Wired News: iPod and New Napster Aren't Speaking

by , 2:00 PM EDT, October 10th, 2003

Someone should be saying, "Oops!" right about now; according to Wired News, iPod owners won't be able to use the new Napster 2 music service that was recently unveiled. That's because just like all the other non-iTunes Music Store (iTMS) music download services, music from Napster 2 will only come in Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, not MPEG Audio Layer 3 (MP3) or Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). The latter are the 2 compressed music formats that the iPod supports. In other words, Napster 2, which is expected to offer the iTMS enormous competition, isn't compatible with the world's #1 digital music player. From the Wired article, New Napster, iPod Don't Play Nice:

The incompatibility problem may confuse customers and could detract from the success of the new service.

Mike McGuire, research director with GartnerG2, said that fiddling around with different file formats could be discouraging to consumers.

"If online music is going to require me to look at an option plan that is going to be as complex as your average cell-phone plan, none of this is going to work," said McGuire. "Online music, then, is still a niche.

"Until the majority of consumers decide which format they like the best, we're going to see the same struggle," he said.

Napster 2.0 is joining an ever-growing field of paid music services like Musicmatch and BuyMusic.com. These download services offer songs in Windows Media Audio, or WMA, format, the same format used by Napster.

Apple's iPod, on the other hand, plays songs that use the Advanced Audio Coding , or AAC, specification. Napster's files, then, are incompatible with the iPod.

Of course, the iPod plays a variety of other formats, including MP3 files and uncompressed audio file formats such as AIFF and WAV.

Read the full story at Wired's Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

We find this ironic on several fronts, not the least of which is the fact that the old Napster was responsible for making the MP3 format a widely used standard, and here it is locked into WMA today. Roxio could have chosen the better AAC choice, though it would then have had to work out its own DRM scheme. For our money, it would have made more sense for Apple to license its AAC DRM scheme, FairPlay, to Roxio in order to gain potential market share for the iPod.

That said, it is strange that Apple has ignored the WMA format, even on iPods dedicated to Windows. iPods will play any MP3, AAC, AIFF, or WAV file, regardless of where it comes from. So, if Napster offered files in any of these formats it would play on an iPod, and there would be over a million potential customers.

At the same time, if Apple offered support for WMA in iPod, it would make the player an option for the millions of people who will end up choosing one of the other music download services that are going the WMA route. Remember, Apple is supposedly thinking of the iTMS as a vehicle for selling iPods, so broader compatibility would only help the company do just that, sell more iPods.

The bottom line is that the once most popular music download service is now incompatible with the now most popular music player. Life is full of such small ironies.

New Napster, IPod Don't Play Nice