iPod Can Supprt WMA?!?

iPod Lounge clued me into a very interesting bit of information. The chip inside (a Portal Player PP5002D if you must know) the iPod that actually does music decoding supports Microsoft's WMA format. This is important because iPods only support standard MP3 files and Apple's own AAC format, which is the way Apple implements digital rights management (DRM) for the songs you buy through iTunes. Today pretty much the only way you can play protected AAC songs is with an iPod or with iTunes on your computer.

WMA does for Microsoft what AAC does for Apple. It's a music file format that can also be used to protect music with DRM. However, WMA is supported by nearly every MP3 player on the market, except for the iPod.

The upshot of this is that the iPod (theoretically at least) could support Microsoft's WMA with a simple firmware update. Obviously Apple would love for AAC to become the dominant format for purchased music. But if it doesn't turn out that way, it has an easy way to support its biggest rival, WMA, without making also those iPods and iPod Minis obsolete.

This also puts a new spin on what Robert Scoble thinks about Apple not supporting WMA.

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