If you notice, they are all paranoia triggering, needless amateur things. Of course, they are all easily fixed, tracked since it is a full feature desktop OS you run. The real issue is, every bit of data on users smart phone is highly critical and personal. The companies in mobile business are more paranoid than you can ever want. I can easily tell, such a bug can't exist on a Symbian running Nokia. Of course, bugs exist but not that level.
They can't be like other software companies since other companies have very strict requirements, tests. It is only Apple and Google safe from any criticism thanks to their fans (!).
I have read the headline as "Android allows remote root access" and was like "Not a big surprise" immediately.
Ordinary people, not just techies got way paranoid about Google and such bugs only serves to validate them.
People modding you as troll should understand what Android is supposed to race with. Damn secure, stable, 200 million installed Symbian which is soon to be open source and Windows Mobile by the mafioso style company Microsoft which gets huge support from their Windows desktop dominance. Lets not forget actual J2ME which must be nearing a billion installed base too. People seems to forget that Google is the minority there, in smart phone business.
I still don't get why they didn't support Symbian foundation or Sun J2ME anyway.
I stared to a Asus Eee thing a while ago running Windows XP. Just the idea of running XP on that machine along with Antivirus, Firewall and only the software updates horrified me.
If the companies put XP as option to them, it is not like they are getting it free (or dirt cheap), it is because they are very afraid of Microsoft.
If you are World's one of the most respected mainboard manufacturers (Asus) and you started to gain ground with your Laptops, you don't want to make Microsoft mad. MS can provide a single buggy driver update and create chaos in your customerbase. All they need to say "oops" after it. Customers will blame YOU, not them.
I hoped Yahoo sued MS since things went real chaotic at Yahoo after the MS Offer (!). Even as Yahoo user, you can easily notice it. MS offer was like FreeBSD virus (OS Yahoo runs on), everything slowed down, stopped, ridiculously cancelled, changes without asking users etc. etc.
For example they were wise to put a very basic RSS reader (in Apple mail.app fashion) to their new Mail and they removed it without giving any valid reasons. That is just the latest event. There is also "Profiles upgrade" which people already labelled as "Facebook wannabe". They now say it was because of their "platform" idea but they don't get it, it is the USER who should decide things and can go away indefinitely.
This is a company who beta tested My Yahoo for almost a year, asking users for changes and even removed advertising based on user feedback. Somehow, things totally changed after MS offer.
I even suspect if MS bribes or promises stuff to some staff inside Yahoo.
Yahoo users were packing and leaving if MS deal was done. Obviously, they are the ones who REJECTED MS offers, even tied to Windows interface and have chosen Yahoo. MS could end up buying yahoo.com domain name while massive numbers of users have already moved to another platform/OS neutral provider named Google.
MS on the other hand does everything to prove they are the very same company who doesn't understand what "Web" is. Opera users are AGAIN reporting Hotmail "new version" major problems. Yes, that is right, the conspiracy which has been said to be very costly for MS is in action again. (search for Opera lawsuit MSN)
I understood Yahoo rejecting MS offer by very good reasons but I don't get how the heck Yang can make such mistake showing a true web/services giant as weak to general public. If he should be fired, he should be fired for that reason. On Web services for general public business, MS is a joke. Owner of Live.com that is. The provider which people (non techie) downloads Google Toolbar just not to use it.
My Yahoo (new version) is more like a web based full feature RSS reader now. So people having My.Yahoo as default start page aren't all exactly AOL etc. types.
A wing of Yahoo does perfect and future ready things even replying every single user flame on their blogs. Another wing, sadly, can't understand the need of IMAP in todays World, tries "Tower" ads in Yahoo mail, doesn't allow search.yahoo.com tab customisation, doesn't tie "Yahoo Widgets" prefs to user account and doesn't make that genius "Yahoo Go!" work on high end smart phones just because of a simple resolution setting.
I got like 5-6 tabs on My Yahoo and it is my start page since Yahoo invented it (about '98).
Yahoo has a serious image problem among slashdot geeks it seems. It is up to Yahoo and the companies, consultants they should hire to figure the base of the problem. What causes it? The valid reasons of course, not "yahoo.com being lame". Yes, it is lame since it targets the average web public. Not you:)
As you mention them, AOL's image problem is beyond fix. Even their CEO says something like that. I am afraid Yahoo gets same treatment while they do everything in favour of geeks and developers recently. They should fix it before it gets to AOL point.
I don't know too much about Windows (Vista) but on OS X, OS will use every kind of 3d acceleration available for Desktop/2D too. If you monitor the GPU and GPU RAM on OS X under normal (non gaming) use, you will see they are used almost in gaming levels.
I agree with the GPU upgrade but when I check the Desktop scene, it is not like you will breath new life to your 2-3 year old PC by a simple GPU upgrade too. They keep changing standards, mainboards and even RAM.
The actual SLI card power usage can come from Snow Leopard but sadly Apple is way too conservative when it comes to GPU. They couldn't call NVidia and ATI and ask why the hell they sell same chip for 2x price while they moved to x86 either.
Well, boot camp is there for gaming. Sad but true, it would be wise to spare a 10-20 GB space for gamers as Windows XP (or Vista, if it is fixed).
What lacks is the directx. A directx like thing. It already exists (SDL comes to mind) but it needs huge, corporate entity that game developers can call.
Sad thing for Toshiba is, Snow Leopard could use that massive GPU power for doing tough non gaming things thanks to OpenCL which comes with Snow Leopard. Just imagine you can do insanely faster than realtime h264 compression with your laptop thanks to idling GPU power.
I use Mac for years but if I am forced to buy a x86/Windows laptop, it would be either Toshiba or Lenovo (if they didn't kill IBM way of doing it).
Toshiba has something nobody else has. It does Laptop only and high quality laptops for personal purchase. IBM became Lenovo and if they didn't kill the culture, that would be my first choice for business laptop.
For harsh environments, choice is clear too. Panasonic Toughbook. Of course don't expect gaming performance from it.
I think it is number 1 reason that Adobe is a lazy fixing their crashers and performance problems in their plugins.
Why would they bother if plugin runs inside poor browser address space and poor browser gets the blame for "using too much CPU" or "RAM", crashing etc?
There is a nice touch in OS X Leopard crash reporter. It does a basic thread analysis and says stuff like "Safari has crashed. It seems Flash Plugin is responsible". It isn't always 100% accurate but it does wake up some average users who would directly blame browser.
Apple didn't support Mpeg-4 ASP, they jumped from mpeg-4 SP to h264 directly. So that is probably why your iPhone can display h264 but not mpeg-4 ASP. People think Apple does the best mpeg4/h264 apps on planet, it is not true. They support them, they help them take off but it doesn't mean Quicktime or devices based on it (iPhone) is some benchmark/test devices to help you choose what is obsolete or not.
There are major 2 profiles in mpeg-4 (except h264/part 10). One is SP and other is ASP. If you target Quicktime people or low speed CPU devices, you stay away from using ASP forcing features. If you target Sony PSP people or anyone with a decent smart phone, you use ASP features. On 3G, you better stay away from anything having "advanced" in its name:)
BTW mpeg4 isn't proprietary, it is open. It is just patented by lots and lots of vendors/organisations.
Flash is a single click install (if not already came with OS). Nothing adds to startup, not a single case of spyware, no OS performance loss and a comical disk space required. Lets not forget that it is true multiplatform. Even Symbian high end phones displays it.
I keep saying that is the key to success of FLV container.
No nags, no technical knowledge required, easy (runs!). The genius is in its simplicity.
For the quality of videos: Their source is junk, they are transcoded from already compressed source, settings are wrong, 2 pass is still not widely known etc. FLV is VP6 and h264, both cutting edge codecs without anything more advanced around.
I am not a Flash fan, I despise using FLV but... There is the reality. The least annoying company (Apple) still insists putting that damned qt_task to users taskbar, offering them a complete framework rather than plugin+playback, try to add iTunes to download by 1990s tricks... So you go and put FLV files to your page.
Nokia sells some insane amounts of devices and everything having colour screen and some sort of memory they ship can play mpeg4/3GP videos. Doesn't need to be smart or anything.
Nokia (and Apple,in similar fashion) says: " Dear open source people. If you put it to your open source product having 2000 downloaders which you already don't make any significant money from, patent trolls ignores you. If our companies as size of ours puts it to their shipping products, 2000 patent troll lawyers will go after us and will eventually find something."
Can you imagine Nokia losing a case against a patent troll with 200M (million!) S60 devices already shipped with that codec, on CHIP? Or imagine iPod in similar fashion.
Nokia said simply that being "patent free" doesn't really mean it will stay that way. It is what Apple says too. Well as you have noticed, nobody listens.
For example with Linux alternative they support, you can't watch those movies. They need DRM, complete pack of codecs to make it work.
If they provided Universal OS X binary along with Linux 32bit/64bit clean binaries, I would say "They have changed, they really want to be player in media scene". Lets not forget they need Symbian S60 official client too just like Flash Lite. Nokia announced support but it won't cut it, Nokia promises, announces everything in their recent (needless) iPhone panic mode.
They are racing with a company who produces things which open source, programmer prophets have no shame in using and openly saying they use.
You can do amazing things with Quicktime. Issue is, Apple doesn't show what you can do while running it themselves. Their feature usage in their own "Trailers" which is one of top sites for average users is plain pathetic. Poor thing became a "click on 10 mbit movie link to launch iTunes" site and the entire technology is used to pass link to iTunes.
I am all for competition to Flash too but competition came from the worst company possible. They have no clue how things are actually done, why they are in desperate need to make a "quicktime component" for exporting, why their "So they will run Parallels to produce stuff" idea is so flawed.
MS doesn't understand how media industry works. That is the root of problem. There is a reason why Adobe spares millions of hours and dollars to Mac OS X/ Universal development.
I better show what makes MS so afraid of flash. Stuff like this: http://g.ho.st/ and people choosing Linux based things like Eee PC because they will get same media experience thanks to Flash plugin. Their "Lets bribe that IT manager to choose Windows Media" plan is horribly broken. They try again with Silverlight and claim multiplatform just because a Intel Mac only plugin is there.
When MS says "soon" about a industry standard codec, you better take it as "MS soon".
MS is not trying to compete on Media delivery/playback business. Speaking as general , they are just seriously irritated by that kid opting in for Asus Eee PC running Linux "because it can play youtube too". Silverlight 2 exists for OS X, at least Intel? Where is Universal binary of Windows Media Player for OS X with current codecs and current DRM? That is a good benchmark to see the real MS intentions.
Also where is Quicktime Framework encoding codec pack of Silverlight? Where is.NET Framework for OS X which will plug into Xcode? Not that Mono thing. The true thing, just like MS Office for OS X.
There is Quicktime sitting there, supporting everything including DRM.
Of course, Apple/Adobe/Real won't bother bribing them with money or server stuff like MS does so the soon to be chapter 11 company chooses Silverlight.
If a company at this mobile/linux/symbian/os x/cars/planes/set top box crazy age chooses SilverLight for this particular purpose, I would question their financial stability and future.
The container and format has been already chosen. It is mp4/mpeg4 variants based on whatever platform/chip you are targeting. Vendor neutral standards won.It is only MS didn't get it. Even Real Networks understood it. (their new formats are based on mpeg4)
You can't change how things work. These are the same type of guys who didn't bother with multiplatform server/client structure which would allow them to stream even to iPhone today.
Some kind of "money under table" going on as usual. Do you think the old Windows Media only streamers/embedders used it because it was the best option available? Now Flash took over and Silverlight tries the same trick to gain ground. It has nothing to do with the technology, it has something to do with integrity of people choosing these technologies.
The issue with Silverlight is, it is not a true multiplatform thing, being x86 Mac only gives a very good clue about what it is.It comes from the very same company who doesn't say "NOT FOR INTEL MACS or ANYTHING HIGHER THAN 2003 OS X" in their "Windows Media Player for OS X" page resulting in huge amount of stability/performance loss. They still keep that damn thing available so unsuspecting Windows Switchers will download and rape their browsing and OS stability. If you have a buggy/outdated/not compiled for your CPU plugin on OS X, God help you since every single browser (even including Webkit framework using ordinary apps) will load it.
Do you see anything about being PPC only, not updated there? If I told you it sometimes makes to top 10 of Apple Downloads (since they submitted!), you can imagine the degree of situation.
I am running PowerPC and Silverlight 2 is not available to my CPU. If it was, I would seriously think twice about using/installing it.
Apple codes everything in Cocoa or Carbon. They also use their own OS X Wide Frameworks whenever they are available even installing them to "enemy" operating systems when there is a need. (watch Safari install/windows).
Their iTunes which saved them from death (along with OS X) relies on their own Quicktime Framework.
Their _Office Suite_ (iWork) is a pure Cocoa application. Finder becomes Cocoa in Snow Leopard.
So there are true frameworks which you can bet your life on (as company) and frameworks which are desperate attempts to stop time from ticking which leads to true ubiquitous computing which is naturally multiplatform. As long as MS sits there, doesn't code and ship that thing (.NET 3.5 SP1, CURRENT) on every single Desktop/Mobile platform out there, MS is not a company to trust your application framework. Mono, Stereo stuff coded by guys who gets paid by companies which got saved from Chapter 11 by MS doesn't count.
tags really suck and there should be option to disable them (again!) but if you browse this particular articles comments in -1 , you will see very insightful comments from actual people questioning the.NET and promises of MS modded down as flamebait or troll.
Now besides tag abuse, I wonder which mods are out there and what kind of connection they have with Microsoft or Novell?
For all these years I have heard how "huge" and "bulky" Java is and almost believed it. Now it is 11 MB download from Sun which even installs in ~10 min to a MS Virtual PC 7 running a virtual P3 800.
Start a timer and install.NET 3.5 SP1, check the disk usage of it and notice how its Vendor is such a liar about its space in their own add/remove programs (22 MB!) and the tricks they do to show it as installed while it is barely compiled (crss.exe). It is a 2 part install which second part is hidden from user, it "compiles" after first reboot as "idle" process. No need for "status" bar or anything of course.
All advanced programmers I know tries to be ready for true multiplatform future which is almost here and stays away from such single Vendor/OS technologies even including Apple stuff.
I don't say they all sit and code in Java or Perl, they just try to be multi platform friendly as far as possible. They don't buy Mono team promises either.
KDE 4 gives a good clue about future of computing. Of course, if you are Linux only guy, you will see it as a huge, bulky KDE. When you run it on Windows or OS X natively, you understand true value of it and true multiplatform frameworks like Qt.
Slashdot Mirror
Their install process on OS X (Google Desktop) has horrified people so much that there is article about it on Daring Fireball, Gruber's blog.
http://daringfireball.net/2007/04/google_desktop_installer , especially the part where it messes with /System (shouldn't even go there unless you code kernel extensions)
Their recent Chrome install process on Windows is also a horrible way of doing things,
http://robmensching.com/blog/archive/2008/09/04/Dissecting-the-Google-Chrome-setup.aspx
If you notice, they are all paranoia triggering, needless amateur things. Of course, they are all easily fixed, tracked since it is a full feature desktop OS you run. The real issue is, every bit of data on users smart phone is highly critical and personal. The companies in mobile business are more paranoid than you can ever want. I can easily tell, such a bug can't exist on a Symbian running Nokia. Of course, bugs exist but not that level.
They can't be like other software companies since other companies have very strict requirements, tests. It is only Apple and Google safe from any criticism thanks to their fans (!).
I have read the headline as "Android allows remote root access" and was like "Not a big surprise" immediately.
Ordinary people, not just techies got way paranoid about Google and such bugs only serves to validate them.
People modding you as troll should understand what Android is supposed to race with. Damn secure, stable, 200 million installed Symbian which is soon to be open source and Windows Mobile by the mafioso style company Microsoft which gets huge support from their Windows desktop dominance. Lets not forget actual J2ME which must be nearing a billion installed base too. People seems to forget that Google is the minority there, in smart phone business.
I still don't get why they didn't support Symbian foundation or Sun J2ME anyway.
I stared to a Asus Eee thing a while ago running Windows XP. Just the idea of running XP on that machine along with Antivirus, Firewall and only the software updates horrified me.
If the companies put XP as option to them, it is not like they are getting it free (or dirt cheap), it is because they are very afraid of Microsoft.
If you are World's one of the most respected mainboard manufacturers (Asus) and you started to gain ground with your Laptops, you don't want to make Microsoft mad. MS can provide a single buggy driver update and create chaos in your customerbase. All they need to say "oops" after it. Customers will blame YOU, not them.
I hoped Yahoo sued MS since things went real chaotic at Yahoo after the MS Offer (!). Even as Yahoo user, you can easily notice it. MS offer was like FreeBSD virus (OS Yahoo runs on), everything slowed down, stopped, ridiculously cancelled, changes without asking users etc. etc.
For example they were wise to put a very basic RSS reader (in Apple mail.app fashion) to their new Mail and they removed it without giving any valid reasons. That is just the latest event. There is also "Profiles upgrade" which people already labelled as "Facebook wannabe". They now say it was because of their "platform" idea but they don't get it, it is the USER who should decide things and can go away indefinitely.
This is a company who beta tested My Yahoo for almost a year, asking users for changes and even removed advertising based on user feedback. Somehow, things totally changed after MS offer.
I even suspect if MS bribes or promises stuff to some staff inside Yahoo.
Yahoo users were packing and leaving if MS deal was done. Obviously, they are the ones who REJECTED MS offers, even tied to Windows interface and have chosen Yahoo. MS could end up buying yahoo.com domain name while massive numbers of users have already moved to another platform/OS neutral provider named Google.
MS on the other hand does everything to prove they are the very same company who doesn't understand what "Web" is. Opera users are AGAIN reporting Hotmail "new version" major problems. Yes, that is right, the conspiracy which has been said to be very costly for MS is in action again. (search for Opera lawsuit MSN)
I understood Yahoo rejecting MS offer by very good reasons but I don't get how the heck Yang can make such mistake showing a true web/services giant as weak to general public. If he should be fired, he should be fired for that reason. On Web services for general public business, MS is a joke. Owner of Live.com that is. The provider which people (non techie) downloads Google Toolbar just not to use it.
My Yahoo (new version) is more like a web based full feature RSS reader now. So people having My.Yahoo as default start page aren't all exactly AOL etc. types.
A wing of Yahoo does perfect and future ready things even replying every single user flame on their blogs. Another wing, sadly, can't understand the need of IMAP in todays World, tries "Tower" ads in Yahoo mail, doesn't allow search.yahoo.com tab customisation, doesn't tie "Yahoo Widgets" prefs to user account and doesn't make that genius "Yahoo Go!" work on high end smart phones just because of a simple resolution setting.
I got like 5-6 tabs on My Yahoo and it is my start page since Yahoo invented it (about '98).
Yahoo has a serious image problem among slashdot geeks it seems. It is up to Yahoo and the companies, consultants they should hire to figure the base of the problem. What causes it? The valid reasons of course, not "yahoo.com being lame". Yes, it is lame since it targets the average web public. Not you :)
As you mention them, AOL's image problem is beyond fix. Even their CEO says something like that. I am afraid Yahoo gets same treatment while they do everything in favour of geeks and developers recently. They should fix it before it gets to AOL point.
I don't know too much about Windows (Vista) but on OS X, OS will use every kind of 3d acceleration available for Desktop/2D too. If you monitor the GPU and GPU RAM on OS X under normal (non gaming) use, you will see they are used almost in gaming levels.
I agree with the GPU upgrade but when I check the Desktop scene, it is not like you will breath new life to your 2-3 year old PC by a simple GPU upgrade too. They keep changing standards, mainboards and even RAM.
The actual SLI card power usage can come from Snow Leopard but sadly Apple is way too conservative when it comes to GPU. They couldn't call NVidia and ATI and ask why the hell they sell same chip for 2x price while they moved to x86 either.
Well, boot camp is there for gaming. Sad but true, it would be wise to spare a 10-20 GB space for gamers as Windows XP (or Vista, if it is fixed).
What lacks is the directx. A directx like thing. It already exists (SDL comes to mind) but it needs huge, corporate entity that game developers can call.
Sad thing for Toshiba is, Snow Leopard could use that massive GPU power for doing tough non gaming things thanks to OpenCL which comes with Snow Leopard. Just imagine you can do insanely faster than realtime h264 compression with your laptop thanks to idling GPU power.
I use Mac for years but if I am forced to buy a x86/Windows laptop, it would be either Toshiba or Lenovo (if they didn't kill IBM way of doing it).
Toshiba has something nobody else has. It does Laptop only and high quality laptops for personal purchase. IBM became Lenovo and if they didn't kill the culture, that would be my first choice for business laptop.
For harsh environments, choice is clear too. Panasonic Toughbook. Of course don't expect gaming performance from it.
Well XMMS does its job even on Leopard when installed by Fink. There is even a core-audio output plugin for it.
On OS X, if you have Fink (unstable) installed, you can install Amarok 1.x stable right now. It does a damn good job too.
Links:
http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/browse.php?summary=amarok
Only thing is, you will run it through X11. As Leopard's X11 issues are over with the recent updates, it is not a issue. No issues on Tiger too.
Of course, Amarok.app and the rest of KDE 4 running natively is a big deal.
The patent free status of Theora can change overnight if Apple gives native support to it.
On the other hand, Apple doesn't stop them or anyone to code a good quicktime component which will support both encoding and decoding.
It is already there: http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/
Quicktime framework and codec architecture are so powerful that MS relies them for WMV playback on entire OS X scene.
I think it is number 1 reason that Adobe is a lazy fixing their crashers and performance problems in their plugins.
Why would they bother if plugin runs inside poor browser address space and poor browser gets the blame for "using too much CPU" or "RAM", crashing etc?
There is a nice touch in OS X Leopard crash reporter. It does a basic thread analysis and says stuff like "Safari has crashed. It seems Flash Plugin is responsible". It isn't always 100% accurate but it does wake up some average users who would directly blame browser.
ASP is not obsolete in any kind of sense.
Apple didn't support Mpeg-4 ASP, they jumped from mpeg-4 SP to h264 directly. So that is probably why your iPhone can display h264 but not mpeg-4 ASP. People think Apple does the best mpeg4/h264 apps on planet, it is not true. They support them, they help them take off but it doesn't mean Quicktime or devices based on it (iPhone) is some benchmark/test devices to help you choose what is obsolete or not.
There are major 2 profiles in mpeg-4 (except h264/part 10). One is SP and other is ASP. If you target Quicktime people or low speed CPU devices, you stay away from using ASP forcing features. If you target Sony PSP people or anyone with a decent smart phone, you use ASP features. On 3G, you better stay away from anything having "advanced" in its name :)
BTW mpeg4 isn't proprietary, it is open. It is just patented by lots and lots of vendors/organisations.
Flash is a single click install (if not already came with OS). Nothing adds to startup, not a single case of spyware, no OS performance loss and a comical disk space required. Lets not forget that it is true multiplatform. Even Symbian high end phones displays it.
I keep saying that is the key to success of FLV container.
No nags, no technical knowledge required, easy (runs!). The genius is in its simplicity.
For the quality of videos: Their source is junk, they are transcoded from already compressed source, settings are wrong, 2 pass is still not widely known etc. FLV is VP6 and h264, both cutting edge codecs without anything more advanced around.
I am not a Flash fan, I despise using FLV but... There is the reality. The least annoying company (Apple) still insists putting that damned qt_task to users taskbar, offering them a complete framework rather than plugin+playback, try to add iTunes to download by 1990s tricks... So you go and put FLV files to your page.
Nokia sells some insane amounts of devices and everything having colour screen and some sort of memory they ship can play mpeg4/3GP videos. Doesn't need to be smart or anything.
Nokia (and Apple,in similar fashion) says: " Dear open source people. If you put it to your open source product having 2000 downloaders which you already don't make any significant money from, patent trolls ignores you. If our companies as size of ours puts it to their shipping products, 2000 patent troll lawyers will go after us and will eventually find something."
Can you imagine Nokia losing a case against a patent troll with 200M (million!) S60 devices already shipped with that codec, on CHIP? Or imagine iPod in similar fashion.
Nokia said simply that being "patent free" doesn't really mean it will stay that way. It is what Apple says too. Well as you have noticed, nobody listens.
For example with Linux alternative they support, you can't watch those movies. They need DRM, complete pack of codecs to make it work.
If they provided Universal OS X binary along with Linux 32bit/64bit clean binaries, I would say "They have changed, they really want to be player in media scene". Lets not forget they need Symbian S60 official client too just like Flash Lite. Nokia announced support but it won't cut it, Nokia promises, announces everything in their recent (needless) iPhone panic mode.
They are racing with a company who produces things which open source, programmer prophets have no shame in using and openly saying they use.
You can do amazing things with Quicktime. Issue is, Apple doesn't show what you can do while running it themselves. Their feature usage in their own "Trailers" which is one of top sites for average users is plain pathetic. Poor thing became a "click on 10 mbit movie link to launch iTunes" site and the entire technology is used to pass link to iTunes.
I am all for competition to Flash too but competition came from the worst company possible. They have no clue how things are actually done, why they are in desperate need to make a "quicktime component" for exporting, why their "So they will run Parallels to produce stuff" idea is so flawed.
MS doesn't understand how media industry works. That is the root of problem. There is a reason why Adobe spares millions of hours and dollars to Mac OS X/ Universal development.
I better show what makes MS so afraid of flash. Stuff like this: http://g.ho.st/ and people choosing Linux based things like Eee PC because they will get same media experience thanks to Flash plugin. Their "Lets bribe that IT manager to choose Windows Media" plan is horribly broken. They try again with Silverlight and claim multiplatform just because a Intel Mac only plugin is there.
When MS says "soon" about a industry standard codec, you better take it as "MS soon".
MS is not trying to compete on Media delivery/playback business. Speaking as general , they are just seriously irritated by that kid opting in for Asus Eee PC running Linux "because it can play youtube too". Silverlight 2 exists for OS X, at least Intel? Where is Universal binary of Windows Media Player for OS X with current codecs and current DRM? That is a good benchmark to see the real MS intentions.
Also where is Quicktime Framework encoding codec pack of Silverlight? Where is .NET Framework for OS X which will plug into Xcode? Not that Mono thing. The true thing, just like MS Office for OS X.
There is Quicktime sitting there, supporting everything including DRM.
Of course, Apple/Adobe/Real won't bother bribing them with money or server stuff like MS does so the soon to be chapter 11 company chooses Silverlight.
If a company at this mobile/linux/symbian/os x/cars/planes/set top box crazy age chooses SilverLight for this particular purpose, I would question their financial stability and future.
The container and format has been already chosen. It is mp4/mpeg4 variants based on whatever platform/chip you are targeting. Vendor neutral standards won.It is only MS didn't get it. Even Real Networks understood it. (their new formats are based on mpeg4)
You can't change how things work. These are the same type of guys who didn't bother with multiplatform server/client structure which would allow them to stream even to iPhone today.
Stuff like these: http://www.realnetworks.com/products/media_delivery.html
Some kind of "money under table" going on as usual. Do you think the old Windows Media only streamers/embedders used it because it was the best option available? Now Flash took over and Silverlight tries the same trick to gain ground. It has nothing to do with the technology, it has something to do with integrity of people choosing these technologies.
The issue with Silverlight is, it is not a true multiplatform thing, being x86 Mac only gives a very good clue about what it is.It comes from the very same company who doesn't say "NOT FOR INTEL MACS or ANYTHING HIGHER THAN 2003 OS X" in their "Windows Media Player for OS X" page resulting in huge amount of stability/performance loss. They still keep that damn thing available so unsuspecting Windows Switchers will download and rape their browsing and OS stability. If you have a buggy/outdated/not compiled for your CPU plugin on OS X, God help you since every single browser (even including Webkit framework using ordinary apps) will load it.
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx?pid=Mactopia_WMP&fid=1E974157-5031-4AC6-840A-6E07547B6AEB#viewer
Do you see anything about being PPC only, not updated there? If I told you it sometimes makes to top 10 of Apple Downloads (since they submitted!), you can imagine the degree of situation.
I am running PowerPC and Silverlight 2 is not available to my CPU. If it was, I would seriously think twice about using/installing it.
Apple codes everything in Cocoa or Carbon. They also use their own OS X Wide Frameworks whenever they are available even installing them to "enemy" operating systems when there is a need. (watch Safari install/windows).
Their iTunes which saved them from death (along with OS X) relies on their own Quicktime Framework.
Their _Office Suite_ (iWork) is a pure Cocoa application. Finder becomes Cocoa in Snow Leopard.
So there are true frameworks which you can bet your life on (as company) and frameworks which are desperate attempts to stop time from ticking which leads to true ubiquitous computing which is naturally multiplatform. As long as MS sits there, doesn't code and ship that thing (.NET 3.5 SP1, CURRENT) on every single Desktop/Mobile platform out there, MS is not a company to trust your application framework. Mono, Stereo stuff coded by guys who gets paid by companies which got saved from Chapter 11 by MS doesn't count.
tags really suck and there should be option to disable them (again!) but if you browse this particular articles comments in -1 , you will see very insightful comments from actual people questioning the .NET and promises of MS modded down as flamebait or troll.
Now besides tag abuse, I wonder which mods are out there and what kind of connection they have with Microsoft or Novell?
For all these years I have heard how "huge" and "bulky" Java is and almost believed it. Now it is 11 MB download from Sun which even installs in ~10 min to a MS Virtual PC 7 running a virtual P3 800.
Start a timer and install .NET 3.5 SP1, check the disk usage of it and notice how its Vendor is such a liar about its space in their own add/remove programs (22 MB!) and the tricks they do to show it as installed while it is barely compiled (crss.exe). It is a 2 part install which second part is hidden from user, it "compiles" after first reboot as "idle" process. No need for "status" bar or anything of course.
Speaking of double standards...
All advanced programmers I know tries to be ready for true multiplatform future which is almost here and stays away from such single Vendor/OS technologies even including Apple stuff.
I don't say they all sit and code in Java or Perl, they just try to be multi platform friendly as far as possible. They don't buy Mono team promises either.
KDE 4 gives a good clue about future of computing. Of course, if you are Linux only guy, you will see it as a huge, bulky KDE. When you run it on Windows or OS X natively, you understand true value of it and true multiplatform frameworks like Qt.