Loud ramblings of a Software Artisan

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Wednesday 8 December 2004 15:11, by Diary of a CrazyFrench :: #

Why supporting OGG ?

I ask whether Apple next rumored iPod will support OGG, and people then ask why they should. There is an answer: quality. A Multiformat at 128kbit/s Listening Test has been performed and show OGG as the best quality encoder. They can do it by...

Sunday 12 December 2004 13:23, by Diary of a CrazyFrench :: #

Ogg in iPod ?

Following Hadess' old advice, anyone who wants to have Ogg support into iPod should request it. Explicitely says that this is what prevents you from buying one. And you can also add about documentation to support iPod on other platforms, because...

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Tuesday 7 December 2004 19:09, by me :: #

Why does every product have to support Linux and embrace "Open Source" software? It's not a large market. Makes no sense business-wise. Yes that's right - business-wise. They have to put food on their tables too.

Tuesday 7 December 2004 20:20, by Dimitri :: #

Will it read OGG files? Most likely no, since more than half of iPod users don't give a damn about it (including me, but thats beside the point). But just because it doesn't read them, it doesn't necessarily mean their strategy is seriously flawed. Market-wise, Apple will gain nothing spending extra money in implementing Ogg support, since only fractions of percent of iPod users extensively use Ogg, hence I don't think they are going to ever do that, unless they will have some extra cash and a sudden urge to implement some random features that they still haven't implemented.

Wednesday 8 December 2004 14:20, by Tester :: site :: #

I have an hard disk based iPod and I've never touched iTunes.. I only use gtkpod

Wednesday 8 December 2004 14:29, by hub :: site :: #

I have updated the fact the the iPod works on Linux because of reverse engineering. And why should it read OGG ? Because this format is free, and has free implementations. Because it is better quality than MP3 that is patent/royalties encumbered. I'm talking about playback. Implementing OGG playback is a one time expense, and almost nothing to add playback in iTunes with the provided libraries for OGG.

Wednesday 8 December 2004 14:54, by Ludovic Hirlimann :: site :: #

Why don't you write a ogg plug-in for itunes. This would help push Apple to support the format on it's ipod.

Wednesday 8 December 2004 15:05, by hub :: #

There is already an OGG playback for iTunes or QuickTime. BTW, I don't have MacOS X anymore to do that.

Tuesday 29 April 2025 19:06, by :: #

Wednesday 8 December 2004 16:01, by Pedro :: site :: #

I won't buy an iPod because it doesn't support Oggs. Many of my friends are in the same boat. If you have gigs and gigs of Oggs, as many technically-inclined people do, you don't want to re-encode them all into mp3, a process that will cause quality loss and put your music in a patent-encumbered process.

I'm sure right now most iPod users don't use Oggs, because the bloody things don't support it! But I personally know many people who have bought other players over iPod because of Ogg support. It might not be a big deal to Apple, because they're still in the lead, but some of the other players are getting pretty darn good, like Creative's Rio Karma. Apple shouldn't get too arrogant.

Wednesday 8 December 2004 22:11, by k :: #

Free? Not exactly. It isn't just a one-time expense. Ask any developer. Adding a new feature never is, even if they're handed a pile of source code. Porting, integrating, testing, debugging, documentation, support. (More work = more engineer-hours = more cost, or less time on new stuff.)

iTunes has removed one feature during its lifetime so far, AFAIK: the ability to stream music from any iTunes to any other. In the current legal-political climate, this feature had questionable legality, anyway. (Questionable legality = more lawyer-hours.)

They have absolutely no reason to add Ogg support now. They've got 80 or 90 percent market share and they're selling them as fast as they can make 'em. Why on earth would they do it?

(Quality? If MP3/AAC quality at 128K isn't good enough for Joe user but Ogg at the same bitrate is, he'll just encode at 192K or 256K. They have huge capacities these days so even at higher bitrates it'll take a while to fill one up.)

Ogg is growing in popularity, so one of these days it'll be mandatory on music players (just as PNG is today), but that day is not yet here.

Thursday 9 December 2004 09:59, by hub :: #

The other features they have removed is the ability to load some plug-in. They did this by black-listing them explicitly.

Further readings:

• Apple to iPod owners: "Eat shit and die"
• More on Apple's breaking of the iPod

So what, I'm biased ?

Sunday 12 December 2004 00:06, by k :: #

I wouldn't have said that. But you are in the minority. :-)

People don't walk into Apple Stores and ask "Does this iPod play my Ogg Vorbis files? Really? Never mind, then." Lots of people -- who wouldn't have been caught dead within 50 feet of an Apple product 3 years ago -- are walking in and plopping down a few hundred dollars cash for an Apple product.

They have no *reason* to add support for a format nobody who walks through their doors has ever heard of.

(In fact, if I was Steve, I'd intentionally not add it yet. Having demand exceed supply by too much means unhappy customers: I'd rather have some geeks say "well, the iPod is cool, but it doesn't do what I need yet" than having people say "I wanted to buy an iPod, it's perfect, but there just aren't any to be had!". Knowing that Ogg gets more important every year, that's the sort of feature that gets future'd.)

If you want to look at the glass as half-full instead of half-empty: Apple's actually gotten better about Ogg. The Ogg filetype is (I'm told) hard-coded into iTunes, so if you have an Ogg QT codec, you can play Oggs in iTunes. You can't do this with FLAC, becuase they haven't. So if you stop looking at "all the ways they're Evil" and instead look at "Oggs in iTunes", the curve goes the other direction.

Sunday 12 December 2004 13:18, by hub :: #

I don't have an Apple Store nearby. I don't live in the US. I did send feedback to Apple about that few month back like other people. See advice on http://hadess.net/?start=449

Tuesday 29 April 2025 19:06, by :: #

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