Microsoft ends development of Windows Media Player for Mac
Following a stream of unconfirmed reports on the Internet, Microsoft on Thursday said it has officially halted development of its Windows Media Player for the Mac and plans no future Mac versions of the audio and video playback software.
"We have no plans to provide future updates or product support for Windows Media Player for Mac," Adam Anderson, Microsoft public relations manager, told CNet News.com.
Anderson told the publication the decision to halt work on Windows Media Player for the Mac was a matter of prioritizing for Microsoft's Windows Media Unit.
"It's basically a business decision for Microsoft," he said. "Like any other company, we have business priorities. Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers."
Microsoft will continue to offer for download the current Mac OS X version, Windows Media Player 9, which was last updated in November 2003, as well as an even older version for Mac OS 9.
In place of a new version, the software-maker is offering for free a Flip4Mac plug-in that will allow Mac OS X users to play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) from within Apple's QuickTime Player software.
The move comes just as Microsoft renewed its commitment to the Mac, agreeing to deliver new versions of Office for Mac for the next five years.
Last month Microsoft also announced that it had officially canned development of a new version of Internet Explorer for the Mac. There's no word on the company's plans for its other core Mac product, Virtual PC.
"We have no plans to provide future updates or product support for Windows Media Player for Mac," Adam Anderson, Microsoft public relations manager, told CNet News.com.
Anderson told the publication the decision to halt work on Windows Media Player for the Mac was a matter of prioritizing for Microsoft's Windows Media Unit.
"It's basically a business decision for Microsoft," he said. "Like any other company, we have business priorities. Our focus really is in delivering the best experience to Windows customers."
Microsoft will continue to offer for download the current Mac OS X version, Windows Media Player 9, which was last updated in November 2003, as well as an even older version for Mac OS 9.
In place of a new version, the software-maker is offering for free a Flip4Mac plug-in that will allow Mac OS X users to play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) from within Apple's QuickTime Player software.
The move comes just as Microsoft renewed its commitment to the Mac, agreeing to deliver new versions of Office for Mac for the next five years.
Last month Microsoft also announced that it had officially canned development of a new version of Internet Explorer for the Mac. There's no word on the company's plans for its other core Mac product, Virtual PC.
Comments
I mean if they offer a plugin to play .wma and .wmv files in Quicktime, that means one less app to install and to run, and I'm pretty sure most Mac users only installed WMP to be able to play wma and wmv files anyway.
Flip4mac is great.
MS has now officially dropped WMP support (even though it has given the Flip4Mac developers the green light on 'official' support) saying they'd rather focus on Windows.
To me this sounds like MS doesn't care at all about Mac users and wouldn't think twice about dropping *any* of their products if an equal or better solution were to come from a 3rd party developer.
And because this is their mentality, I encourage everyone to start (politely) asking sites that still use WMP to think of a more cross-platform solution such as H.264.
The thing that always bugged me about WMP was the fact you could not see the video when scrolling the video slider. When you do it the video freezes or goes black until you let go of the slider and the video startes again. Not sure if it works on a PC that way but compair to quicktime it suck when you trying to search a video selection to find what you are looking for. Image your VCR or DVD player froze or blacked out the video when you did or forward or backward search and you had to guess when to stop.
The other thing I never understood is that form time to time I would get .wmv files that WMP would say that it does not recongnize the file format. Verse on quicktime I never had .mov or .mpg that would never place. Grant it I always run into .avi files that do not always work correctly in quicktime but again those we made on PC.
I tell you the PC world can not seem to make up its mind what compression standard or codecs to use. And they wonder why PC people are frustrated.
Originally posted by Maestro64
I tell you the PC world can not seem to make up its mind what compression standard or codecs to use. And they wonder why PC people are frustrated.
Its not even that, in regards to cross-platform-friendly videos it comes down to what codecs NOT to use. Adding MPlayer and/or VLC to a Mac (and old WMP) and there was only a handful of codecs we couldn't play. But those handful tended to be popular.
Originally posted by xlsupreme
I bought Flip4Mac a while ago, and it really works great. There were only ever a few files I ran into that didn't work so well. Everything else, it played as well as if not better than WMP. PLus, you could actually control them. I never was able to use the forward/reverse buttons in media player or jump ahead with the timeline thing.
Flip4mac is great.
Being able to control the video was the main reason why I went looking for a file converter and found Flip4Mac. I paid for the 'Pro' version so I could convert the files to a QuickTime format.
WMP on the Mac never supported their 'Plays for Sure' DRM and wouldn't play some of the WMP10 formats. Flip4Mac has the same problem there.
Without it, it means online DRMd music and video stores won't be able to offer cross platform DRMd goods. Now would be the time for Apple to open things up a bit with FairPlay as they've the only cross platform DRM.
Originally posted by spylaw4
I"m happy with the plug-in thingie, but more concerned about the IE matter. There are still far too many websites that will ONLY accept IE and not Safari. But I suppose that as long as we still have an older creaky version that will do?
I've not come across an IE only site in quite some time and when I did, most of them could be forced to load with Safari by changing the User Agent from the Safari Debug menu.
Originally posted by spylaw4
I"m happy with the plug-in thingie, but more concerned about the IE matter. There are still far too many websites that will ONLY accept IE and not Safari. But I suppose that as long as we still have an older creaky version that will do?
IE for mac is grossly outdated! It's the worst browser ever made. IE for PC is the same way. Speaking as a web developer, IE is horrible. You have to have special exceptions in your markup for IE browsers because Microsoft doesn't want to do things the way everybody else does them. And they think because IE has 80% of the market they can! THEY ARE EVIL!!
I've never run across a site that required me to use IE, but that's just me.
Also, the link to the Flip4Mac plugin is broken.
Don't know if Microsoft will stop messenger and encourage ppl to use Adiumx or any other sorta alternatives. Or messenger will become paid (integrated into office) app?
Originally posted by Booga
It's nice to see Microsoft ceeding defeat in multimedia format and DRM to Apple in this arena. Another nail in WMP and AV1's coffin.
Do you mean AVI's?
I think compared to mpeg-4 AVI seems to be better. I prefer h.264 over AVI of course, but I think AVI still has some life in it.
it was a good alternative when i couldn't use quicktime.
the only other choice is fucking realplayer.
christ sakes.
we do need microsofts support here