Can you play iTunes on any MP3 player?

[LDFerguson]

Moved from another thread

Dumb question - can you download from iTunes for an mp3 player that's not an Apple product? I though iTunes was just for iPods and iPhones.

 

[Locke]

Re: Recommended legal MP3 & music video download sites?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7813527.stm

That changed earlier this year. They can be played on most MP3 players now. The iTunes extension .m4a can be played on Creative Zens for example. As long as they are not protected which was removed March 09

So far as I know, Hello Kitty plays M4A files, but you might want to double check.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Re: Recommended legal MP3 & music video download sites?

Thanks for all replies to date. Dumb question - can you download from iTunes for an mp3 player that's not an Apple product? I though iTunes was just for iPods and iPhones.

I downloaded music from the Apple store and could not play it on my MP3 player - I don't have an iPod.

I downloaded stories "iTunes" from themoth.org , but they are actually in MP3 format, so they do play on an MP3 player.

I found this website, so it does appear that iTunes don’t play on MP3 players.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/itunes1.htm

So iTunes (or at least the Mac version) does support other players besides the iPod. But here it gets even trickier: Older music you downloaded from the iTunes Store is protected by the Apple FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) format, which is a proprietary, protected AAC file format that Apple doesn't license to anybody. The only devices that can play those files are ones with the ability to decrypt the Apple DRM, which includes your computer running iTunes, an iPod, an iPhone, an iTunes phone and your speakers connected to AirPort Express..

I don't know if this article was written before the article saying that Apple was ending the music restrictions.

 

[Spock]

You can't play songs you purchase on iTunes directly on a non-Apple device, but it's easy enough to get around.

Since Apple removed their DRM restrictions, there is now the option in the Advanced menu to "Convert to MP3", but this option will only be available if MP3 is the default import format, as follows:

You'll need to change your import settings to get iTunes to import the track as MP3. In iTunes 8, go to Edit / Preferences / General and click the Import Settings button. In older versions of iTunes, click on Edit / Preferences / Importing (or Edit / Preferences / Advanced / Importing). Your goal is to change the Import Using from the default setting to "MP3 Encoder".

More info from here and from Apple Support

Once the audio files have been converted to MP3, you can add them to any audio player you like, as they all support that format.