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by HorizonXP 5106 days ago
So to view these videos, I need to be running Safari for the streaming version, or have iTunes installed to download the videos?

Can someone explain what's the benefit of doing it that way? I'm on Windows (Ubuntu also, in a VM) running Chrome. Sure, I could install Safari or iTunes, but why do I have to? (And don't say "So you can watch the videos.")
2 comments
hboon 5106 days ago
Chances are, most developers they are targeting are on Macs, so they made it easy for them.
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Maascamp 5106 days ago
On the other hand, chances are that most of those developers still aren't running Safari.
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hboon 5106 days ago
Me neither. I use iTunes to download and watch them and only launched to Safari to verify that it works there.

I already know what I want to watch so iTunes is good enough. But maybe it's just me.

But happy watching. It's a great resource, every year.

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HorizonXP 5106 days ago
Oh I figured as much, and it does make sense. But I'm unclear as to what types of streaming video Safari supports that Chrome doesn't.
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derefr 5106 days ago
It's not specifically Safari; it's the Quicktime codec library which is bundled with Safari (and iTunes). You can just download Quicktime standalone and anything NPAPI-supporting will gain the ability to play the videos.
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HorizonXP 5106 days ago
That would make sense, except that I have Quicktime installed, and it works fine on Apple's movie trailers site.

It's fine, I'm barking up the wrong tree here TBH. Apple makes it clear that they want you to use their products to view this developer stuff. It's the same type of lock-in that others try to do, so they're not the only guilty party. Just unfortunate when companies do that.

I'll go and install iTunes.

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hboon 5106 days ago
+1 and thanks for all the positive-toned posts and comments you have added recently (I didn't look beyond the first page). This seems to be lacking among us nowadays.
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batista 5105 days ago
>It's fine, I'm barking up the wrong tree here TBH. Apple makes it clear that they want you to use their products to view this developer stuff.

It's also probably more convenient to them: they have this huge system for content delivery through iTunes, so they might as well use it.

That said, from a promotional aspect, it would make more sense to have the videos readily available for Windows/Linux users also, so they can lust over the development options for Cocoa/iOS.

It's not like they wont have to buy a Mac to program for it anyway, so it would do Apple no harm to lure them with openly available videos.

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batista 5105 days ago
>Can someone explain what's the benefit of doing it that way?

Keeping out the riff raff? Those videos are targeted at Mac developers, not people having issues with Safari and/or iTunes.

>I'm on Windows (Ubuntu also, in a VM) running Chrome. Sure, I could install Safari or iTunes, but why do I have to?

Just because those are the prerequisites Apple made for watching them.

That said, I think you can also watch them without Safari for streaming (you just need Quicktime IIRC), but downloading them needs iTunes.

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