One Shot Design

Wired recently published an article about the Ogg Vorbis audio format. Developped by the Xiph Foundation and promoted by the Free Software Foundation, this open-source audio format is completely free of licensing and patent restrictions.

For the same memory weight, a Vorbis audio file will retain much more quality than its MP3 equivalent. I’ve been using Vorbis as my preferred audio format on Ubuntu for the last 4 years, even going to the extent of purchasing only Vorbis enabled hardware such as portable players and car audio system. The format isn’t supported by default on Windows and OSX, but the Wired articles explain how to easily start using it. Even the ubiquitous iPod can be enabled to play Vorbis files by dual-booting Rockbox, an open-source operating system developped for audio players.

That being said, Vorbis algorithms are a little bit more demanding on processors compared to MP3 and WMA. In the case of portable audio player, the result is a power autonomy shortened by at least 10%. Jack Schofield, a columnist for The Guardian, wrote about his skepticism regarding the long-term sustainability of Vorbis due to his perceived lack of support by the industry and a narrow user base. However, readers questioned Schofield’s backup research in the comments thread of an article by Bobbie Johnson dealing with the BBC’s choice of locked-down formats for its TV delivery system.

In contrast with Schofield’s conclusion, the Wikipedia page on Vorbis reports broad use of the format “in video games titles” and “store in-games… Popular software players support Vorbis playback either natively or through an external plugin and a number of Web sites use it, such as Jamendo and Mindawn, as well as several national radio stations like CBC Radio, JazzRadio, and Virgin Radio.” Since Schofield’s article, Vorbis has been adopted by Korean manufacturer Samsung.

Schofield does raise one good point though: unless it gets endorsed by a major company, Vorbis stand little chance to replace MP3. I think that one possible way of achieving that would be for public and non-profit organizations to adopt the format, much like they are doing with GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.

April 2nd 2007: Apple announced that EMI Music’s entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes Store worldwide in May.

Today I opened iTunes on my Windows NT computer, picked a couple of songs in the iTunes store and clicked to complete my purchase, only to face something I did not like at all.

Being a mother tongue French speaker living in Italy, I hadn’t been quite pleased at first by the fact that Apple Computers Inc. doesn’t allow European citizens to benefit from the European constitutional right of “free movement of goods, service, labor and capital“.

Since 1995, I have the right to purchase any of the above within the European Community. Yet in 2006 Apple Computers Inc. prevents me from doing so. I can for example download iTunes and install any of the European languages, but it won’t let me create an account in the European country of my choice since the credit card number I provide must come from the country of download. This means I won’t have access to any the (french-speaking) songs I have been listening to most of my life.

Then why did I bother installing the Italian translation and create an account? You might ask. Well at least I had access to most of the English-speaking songs, which account for 90% of the music I listen to. Right. Until now.

I run iTunes version 4.9. For many reasons, I am quite content with this software. It isn’t too demanding on my computer and it does its job. But since today, iTunes won’t let me see my shopping cart and instead displays the following page:

The text in Italian (obviously) politely invites me to upgrade to iTunes 7 in order to be able to carry on using the iTunes store.

Well as far as I know I was still able to browse the catalog, add songs to shopping cart and download the podcasts I registered to.
The text goes on to explain why I might want to benefit from this upgrade.

By upgrading you will be able to use the following:

1. iPod games. (Sorry, I don’t use an iPod)
2. High resolution video. (Well if I am only using iTunes for music, do I really need that?)
3. Coverflow. (No thanks)
4. iTunes backup. (Well, I’m bright enough to locate the iTunes folder on my hard disk and I am wise enough to know to back up my music collection from time to time… as my current version of iTunes rightly keeps reminding me)

So end of the deal, I don’t really have any use for the alleged benefits of an upgrade. Not only does Apple Computers Inc. limit my constitutional use of their service, but I am now being blackmailed into upgrading.

Update:

Twenty-four hours after having written this article, I downloaded and installed iTunes 7 (on another computer). I managed to authorise that computer as the second out of the allowed maximum of 5, but now the iTune network won’t accept my password. I am now technically uncapable of purchasing songs from the iTunes store. This is starting to feel like the doom of my relationship with Apple Computers Inc. digital music services.