 of them. Lord only knows when we'll see the fruits of this labor, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

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Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com

What is the incentive for Apple to extend their barely profitable (even with 70% market share) iTunes store to Palm if it would threaten their hugely profitable iPod sales???

The partnership with Motorola is different...I doubt Apple views mp3-playing phones as the same type of threat that a 4gb Palm could be.

I would point out that a significant part of Winamp's continued popularity in Windows is the ungodly huge number of plugins available for it - in many cases ONLY for it.

I would also point out that only Winamp 1.x and earlier was created by hobbyists. Further versions were created by a company those hobbyists later founded.

VERY well (briefly and eloquently) said, Foo!

More handheld apps should take notes from Dataviz & SplashData. They could give a lesson on how to have a robut, powerful and reasonably feature-packed mobile app that doesn't try and ape an equivalent desktop app (with distressingly poor results).

Look at the Acrobat reader for Palm OS for an example on how not to make a mobile app, in addition to the two mp3 player programs you mention.

That is because Apple wants to sell hardware, and someone like me who does not need/want an iPod is not interested in their music either for that reason.

The knee-jerk poster in me says "User Interface!"

However, the knee-jerk poster's information is based entirely on her/my experience with Free/Open Source software UIs, which are generally engineer-driven and not user-experience-driven. The knee-jerk poster hasn't actually even tried or seen TCPMP yet.

Please ignore the knee-jerk poster. She does not yet fully know what she is talking about.

(However, if she happens to be right (by some crazy coincidence), then I call first dibs on having been right. Nyah. ;) )

what the hell, are you calling me a girl??? That was completely off topic and mean. Most people would rather get things for free then play for eye candy!

The world will end in 2006. Just as it was predicted in the bible along with the release of Microsoft Longhorn.... :p

joeags is correct. The viqsi occasionally talks about herself in the third person, largely because she is very silly and thinks it quite amusing. She probably should do something about that sometime.

...nah. ;)

I'm aware of several of those projects. However...

...well. I would go into detail, but I *really* don't want to start a FOSS flamewar here ;), so let's just say that I do not particularly care for GNOME's direction and have a, shall we say, near-infinitely low opinion of Havoc Pennington, and leave it at that. :)

grumblemuttergrowlARRHETOOKAWAYMYSAWFISHTHEBASTARDAAAGHmuttergrumblegrr

And I quote... "I *really* don't want to start a FOSS flamewar here ;), so ... leave it at that."

--
Of course, I don't know how interesting any of this really is, but now you've got it in your brain cells so you're stuck with it. --Gary Larson

i finally tried the new version and i can't see any improvements.
m3u files still don't work and the times arn't correct for mp3 files longer than 60 mins, and so on.

it looks like aerodrome just keep changing the version number and putting out the same software. it's rather disapointing.