This weekend, we learned that Apple’s upcoming Snow Leopard operating system would have a minimal user interface for the QuickTime movie player. Thanks to AppleInsider, we now have more information on the new interface, and it seems like Apple is again – just as with the Safari 4 beta – using some radical interface ideas.
Basically, the QuickTime player has no more window. There are no borders, no permanent controls, not even a titlebar. When QuickTime is running in a non-maximised state, all you see is the content of the video, without borders, titlebars, and controls. When you mouse-over, the UI widgets appear, similar to the current full-screen interface. The titlebar will also appear on mouse-over – it’s a transparent overlay.
In other words, Apple is kicking titlebars to the curb. The Safari 4 beta already did away with the titlebar, or, at least, combined the titlebar with the tab bar, which received lots of criticism by even the staunchest of Apple supporters, such as John Gruber. Removing the window frame and titlebar from QuickTime will probably lead to more raised eyebrows.
It looks like NicePlayer at first glance.
Some people will hate overlays with a passion. I am sure
They are based on what AppleInsider learned about Quicktime X – not exactly what I would call an accurate source of information.
This would raise Tog’s hackles for sure, but imagine the additional screen real estate if you were to apply this to most applications that show loads and loads of widgets that, for the most part, you never use. With increasing flexibility among users and better hardware interfaces, old axioms may no longer hold.
I like the move to less UI. Sometimes I think this move is a natural progression away from the traditional windowed components. People recognize a rectangle sitting on a desktop with animation as a movie. Title bars and controls just make my view smaller on my eeepc. Controls are not needed unless you have to browse, skip, etc. Possibly the Netbook onslaught is also having a motivational effect where screen realestate is in short supply. In the same way I usually run Firefox without a statusbar or menubar using the Tiny Menu add-on. The UI parts take up too much space. On a 10 inch screen 1/2 an inch is too much space to waste.
Edited 2009-03-09 22:30 UTC
True, but most video players do offer a fullscreen mode – and that typically hides any UI elements.
With things getting smaller like netbooks, it makes sense to start ditching unnecessary parts of the window.
You say Radical Designs like you despise Apple for everything, even when they make changes.
It’s called Progression. Whether it’s for the best or worst I’m sure we’ll find out, but this one looks fine.
[/q]You say Radical Designs like you despise Apple for everything, even when they make changes.[q]
The term “radical” doesn’t inherently imply any sort of value judgment.
Am I the only one who remembers using almost the same thing on the Windows 7 Beta like two months ago?
I’m sure I’ll get ripped for the comment title, though.
Yeah that’s why I just smiled as I read the osnews submission “When you mouse-over, the UI widgets appear, similar to the current full-screen interface.”
I think the new interface will be good. It should just give people the option of loading the old.
I would think this is just a new player just using the quicktime framework, and the old executable is still present just not executing.
Sort of like how nero burning rom interface was replaced with nero express, yet still exists if you wish to launch it.
It’s also the same thing as in iTunes’ separated video window since version 7 which was released late 2006.
QuickTime also behave the same way at full screen mode.
So they just make it the default UI, I welcome this move.
Suddenly Windows 7’s media player sounds not so original again, huh?
Efficient? That’s one word I would never use to describe Quicktime, or at least the current version.
Anyway, if they can make it not suck so much ass, perhaps people will stop going out of their way in order to avoid installing it in the first place:
http://www.osnews.com/thread?352173
I personally don’t like how it puts itself in the system tray, and then puts itself back after I delete it with Startup Control Panel, and then trying to do a piggyback install of Safari whenever it runs the update app. And why the hell does it need an update app to begin with? That’s on a level of suckage with Adobe, which is pretty pathetic to say the least. Why can’t it be like Firefox, and just occassionally check for updates while it’s running?
Edited 2009-03-09 23:43 UTC
Windows version. It sucks, we all know.
The Mac version is an entirely different beast, personally preferable to everything else for me. Honestly, it’s night and day.
I agree here. It’s actually rather amazing, how much the Windows version sucks and how nice the Mac version of qt is, it’s just like iTunes: I really like the Mac version, while I find the Windows version to be horribly slow and bloated.
I’ve yet to see a lot of support for common and modern file types in qt though, especially where open source file formats and containers are concerned: no ogg, flac, matroska, speex, etc. And then there’s the lack of support for other common codecs (DivX and the like). All of these can be fixed with plugins, but honestly, they can and should do better with codec and format support. At the very least, include the open source formats, it’s not like it would hurt them to do so especially seeing as how there are already plugins that prove it’s easily possible. As much as I like the Mac version of Quicktime, supported codecs and file formats is not one of its strong points.
Just install QuickTime Alternative (the codecs, plus some alternative media players such as Media Player Classic) or QTLite (the same, but no players) and be done with it. I never did like QuickTime, especially thanks to all the crapware it installs with it (why the hell does freaking *media player*, of all things, need a startup service/system tray icon?), but unfortunately the .mov format it pretty often used to the point that it can’t really be ignored.
I recall buying an older version, several years ago (version 4 or 5 something)… just to get fullscreen mode! If that wasn’t enough, the next version came out, and I would have been forced to shell out more money for their player just to upgrade. Never sent another penny their way since, and these days I try to avoid the format as much as possible.
The Combined Community Codec Pack and QT Alternative/Lite were always two of the very first things to install on a new Windows installation.
i’m fairly sure they’re referring to the entire quicktime framework… not just the player. quicktime, as a multimedia framework, (at least on a mac) is fairly decent and extensible. native codec support is, notably, pretty bleh. but, with addons like perian, that is pretty easily remedied.
that being said, the player application is pretty lame, considering the alternatives.
Apple should just buy the rights to Plan 9 OS and build OS X 11.x from that.
They could start a series of named after rabbits. Like “Snow Hare”.
So, just like mplayer does since the dawn of times?
quicktime has always been and still is the best multimedia framework. that’s why it has been adopted by all professional media apps and why its file format was chosen for .mp4 and why microsoft hasn’t been able to kill it of in all the years, despite all its efforts:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/5F0C866C-6DDF-4A9A-…
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/8AA115DC-2398-456E-…
(yes i know, his articles aren’t balanced at all but it seems like he got the facts right here and they aren’t about crazy predictions of apples coming world domination)
still, there i no reason to use the rather basic quicktime player if you don’t like it.
… Rocky Mountain.
The current QT UI uses the sliders in the player progress bar for marking in and out points for trimming, cut and paste, etc. It has drop downs for alternate tracks and chapters too. This UI mockup doesn’t reflect those things (which are necessary).
Also I don’t get why people bash the QT player. It’s a resource hog on Windows, perhaps, but it is a port form another environment and there’s a whole abstraction layer for the APIs to add to deal with the non-native environment (and lots of static linkage). That’s to be expected.
QuickTime, the container format, not the player, really is the best thing out there. It’s well-documented, has very good support for multiple tracks, embedded alternate bitrate streams, sprite and close-captioning tracks, non-linear flow, etc. It’s really very elegant.
Well, except for the chapter marks. Wasn’t that a hack originally used by Nero and adopted by Apple into their mov container, or am I mistaken?
You’ve assumed too much knowledge by the general community here concerning QuickTime Pro and the power of QuickTime.
Personally I don’t like the idea. Overlays bother me when watching full screen video, popping up over what I’m watching and no going away promptly when I’m done with them. I have no better solution for full screen, so my complaint is not with that, but with bringing that behavior to windowed video watching.
Why bring up controls over the video when you don’t have to? Almost by definition you have room around the edge of the video, since you are playing it in windowed mode. So I’d much prefer to have the controls stay around the edge, not in the way of the video, but maybe blocking some of the stuff in the background – which is fine by me because I’m watching a video. I also hate not knowing where a control is until the mouse is somewhat near it. It delays aiming (which is why I never autohide the taskbar or dock). So you’re stuck with delaying your clicking, or having it constantly in front of your video, instead of underneath it.
Now, in the case of devices with very limited screen space, this could make some sense. Better to guarantee the controls are available than off the screen on a particularly large video. But I’m just not seeing it for a desktop or regular laptop.