WILL APPLE BE ABLE TO WRITE DECENT X86 SOFTWARE?

[Santilli]

Well, after spending about 4 hours playing with trailers, Slowtime, and sucktunes, I really hope they get it right when they go x86.

I must say, that with all the software I've used, x86, other then stuff that just doesn't work, Applecrap is the WORST I've ever used. It fails to do what it's supposed to do, sucks HUGE resources, and, pretty much brings this workstation to a freeze, thanks to the WORST software I've ever used.

My New Years Resolution is boycotting apple, and, having my SO send that POS nanothing back to apple.

Screwem, and, HFNY.

GS

 

[Handruin]

My impression (nothing formal) is that software written for OS X is better than the equivalent software written for windows. I'm not exactly sure it has much to do with x86 vs. power pc. Again, just my impression.

 

[Tannin]

One always winds up with the sense that Apple can't make up their minds: when writing for the Windows platform, are they trying to create something really good that works as well as possible, or are they trying to show that, despite their marvelous software skills, even Apple can't make a Windows app that runs the way a real (i.e., Mac-based) program runs?

I'm quite serious about this. It sounds whimsical, but seeing is believing. Time after time, year after year, Apple's Windows platform software looks fashionable and oh-so-smooth, promises much, and comprehensively fails to deliver the goods. WTF? There are plenty of tiny companies that turn out brilliant Windows platform software - one-man shows, some of them - so we know it's not impossible, nor something that requires vast amounts of manpower.

Why can't Apple ever get it right? Me, I think its for the exact same reason I couldn't ever learn the piano when I was a kid: nothing to do with lack of musical talent (I picked up a different instrument some years later and soon became reasonably competent at it), it was because I was forced to have the lessons and didn't actually want to learn the piano. Same deal: the company isn't serious about writing for Windows, and secretly, even unconsciously, wants to fail.

Scumbags. If they can't do it right, they shouldn't do it at all.

 

[Santilli]

I just spent a couple hours trying to figure out why Quicktime won't play HD stuff on my SO's Athlon 3000+.

It will, it just takes so long, it's insufferable, downloading from Apple's website. Strike one.

Apple seems to take great joy in not enabling ways to resize windows, and, the way they have historically stored files in windows,well, it's what kept me from using Appleworks for Windows, tried two versions or three, in our home office.

Anyway, I hope they have a New Year's reso to write decent windows software.
Seems like if you want to watch a movie trailer, you need Q...time.

S

 

[CougTek]

I use quicktime alternative 1.67 to see movie trailers from Apple's web site and I have no problem. I can see HD 720p versions on my puny P4 2.66GHz. 1080p are too demanding though.

 

[Santilli]

I use quicktime alternative 1.67 to see movie trailers from Apple's web site and I have no problem. I can see HD 720p versions on my puny P4 2.66GHz. 1080p are too demanding though.

WHAT is QT alternative?

s

 

[mubs]

Quicktime & Real alternative players

 

[Santilli]

Quicktime & Real alternative players

MUCH BETTER!!! THANK YOU!!!

GS

 

[Platform]

One always winds up with the sense that Apple can't make up their minds: when writing for the Windows platform, are they trying to create something really good that works as well as possible, or are they trying to show that, despite their marvelous software skills, even Apple can't make a Windows app that runs the way a real (i.e., Mac-based) program runs?

More often than not, Apple tends to port their Macintosh code (programs) to Windows. The only problem is that the ports generally aren't so great, neither are their sucky-ass Windows runtime libraries.

So, Apple tends to spend time tweaking ported code that was written on a Mac as opposed to writing Windows code in a Windows environment (i.e. -- using a Microsoft compiler) that does the same thing. Some programs are written in C++, some are/were written in CodeWarrior or Objective-C. Some of the object code is certainly portable, but when they do ignorant shit like cross-compiling (compile Windows binaries on a Mac), they tend to end up with poorly optimised Windows compiles resulting in programs that seem to run like they were written in interpreted BASIC.

However, every once in a while they will do things the right way, which is to hire programmers to write Windows code as they have with *modern* versions of QuickTime. Still, they obviously still are up to a bit of wasting time reinventing the wheel. Look no farther than the OSX-like windowing look when you show a QuickTime video in QuickTime 6 or 7. That's because Apple spent time and effort on writing windowing libraries instead of using the built-in MS windowing libraries like everyone else does (i.e. -- the windowing look and feel).

My impression (nothing formal) is that software written for OS X is better than the equivalent software written for windows. I'm not exactly sure it has much to do with x86 vs. power pc. Again, just my impression.

The PPC RISC architecture has a lot more general purpose registers to work with than the puny number of registers that the X86 has. However, the modern X86 processor architecture has refined MMX and SSE registers and dedicated MMX and SSE instructions to deal with video and audio signal processing.



PS: You can download and install QuickTime 7 all by itself -- WITHOUT the friggin' iTunes crapola. I have QuickTime 7.0.3 installed.

 

[MaxBurn]

PS: You can download and install QuickTime 7 all by itself -- WITHOUT the friggin' iTunes crapola. I have QuickTime 7.0.3 installed.

Linkage:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone.html

This is what I use. Search standalone.