Support for itunes plus file transfer / playback

Question

The lastest Nokia Media Transfer application for the mac allows the transfer of itunes plus (.m4a extension) files, these are purchased itunes tracks without DRM. From what I understand apple have modified the tag data on these files which prevents them from being played on a Nokia phone, the Mac transfer application will process these files to modify this data and allow the tracks to be played.
My question is, will windows users get a similar application, to avoid the use of third party / manual operations, to allow these files to be transferred directly from itunes to my Nokia in the same manner as the mac application?
Its usually the mac being the un-supported OS but appears to be windows in this case !

Answer 1

yeah, Apple have their own way of working with aac/mp4 tags. They add extra bits that other players, unless programmed to read, won't understand, and at worst they won't play the file at all. There is another standard, the Nero standard, and they are similar but the Nero version is more universally recognised. There isn't an ID3v1/ID3v2 for MP4 files, yet. Although, like I said, since 90% of the world uses the Apple method of tagging, that is close enough to being a standard.
It's not that Nokia don't want you using iTunes, or like you said, they would force Mac users to use a Nokia music program. I think it is just that the whole "PC Suite" philosophy is geared around the Windows Media Player way of doing and tagging things. And since WMP doesn't recognise m4a files, neither does the Nokias. To get around this, instead of fixing their mp4 codecs to recognise Apple formatting, they made a transfer program that swaps the tags to a Nokia-understandable format. Which is just silly.
I've tried the Suite Music Manager, I have. Honest opinion - use Windows Media player instead. BUT I don't want to use that either, I have a huge collection ripped/catalogued in iTunes, and I shouldn't have to go about fiddling with tags and swapping software/workflows just so my phone can play it. I don't need to with MP3 so why should I need to with AAC/MP4? It would only take a few lines of code in the phone's AAC codec for it to read these tags, surely thats easier than making transfer programs and Music Managers?
The arguement "Nokia want you buying from the Nokia store rather than iTMS" doesn't hold water either, because I'm never buying from either, as long as I can still buy CDs from the shop.
Like I said, this whole thing may be fixed with the new N95-8 etc. If its not, and Nokia have no intention of fixing it, then my next phone will be an iPhone. I don't WANT an iPhone, but this whole thing is a deal-breaker for me.
Currently using E71, looking at options