There’s a misconception that the iPhone supports only the AAC format and that to play audio, it must be purchased from iTunes Store. The reason for the confusion is that music downloaded from iTunes is in the AAC format. However, you can save music to iTunes from other sources, and most of those audio formats are supported on the iPhone.
Which Audio Files Can iPhone Play?
Knowing which audio formats the iPhone supports is important if you want to use your phone as a portable media player. There’s a good chance that your music collection is a mix of audio formats if you get your songs from ripped CD tracks, digitized cassette tapes, and torrent sites.
There are many places to get free music downloads for your iPhone, as well as sites dedicated to free ringtone downloads.
These are the audio formats that the iPhone can use:
Lossy vs. Lossless Compression Formats
Lossy compression removes information from the pauses and blank spaces in an audio recording, which makes lossy files much smaller than lossless, or uncompressed files.
Not all of these formats are used with music, but all are supported by the iPhone in one place or another.
If you’re an audiophile who makes high-quality audio a priority, don’t convert your music to a lossy format. For most listeners, lossy works just fine, however, and when you store music on your iPhone rather than stream it, size matters.
How to Convert Music From Unsupported Formats
If you have songs in a format that iPhone won’t play, you can convert them a number of ways. The easiest way to play audio in a format that iPhone supports is to use iTunes to convert the songs. However, if the music isn’t stored in iTunes, there are also audio file converters you can use.
Other Ways to Listen to Audio on iPhone
You don’t have to store audio files on your device to listen to MP3s and other formats on your iPhone. There are online services that store music and other audio types for you and then deliver it to your iPhone via streaming. For example, listen to podcasts on your phone, tune in to online radio stations, stream audiobooks to your iPhone, offload your phone’s music to an online file storage service, or get music from a music subscription service.
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