This Is The Best Idea

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glbronze

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Microsoft's Media Player: Windows Media Player
What's it do? It plays movies, music, has all sorts of features, and has internet integration

Apple has all of this, plus more, but in two separate programs: Quicktime and iTunes.

Now for my idea:
Combine them.
Combine Quicktime and iTunes into one killer application that competes with Windows Media player, has all of its functionality, plus the greatness of Quicktime and iTunes.

In my opinion, this app would rock.

Names?
iPlayer perhaps?
howabout Quicktime media?
 
Nope. Quicktime already plays MP3 files, if you want it to. But iTunes is a Mac only application. Why should they make it available to Windows users? Also, this is a commodity business (mp3 player software, anyway). Nothing to be won.
 
WMP has little to no market share compared to Quicktime. Why would Apple want to compete with Microsoft if Apples already beating them?

WMP's interface stinks. If you just want to play songs, you don't need the viewer, and if you want to play movies, you don't need the playlist. They want to be separate apps.
 
Did you ever try loading Media Player 7 on a PC? It is the worst experience! Pop in a CD, and wait 60 seconds for the stupid app to load. Change screens in the app, and see a noticable 5 second lag. Visualisation is slow too.

It's bloat bloat bloat, and unlike Apple's quicktime, you can't turn off its "what's new" screen if you start the player in standalone.

Toss in that CRAP WMA format (I prefer to control my rights thank you very much) and default digital playback of CD audio (load an app and hear your CD player crawl), and have and you have one loser of an app.
 
i agree with the majority sentiment here... Quicktime player and iTunes should NOT be integrated into one bloatware app.
 
Originally posted by mr_mac_x
WMP has little to no market share compared to Quicktime. Why would Apple want to compete with Microsoft if Apples already beating them?
Click to expand...
Maybe on Macs, but definately not on PCs in general. QuickTime is actuallly the least used media format on the web, compaired to Windows Media and Real. I just read an article on it last week (looking for it now...).
 
well... maybe you could add QT movies to your iTunes playlist.? When the QT movie starts playing, it changes iTunes to visual mode, and displays the video and sound. You guys know what I am saying?
 
Here is an example of what I mean:

(and the play button/ fast forward buttons turn into the quicktime player buttons.)
 

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Originally posted by themacko
Maybe on Macs, but definately not on PCs in general. QuickTime is actuallly the least used media format on the web, compaired to Windows Media and Real. I just read an article on it last week (looking for it now...).
Click to expand...

I'll take your word for it. I was just going from seeing how many files on the net are in which format (all that I see that's in a WMP format is stuff on Microsoft's site :D).


But my point is, that they don't work together. There are tons of functions that Quicktime has (well, at least QT Pro) that would be hard to put into iTunes (such as sound and movie properties, selections, and having more than one movie open at once). Putting iTunes into QT might be a little easier, but still not very efficient.

But even if it did look nice and work well, what would be the point? Would that many more people use QT if it had a playlist? Would it be harder for Apple to develop two versions of QT (one with iTunes for Mac and one without for PC) Why would all of those pour unenlightened souls :))) switch to QT if it was nearly identical to WMP? The best reason to switch right now is that it's not bloated with a playlist and stuff.

BTW, I don't know anybody that uses the playlist part of WMP because they all like other MP3 players better.
 
good god! please don't even think about combining the two programs. THey are oth intended to do differnt things and o them well. This is a much better approach compared to the jack of all trades that is WMP. Besides knowing how many 3rd party apps are based on quicktime, there's no need to bloat that either. Just leave it as it is, it works - don't fix it.
 
nummiG4, how did you get that pic? Is it real? Can I make iTunes play movies.

I'm surprised to see how many people disagree with me. But I have to mention a few things:
1. In my experiences on XP/ Pentium 3 700mhz, Windows Media player is not slow. It is just as fast as Quicktime and iTunes.
2. As someone else said, Quicktime does in fact have much less market share than Windows Media (well, not much much, but a considerable amount), with the leader being RealPlayer.
3. What is wrong with offering iTunes to PC users? I know, many will say that it is one of the applications that if people want it, buy a Mac. BUT, if they make it for PC (or perhaps this generally unliked "bloatware" that I am suggesting), then it could attract more people to look at Macintosh for the other Mac only apps (iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, DVD Studio Pro, and even Mac OS X). Plus, it would expand their potential market share.
4. This software does not have to be "bloated". Having more than one function (movies+music) does not necessarily mean big, ugly, and slow. That's just what Microsoft makes it to be. Remember, if Apple were to make its own integrated player, what makes you think it would be as bloated as the Microsoft Media player.
 
3. What is wrong with offering iTunes to PC users? I know, many will say that it is one of the applications that if people want it, buy a Mac. BUT, if they make it for PC (or perhaps this generally unliked "bloatware" that I am suggesting), then it could attract more people to look at Macintosh for the other Mac only apps (iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, DVD Studio Pro, and even Mac OS X). Plus, it would expand their potential market share.
Click to expand...

I think that if Apple made a Windows version that costs money, and there was a free one for mac, then people might switch. The problem is itunes would have to be extremely "wantable", or else Apple would just lose money. And it has to be something that microsoft couldn't easily make for free.
 
Why combine them? I already ditched iTunes for casual music listening because it is too bloated unless you actually want to rip a CD or burn one. 30% or more of my processor power is automatically assigned to iTunes when it is playing whereas I can run OroborOSX, XDarwin and XMMS (the X Multi Media System) for about 20%. The difference must be in the encoding properties of iTunes because xmms has just as much quality. If you add a movie player into iTunes that 30% will only rise*.


*All percentages based on my own computer, 266 G3 iMac running nothing but the selected mp3 player, top and the terminal.
 
Originally posted by themacko

Maybe on Macs, but definately not on PCs in general. QuickTime is actuallly the least used media format on the web, compaired to Windows Media and Real. I just read an article on it last week (looking for it now...).
Click to expand...

I had a similar article on Slashdot I believe. Frankly, I like Quicktime the most, especially with viewing video and I'm surprised that it's not number 1.

Andre
 
I dont like the idea of integrating them. iTunes uses quicktime :p -- its not like they are separate things :)

Webwise I use real audio...for 3 reasons:p
1) I serve pages off yahoo, and real encoding allows web server streaming
2) I hate WMP -- so I wouldnt encode in it
3) I love QT but havent had time to explore it....is there a demo that I can play with in order to decide?
 
Originally posted by glbronze
3. What is wrong with offering iTunes to PC users? I know, many will say that it is one of the applications that if people want it, buy a Mac. BUT, if they make it for PC (or perhaps this generally unliked "bloatware" that I am suggesting), then it could attract more people to look at Macintosh for the other Mac only apps (iDVD, iMovie, iPhoto, DVD Studio Pro, and even Mac OS X). Plus, it would expand their potential market share.
Click to expand...

Um ... actually developing a version for Windows does zero! nothing to increase apple's market share. It might... slim but ,ight get them known by a few more PC users... This is completely NOT worth apple's time or money.

Besides if that was the case and by creating all your products completely equally for both platforms was a good solution to grow your company then why doesn't microsoft equally develop ALL it's products for the mac?

Outlook? no mac version for X and a very lame version for classic that hasn't been updated in years.

No support in ANY of MS mail apps to connect to an Exchange server....

Pathetic attempt at Apple networking in NT and nothing better to date

WMP for the Mac sux!

I've never seen a version of PowerPoint for the mac God only knows why any would want it anyway... That's suppose to be a dynamic presentation???

Shall I continue???

It's just not worth Apple's time and frankly I think it's fun to have stuff Windows users won't have on their PC it's called Mac envy and I get it all the time from both PC and Linux users now when I show them my OS X running...

OS X, Classic, Virtual PC win 98 and XP, and X11 with about 3 different window managers installed at this point... they simply freek out that I can do this and they can't...

No grudges on PC users but if they want Mac tools they should get a Mac THAT! will grow apple's market share!

Cheers
 
the only two apps that i would even think of combining would be DVD Player and QT. but still what about people who have cd, cd-r or cd-rw drives? then it would be wasted space on there hard drive.

ok i am done with my pointless post:eek:
 
Originally posted by AdmiralAK
I dont like the idea of integrating them. iTunes uses quicktime :p -- its not like they are separate things :)

Webwise I use real audio...for 3 reasons:p
1) I serve pages off yahoo, and real encoding allows web server streaming
2) I hate WMP -- so I wouldnt encode in it
3) I love QT but havent had time to explore it....is there a demo that I can play with in order to decide?
Click to expand...

demo? i think the streaming server is released open source under the APLS. so you can get the full version of it for free.

check it out.
 
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