Digital music lovers will like Mac OS X, Connected Home magazine writes in a new article posted online.
“You want to rip music in the popular MP3 format or watch DVDs,” the article notes. “But unless you purchase add-ons, you’re out of luck if you have Windows XP, which Microsoft bills as the ultimate digital-media OS. The most recent version of Apple Computer’s latest OS lets you rip music, watch DVDs, and more — without buying anything extra.”
Mac OS X 10.1 offers many of the same digital-media features that Microsoft touts in XP, “making it an interesting alternative for digital-media lovers,” Connected Home says. XP and Mac OS X tackle digital music in different ways, the article says. For example, both operating systems offer an application that can play back and record digital music.
“But Microsoft designed its Windows Media Player for Windows XP as an all-in-one powerhouse; its size almost always gets in the way,” Connected Home says. “By contrast, Apple’s iTunes is a small application, but you must use other tools or the OS itself to perform some of the tasks that are possible with Windows Media Player.”
However, the biggest difference between the operating system is music-format support, according to the article. Windows Media Player plays the standard MP3 format, but you can record audio only in Microsoft’s proprietary Windows Media Audio (WMA) format (MP3 ripping is available at an additional expense in various Windows Media Player add-ons). Apple supports MP3 ripping and playback “because, the company says, that’s what people asked for,” writes Connected Home.