Slashdot Mirror
iTunes 4.2 and QuickTime 6.5
usr122122121 writes "iTunes 4.2 and QuickTime 6.5 were released today, available by Apple's Site and Software Update (respectively)."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
".. shortest news item, ever"
I wonder...could they have fixed the hack that Mr. Johanson made? Even on the windows version?
Just a thought...
Hm - hopefully this will fix the problem of "No One Lives Forever 2" not being able to function in Quicktime 6.4. Otherwise, I'm going to install Jaguar to my iPod and boot off that when I want some "Cate Archer" sneaking action.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
any plans of a Linux version of iTunes? Since Mac OS X kernel is BSD, I guess porting to Linux wouldn't be that hard.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
If you're going to post release notices on /. there either needs to be compelling new features (which should appear in the /. article) or it needs to be the reslease of Duke Nukem Forever.
Now people with AOL can just use their screen name to buy songs on iTMS, and it'll be billed to their AOL account.
...
Not that I would know personally now!! I read it on the website, I swear!
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
when it plays ogg, runs on linux, is devoid of patents, is open source, is GPLed and can first post for me.
Quicktime info
iTunes info
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
Here are the "new" features.
For itunes, you can now use your aol login, and aol
wallet to pay for stuff.
Quicktime now supports the 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards
These standards are usefull for Third generation cell phones. They allow transfer of scalled video, sound, text, and just about anything as the yare track based formats.
(anyone know if the itunes breaks the support for mytunes <www.cowpimp.com> the program that lets you download thru mytumes)**
come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
A new Panther update - to 10.3.2 - is also available from SoftwareUpdate.
hopefully I can finish downloading it before it gets apple-slashdotted...
There's a good java clone of iTunes complete with Rendezvous support.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtunes4/
Here it is:
* Change version number from 4.1 to 4.2
* ????
* Profit!!!
Non-unix based ?
Do you know what Mac OS X is ? It is a Window manager running on top of an open source OpenBSD dialect called Darwin. See www.opendarwin.org.
If Mac OS X is not unix, neither are OpenBSD and Linux.
If we are going to keep up with every point release of apache, bsd, linux kernel, etc.. we might as well start keeping track of point release updates of quicktime and itunes as well..
>A non-unix based software program
....
Ummm
Non-Unix Operating system?
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
QuickTime 6.5 delivers a number of new features and important updates, including:
- Creation and playback of mobile multimedia in the new 3GPP2 format.
- Creation and playback of mobile multimedia in the popular AMC format.
- Improved text track support.
- Enhanced DV playback options.
- Enhanced support for iMovie, iDVD, and Final Cut Pro.
Yeah this is really annoying to me. I mean I can remember sometime back when Steve Jobs said "We love open source". However now that its time to show it, where is Apple. They wouldn't even have to write a client, if they would just release a (closed source is fine) quicktime/iTunes ACC lib.
I would run to a Windows box or Mac to buy songs as long as I could just play them on my Linux box, that's all I'm askin for.
"Luke, I am your node.parent();"
Same reason every tiny (.z) point release of Linux is front page news here - because the Geek Collective has deemed it cool.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't - but it definitely isn't "stuff that matters".
It's official. Most of you are morons.
You've basically summed up why a lot of good commercial software doesn't exists for linux. Photoshop anyone? This isn't meant to be a troll, but he makes the point that companies want to release closed source software without jumping through hurdles. However, this is not an attack on Linux, but more so on the distros for not agreeing on standards. Make standards, then compete. This is why people hate internet explorer so much, it broke away from standards and tried to make the www a microsoft application.
But I'm not trying to be negative, things are improving...
Bzzzzt! So sorry!
:)
iChat
iPhoto
Final Cut
Keynote
DVD Studio
Soundtrack
WebObjects
Streaming Server
Broadcaster
Remote Desktop
AppleScript
Panther
Not to mention the hardware:
AirPort Extreme
iSight
No problems with lowercase t -- in fact, I daresay the opposite is the case.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Hey, here's a hint - If you load iTunes and hit that button that looks liek a triangle on its side - you can now play your "worthless" AAC files!
Man that must have been frustrating downloading all those songs and not knowing what to do next. Once you learn this "triangle trick" you might find you are able to play music on all sorts of things you couldn't before!! Those shiny discs at Target? They all have music on them as well as it turns out, once you slip them into that funny looking box in the middle of your car that until now has only emitted the tortured sounds of radio DJ's.
No need to thank me for opening the wide world of music to you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What's new in iTunes 4.2
iTunes 4.2 allows you to sign in and buy music from the iTunes Music Store using either your AOL or Apple Account, view the iTunes Music Store in a separate window, and includes a number of performance improvements.
(And yes, that really was the extent of the changes listed in the help and readme after I downloaded it).
i know. i hate apple! it's not like you can't find any free alternatives with fullscreen built in that even play more media formats by default.
- tristan
The Quicktime ***PLAYER*** won't allow it to play in fullscreen. Its a minor annoyance, one that doesn't bother anyone, and is designed to allow the much beleagered (did I get it right) and always on the verge of bankruptcy company to collect cash so Microsoft won't have to 'bail them out' again. I think I summed up all the generally Apple conspiracies :-)
But, with a simple legal download, one that doesn't require a crack, one can get another media player that runs pretty much as yet another quicktime skin, and you can get fullscreen for free. I'm surprised your brother decided he had to break a licensing agreement to get this.
I on the other hand, felt $29 was a steal for QTPro and picked it up without giving it a second thought.
Why, oh why do we have an MPEG-4 standard if no one wants to use it? Mpeg-4 works under most movie players (including the DivX player). And quicktime comes with an ecoder. What's not to like?
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
forget about AOL support ... you can group tracks now! awesome
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
It still doesn't minimize to the tray (single most common complaint on Windows), but maximize does make it full screen now. Otherwise there's no discernible diffeence.
Or make a 7-line AppleScript
on open fileName
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
open fileName
present movie 1
end tell
end open
Drag a movie onto the script icon and it plays full screen.
Idiot.
Could we tack on the end of these little iTunes stories that no Linux version is available still? Thanks.
Why should we do that when you're doing such a good job?
???
What does a Triangle on its side look like anyways?
I don't see a button that looks like this: -
I like microcars
Scientists have figured out how to sucessfully reconstruct a circle given only two points.
And some other, related headlines...
Slashdot moderators continue to consume crack in mass quantities.
The parent post is decidedly not funny.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
With the recent up to 10.1.3 the application load time has gotten even _faster_ (among other things :). Now these updates. It's usually FUN to update the Mac the see what's new.
:).
Throw in the Linux 2.6 kernel and it's going to be a fun Christmas.
Isn't it ironical that at the same time I'm dreading the next Windows update that is always coming down the pike (being the sysadmin over seeing all such systems on the network
At least Apple makes this SEEM fun. New in the iTunes application menu -- a link to:
HotTips
Linux arguably has a larger installed base of desktop users than Apple
Highly doubtful. And even if this *was* the case, due to the fact that Mac OS X comes with iTunes, the majority of Mac users also use iTunes. If a Linux version were to be released, there's no reason for us to believe, apart from possibly facilitating uploading to an iPod, that even a fraction of Linux users would choose iTunes.
I hardly think it's the case that Apple "supports" Windows. I think it's more like Apple is trying to make its product (the iPod) available to as large an audience as possible in as convenient a fashion as they can manage, and seeing as the majority of computer users are Windows users, this seems like a sound marketing strategy to me.
I've come to the conclusion that due to the diversity of Linux (which is one of its so called strengths), in terms of things like GUIs, DEs, distros, etc..., the lack of standardization makes it virtually impossible for a company to provide a product, along with support, for Linux users. There's just too many inconsistencies from one distro and desktop to the next. And I think it's likely that even if Apple did release a version of iTunes that relied on, say, Qt, then you'd hear griping from the GTK+ community as to why Apple didn't support GTK+.
Personally, I'd highly recommend your next computer being a Mac running OS X. I'm typing this from my new PowerBook (which I've had for about a week now) and I'm loving it. I used to be a Linux advocate, but with the release of OS X, I'm not looking back (well, except for servers). My opinion is that Mac OS X is not without its faults, but it has far fewer faults than Linux or Windows... and it's just such a relief to play with applications that are usable and have been designed with the intention of being usable, unlike nightmares like the GIMP (powerful, but impossible for an amateur to accomplish the simplest tasks as I can attest to) or the KDE control panel (the most convoluted thing I've ever seen in my life).
Performance improvements are a serious thing, though. I seem to remember the main gripe when iTunes for Windows was first released was mediocre-at-best performance.
How big are the performance improvements, has anyone gotten the chance to try this under windows?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
iTunes makes extensive use of Carbon and QuickTime. It would be non-trivial to port iTunes to a platform without these APIs.
Resist your fondness for shiny objects and don't install updates the instant they come out. Wait a few hours, or even days, then install. That way you can install them all at once.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
MPEG, and if you pay the 30 dollars for Quicktime Pro Quicktime should be able to export to MPEG from any format it plays for you, i'm pretty sure.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Installed the update on WinXP, rebooted, and no iTunes won't start. Nothing at all happens, really. Awesome patch.
were reduced to:
Heck, if usr122122121's nickname weren't so long he could've gone for the first ever (?) one-line
Apple has also just released Final Cut Pro 4.1.1, LiveType 1.1.1, and Xcode 1.1.
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
Look for Itunes-sidekick. It's a plugin for Itunes for Windows that adds, among other things, minimizing to the tray.
I saw the Sign, and it opened up my eyes
Apple said they love open source. Not that they love linux. Apple is using materials from open source projects such as BSD and Konqueror, and they are contributing code back to those same projects. I don't see why this means they have an obligation to write some big complicated AAC library for UNIX when the UNIX OSes don't even seem to have a totally homogenous way to playback sound.
I'd concentrate on seeing what you can do to get Wine to accept iTunes if you want to use iTunes Music Store in Linux.
If you really want something native, MPlayer can play AAC already. All it needs to play iTMS purchases is to get past the DRM wrapper. The DRM wrapper on iTMS purchases is the technology sold by a company called "Fairplay". Perhaps you could try contacting Fairplay and asking if you could license their tech for playback in MPlayer? Or even better, you could perhaps just contact Apple directly and say you are interested in writing code to add iTMS playback support to MPlayer, and you would be willing to go under NDA and such... Wait, what's that you say? You don't have the time or linux programming knowledge to add FairPlay support to MPlayer? Well, apparently neither does Apple.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Hmmm.
Linux DOES probably have more machines on its side. However, that's not necessarily relevant. Linux's overwhelming number of machines is not because they have a gadzillion desktop users. They run a lot of servers. When it comes to Linux desktop usage, I've yet to see a figure that puts it significantly ahead of Apple in desktop use.
Feel free to show me some reliable figures to prove me wrong on this.
People running servers don't need fancy MP3 playing software. The majority of deployed linux boxes are servers. So long as tenant 2 holds, the majority of linux boxes wouldn't run iTunes.
Apple supports iTunes with Windows for some good reasons. Firstly, it's the same reason that BeOS started supporting x86 machines. They like money, money is good, and therefore they try and get more of it. The huge spike in iTMS sales suggests this was a good move. Secondly, Quicktime was already out for Windows. Since iTunes relies on Quicktime, their sound code should be trivially portable.
The third is a bit more uncertain. Apple was originally capable of moving OpenSTEP code to Windows via Rhapsody. I'm willing to bet there was some weight there.
MS isn't actively trying to destroy Apple any more than it's trying to destroy everyone else. MS is too faceless to get personal with things, so don't take it personally. They're a mega-giant that steps on people every day, they can't help it. They're just intrinsically Big Business.
As for not contributing back to the open source movment. Umm.. hello? Apple has kicked back a lot of stuff to the open source community. Apple really doesn't owe Linux in particular anything. Apple owes most of itself to BSDs.
The fact is, you reconsidered and changed your mind based on unreasonable standards and data. If you don't want an Apple computer, that's your call. Many people would argue it's your loss though.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Since it was your post that broke my camels back, I'm going to bitch to you. If you don't want to read about a point release, DON'T! You didn't HAVE to come in here and bitch about having to come in here and bitch!
Let the modding commence.
fs
If you're on a dial up, keep in mind that these aren't exactly "must have" updates if you're not an AOL customer. 50 megs is alot, but let's face it, you can easily wait till 10.4. The only stuff you really NEED are the security updates.
And since you can set this thing to download overnight, unless you're so rural as to be paying toll-calls to a dialup ISP, 50 megs can be done in 1 or 2 nights, since Apple Update supports resuming (TTBOMR)
-- Funksaw
Apple's Read Me's are always notably lacking information on specific changes, possible because parts of the read me display in the software update and installers. Anyway, Apple often releases specific details as part of its knowledge base.
My quick review of changes in iTunes 4.2 on Mac OS X (sorry won't have access to a Win2k machine until next week), these are the immediate changes I notice:
Hot Tips
http://www.apple.com/itunes/hottips/
Apple introduced hot tips on creating Smart Playlist, keyboard shortcuts, copy song, artist, and album urls from the iTunes Music Store, etc.
Grouping
Under song details, there is now a new ID3 tag called grouping. I'm not certain if this will allow for subcategories, or can be used for things such as Celebrity Playlist so songs from multiple albums can be grouped. I'll have to play with it. Also added to Smart Playlist queries.
Artwork
Added scaler to artwork, so images can be scaled up or down to fit album space area.
Playlist from Selection
For those who complained about queue-ing songs, I imagine this feature will come in handy, as well as for other purposes as well. Allows you to Command-Select (Click) on random songs in your library then create a playlist from them, immediately.
Music Store in New Window
Double-clicking will launch the music store in a new window (yeah).
iTMS: Music Essentials
Like Celebrity playlist, but collections of "iTunes Essential" music in categories I wouldn't have imagined, including Disco Ball Essentials and Coctail Party Kitsch--yet more ways to spend even more money.
iTMS: AOL Sessions
Added more music "exclusives" basically various performances by artist for AOL can now be purchased.
iTMS: AOL Users
Tons of direct access stuff for AOL users. Which, if they can do this for AOL, maybe they could do it for other venues, like artist who do live concert releases.
iTMS: Artist Self-Released Albums (Return of the EP)
This was there before, but some artist like Pearl Jam who are self published are and can now release stuff directly to the iTMS. I also noticed John Mayer's "As Is" is not attributed to Sony or any music label (which may indicate that it was also self-published). Ben Folds have also been doing a number of quick EPs, but they are all still published attributed to EPIC. It will be interesting to see if more artist start releasing EPs with 4-5 songs exclusively for iTMS or other music stores, and then have regular albums published every 1-2yrs.
These were the things I noticed immediately. Now I need to go and play and see what else comes up.
Can't please all the people all the time. If they release a jumbo patch a bunch of people complain about why they couldn't have been broken up so they could pick and choose what they want to install.
If they release it in pieces then everyone complains about having to install in chunks. People just love to gripe I guess it's human nature.
You're joking right? Most people come here to avoid homework.
Switch Software Update to only check for updates once a month, and you can have all of your updates at once, if it really causes you "madness."
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
actually, there was a Winamp 5 story (yesterday?)
Blaming Apple for this system is crazy - it's a shitty system, but there's plenty of blame to go around. I'd rather buy music legally from good bands that put effort into making quality albums where I get my moneys worth, whether I buy online or at stores, and focus my effort on defeating the unconstitutional measures the entertainment industry has supported (the DMCA for example) to keep their monopoly and prevent me from using the music that I already legally bought.
My crappy P3-500 256MB system at work runs it about the same as before, still pretty slow, but it works. They changed the Maximize button behavior, now it actually maximizes the window instead of toggling the mini-player. I actually liked the previous behavior, I rarely maximize windows, don't see the point usually.
Q.
While I applaud DownHillBattle for their efforts, their efforts seem to be largely composed of swinging a big mase around, hoping they hit something they should, and hoping no one notices when they hit something they shouldn't. DHB is correct, for example, in that the iTMS is built on the RIAA's terms, and helps the RIAA a bit in that way, but they also make several arguable/incorrect statements about things such as AAC compression, and how Apple gets such a large share of the sale(remember, Apple isn't making any money on the iTMS, their share pays for the bandwidth, the CC transaction, and just barely supporting the store itself). Their "solution" isn't doing their cause much good either, asking Apple to list the artist's share of the sale(something not possible, Apple has agreements with the label, not the artist; the label gets to dicate the share and doesn't have to tell a soul), and encouraging users to instead using things like Poisioned(an OSS Kazaa client) to acquire their music instead.
I can't fault DHB for trying, but I can fault them for not trying hard enough. The site seems built more on FUD than facts, and a little bit of something resembling backmail is there too(That could really change the industry. (and we promise we'll take down the iTunes iSbogus page)).
On the QuickTime download page, fullscreen playback is listed as the number one reason to give Apple US$30 to upgrade to QuickTime Pro.
You can't get it becuase the songs cost .99 cents U.S., which is $1.31598 Canadian as of today. Imgaine the nightmare of that marketing campaign.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
IT'S ONLY CENSORSHIP WHEN THE GOVERNMENT RESTRICTS SPEECH, Mr. Wolf-cryer.
So if your ISP starts blocking web sites they disagree with, it isn't censorship? If your local tv station blanks out part of a show they deem inappropriate, it isn't censorship? After all, they aren't the government.
I will agree that Walmart is in their rights to sell only certain versions, as long as they post this fact. But that doesn't change the fact that it can be the start of a long slippery slope.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
I'm guessing that the reason they haven't ported Quicktime to Linux has more to do with the licenses for all the codecs that Quicktime depends on (from other vendors) and not any fault really of Apple's. Quicktime without all the codecs wouldn't really be Quicktime, and it's likely not in Apple's interest to dilute their brand for no good reason.
...I guess this will be the most popular download within the next few days.
~Philly
Really - before you start ranting you should at least bother to learn something about the subject. You can write plugins for QT. There is technical documentation at Apple's Quicktime developer's site, and you can download both Windows & Mac SDKs. Also, check sourceforge for other QT Components.
Trust me. This is an inactive account. Regardless of what the
First: My beloved 'player-control' window is now accessible only by using 'ctrl+m'. The standard windows 'maximize' button now sets iTunes up to full screen.
Second: One performance increase I noticed immediately is that it's no longer lagging when scrolling through large library lists. I have 3500+ mp3s in there, and the previous version was very choppy when scrolling. The update seems to have fixed that.
What??? ....I mean...what a crock.
The HD's in iPods are some of Toshiba's best laptop drives, and there's no way you can 'burn out the hard drive' by booting from it...sheez.
Try the following AppleScript:
The big news is that these were items that could have been announced at MacWorld SF. instead, they are released now.
What does Steve have up his sleeve for then?
What exactly do you mean by "Don't touch this button?"
Well, you're partially wrong. They are encoded by the labels and/or their distributors, but not from CD (in most cases). Apple has said that they encourage submitters to encode from the original masters, and that most are. The lowest quality you can find on the iTMS is ripped from CD, but most songs available are encoded from the DAT masters directly to 48 kHz 128 kbit AAC.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Quicktime is a media wrapper with gobs of supported codecs and track types (it even supports a special text track for that MIDI karaoke fomat that never really took off). DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, and the OS X version of Shake are all very heavily QT-based. (As are iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, and even iPhoto).
.mov files I ran across on the net use the worst possible codecs (maybe for better compatibility?) usually cinepak, which hasn't changed since Quicktime 1.0 in 1991. But then, that's not any worse than the people that output to AVI using something like the crusty old Indeo 1 codec... equal ass quality.
The "Quicktime Player" is just a free front-end demo sort of thing that doesn't want to die. Seeing how Apple has published all the specs for the QT framework, I'm amazed someone hasn't written a nicer player frontend.
Most people only use QT for DV25/DVCPro25 and DV50/DVCPro50 video editing (and futher down the data path, MPEG2 for output). Be it at home from their MiniDV camera in iMovie and output to DVD via iDVD or a pro using Final Cut and DVD Studio.
Soooo many of
I don't hate QT, it's part of what makes Macs and their applications a more sane world, but I do with QT had a few more codecs and wish there were some better frontends/players. (There were gobs of third-party/shareware/freeware QT player frontends back in the oldschool classic Mac OS days... but very few for OS X).
The thing that baffles me with Quicktime is that you still have to PAY to have the privilage of doing what every other free player out there already does... show a movie in fullscreen.
I'm all for Quicktime charging to be able to author quicktime movies, but to be able to watch them in fullscreen baffles me.
(And I love how on their website they demonstrate it as some amazing feature to be able to do so and call it their 'Theatre' mode or some such crud...)
I did make a few modifications, however.
1.8-inch HDD
40.0 GB:
MK4004GAH
Lightweight, only 62 grams
Low Power Consumption
15ms Average Seek Time
100MB/s Ultra DMA Transfer Rate
300,000 MTTF Hours
Sounds like a laptop drive to me...and a good one too! One that doesn't know the difference between audio, OS files, games or video...knock yourself out.
Run it all you want, that's what the warranty/extended warranty is for. One year from Toshiba to Apple to you...more if you have Apple Care, CompUSA, etc.
Um.. Apple publicly states that one prefered way to image xServes is to boot from your iPod and then copy an image from it. Apple had the Genetech guys up on stage at WWDC hawking iPods because they use them to configure their clusters.
so.. Apple says it's OK to boot from it and iPodHacks says Apple says you can't boot from it.
Hmn.. who to believe, who to believe?
I'm not feeling witty so bite me
Yup. Your trying to fight iTunes instead of letting it work for and with you.
Why would you have two instances of the same song on your machine unless they were from different albums, different encodings, or sample rates or such? iTunes just did you a favor, it found you some wasted hard drive space. Delete the duplicate(s) and move on.
If they aren't exact duplicates then use the "View Options" to add the appropriate colums to the display so you can discerne the differences between the tracks.
iTunes stores enough tag and other meta information that you should never have to sort files manually. Manual and smart playlists are tremendously powerful, especially when you can create smart playlists based on the contents of the "comments" box for each track. For example, I use terms like "male female group solo singing instrumental acoustic live remix" in the comments field. I have several smart playlists that sort on these, such as "live group rock"; this is powerful voodoo.
To backup your comments and such, simply copy the "iTunes 4 Music Library" file. You can later restore it to the appropriate place and all will be well.
Chances are that if you are going to "move my data on my machine to another location" that you would be moving the entire location of your "my documents" folder. iTunes would then look for its file(s) relative to that new location. If you DO just want to move the iTunes database, simply use a shortcut (alias to MAc users, symlink to BSD heads).
Unless you are a geek who wants to tweak, there's little to no reason for iTunes to complicate matters by offering alternate locations for the database. The standard options allow for a centralized store of music, and each user to maintain their own ratings, comments, etc.
The window maximize thing is annoying. It doesn't even work on the Mac like it's supposed to (hold Option, click the window zoom button). To make a maximized iTunes window you have to manually drag the window to size. Apple does occasionally break its own HIG documents, and this is one of those occasions.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
However, 10 points lost for giving a damn about slashdot karma. :P Anyways...
All your article says is that it's hard to count linux users. Claiming it's uncertain does nothing for your argument, so I'll just move along. It's also important to note that not all linux users, even in the desktop realm, are going to be iTunes users. The linux world is very diverse, I think we can all agree.
Err, this kind of thinking is pretty standard, and it's also why Apple is doing quite well right now. Who gives a damn about the machines? I'll say it again, in bold: Who gives a damn what the machines can do? The answer is people like me, who are engineers.
Most machines are potential linux machines. However, most users are not potential Linux users! This is important. A machine may be capable, but if a user isn't, then who cares?
Apple sure doesn't. Apple has philosophy and style, but at the end of the day, they have a bank account that needs to be full enough to pay their engineers.
Umm. Tell me, because I'm interested... How should Apple implement a consistent product on Linux. Remember, Apple's entire marketing strategy is based around the EXPERIENCE of use, and its consistency. These are important things.
Should apple use SDL? Straight OpenGL? Make their own library? What GUI toolkit? GTK+? Motif? Should it be a KDE App? A Gnome App? Neither?
Apple cannot make a consistant and reasonable player app in Linux. If they choose toolkits and run with it, they get nailed. If they make their own toolkits, they get nailed.
This is not even mentioning the huge amount of porting they'd need to do.
As for your complaints about movie trailers, I suggest you get over it. There is a small price to pay for freedom man. When I started using Linux, I couldn't even watch movies at all.
What Apple is doing with Quicktime is no better or worse than what MS and Real are doing. They're trying to make money with a quality video/audio encoder and decoder. The end quality of the product isn't important, it's the intention that dictates the reasoning here.
They make money by spreading the quicktime decoder and convincing people to use it. Then professionals (you know, commercial use of software to make products) will buy the encoder software to publish their work.
Do you remember how business works?
Umm. For the same reason there isn't a Linux one. I'm sorry, Apple has kicked back to the community in other areas. Areas that are arguably more important than a media player.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Itunes HAS to write to the "my documents" directory - this is annoying - i can't specify another location.
You can specify any browsable location you like.
Edit:Preferences:Advanced lets you choose your iTunes Music Folder Location.
(On the Mac) I set permissions wide open on my main user's (me) music folder. Then I set all the other users' (my daughters) iTunes folder to my folder. Voila! We all have access to all our music. IF they rip it, download it or buy it, I've got it -- without having to duplicate drive space consumption for everyone to have Led Zeppelin. (Course then I get to wade through all their Ani and Shania, but likewise they have to put up with my ELP and Tchaikovsky.)
And you, madam, are very ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.