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WMA on Treo
Pocket Tunes, an application that plays OGG, MP3, WAV and even shoutcast radio streams on your Treo is about to get better. In a post to their Yahoo group, Normsoft cofounder Tim Norman details their plans to give WMA support, and even protected WMA support in Pocket Tunes 3.0.
"We have a ton of great changes planned for Pocket Tunes 3.0, which is
tentatively scheduled for release around June. One of the big features
we're planning is support for WMA files. We have this mostly working
internally, and we're just putting the finishing touches on.
What I think is even more exciting, though, are our plans to support
protected WMA files from downloadable music stores such as Napster 2,
BuyMusic, etc. We should be able to support WMA downloads from any music
store that allows their music to be transferred to a portable device. (You
will need to have Windows to use this; sorry Mac and Linux folks - we
haven't had the bandwidth to look into other platforms yet...)
We don't have the protected piece working yet, but we're working on it. I'm
fairly confident we can get it working, but I'm not going to make any
promises just yet. There's a small chance that we won't be able to figure
it out.
We're also working on a desktop interface, which will likely be integrated
with Windows Media Player. This should make it much easier to install music
to your Palm. This desktop interface will be required for installing
protected WMA files, due to the way that portable device authorization
works. The desktop will be optional for unprotected audio formats.
In case you're wondering: Yes, of course this is all being done
legitimately; we've got all the necessary licenses from Microsoft.
Upgrades:
We want to be fair about our upgrade policy. At the same time, we need to
be able to pay for our additional licensing and development expenses for the
3.0 release. Our current policy looks like this (this is a draft; we
reserve the right to change this without notice prior to the 3.0 release):
- WMA support will be part of the Deluxe version.
- If you have an unlimited upgrade registration code (starts with "ptx"),
then Pocket Tunes Deluxe 3.0 will be a free upgrade for you. (These
registration codes were sold as a special promotion for a limited time when
2.0 came out.)
- We don't want recent customers to feel like they're getting a bad deal
because of an upgrade shortly after they purchased the current version. So,
if you purchased Pocket Tunes on or after 3/27/04, you will receive a free
upgrade to Pocket Tunes 3.0. (If you purchased Pocket Tunes 2 Basic, you
will get Pocket Tunes 3 Basic. If you purchased Pocket Tunes 2 Deluxe, you
will get Pocket Tunes 3 Deluxe. The free version that comes with the Treo
600 is not eligible for this free upgrade.)
- Otherwise, if you've purchased a past version of Pocket Tunes, you will be
eligible for a reduced price on the new version. We haven't yet determined
the prices, but rest assured that you will get a nice discount.
We think this is a very fair upgrade policy, especially for those of you who
purchased Pocket Tunes for $5 in 2002 and have had free upgrades ever since.
:)
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them on this group
or send us an email!
Take care,
Tim Norman
NormSoft, Inc."
Pocket Tunes Deluxe costs $24.95. The basic version comes free with all Treo 600s as a gift for registering the device. It was recently the winner of PalmSource's best Multimedia application powered up award.
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