Hey this will be fun...
Let's sue nintendo cause I can't play theo games on playststion and sue microsoft cause I need a different version of Office for my Mac. 
I can't put my canon lithium battery in my nikon lithium battery slot.
Oh, and when I buy a book of won't work as an audio tape. 
My hotwheels won't fit on a competitors track. 

I'll stop. But I have more. 
If you don't like that apple is like this than use one of the dozens of competitors. That's how things work.

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SoundCodecs#Current_status

I can't use itunes with my x5 or sansa even though my player supports aac.

It's because apple doesn't want any other player than their ipods, of course, to be sold.

That's the problem.

(Yes, rockbox supports ipods to, so in theory i could use an ipod sync it with itunes and then let rockbox sift through the obfuscated files to build it's own database but why? When there is superior hardware out there - wich supports replacing batteries when they wear out)

iTunes uses AAC. Just drop the proprietary un"Fairplay" extensions that (it is claimed) harm competition among audio players.

I've yet to see a non-Apple audio player that supports AACs at all, never mind chapterized AACs. If they build 'em, I'll consider 'em. Until then, the other manufacturers can stop whining.

Why would anyone want to stop using AAC when it deals with audiobooks, live music, and classical music so admirably? I'm talking about chapterized AACs, which only Apple can be bothered to support.

Let's take an example: Eine kleine Nachtmusik consists of four movements. They belong together. It *might* suit some people to play the movements separately, but I prefer them played in order. Now, stuff it in a randomized or shuffled playlist. How am I going to hear the whole piece played as intended if I don't encode it as a chapterized AAC? Fine, I could encode it as a single huge file, but then I'd lose information about the movements. Why does the Norwegian government think would I want this?

because transcoding doesn't diminsh sound quality at all, right?