AAC (.m4a, .m4p, .mp4)
The Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format was developed by the MPEG group as an improvement on MP3 and other previous MPEG audio formats. It is the audio format at the core of the new MPEG-4 standard and offers several considerable improvements over MP3. Probably the most notable is that it offers higher sound quality at lesser bit rates than MP3s. The format supports multichannel surround sound capability and takes less computing power to decode. In 2003, Apple added AAC support to the iPod and since that time has used copy-protected AAC (.m4p) as the format for distribution of audio from the iTunes Store. Look for this format to take over for MP3 in the coming years.
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