Apple

1. Quicktime doesn’t ask whether you actually want to install the browser plugin when you install the QT player 2. You HAVE to install Quicktime if you want to use iTunes 3. You (sort of) HAVE to install iTunes if you want to use an iPod (although I strongly recommend people consider Winamp, which has native support now, or the excellent ml_ipod plugin for Winamp) 4. Quicktime’s browser plugin commandeers associations with a whole range of media types whether you want it to or not 5.

QT doesn’t give you the option of launching QT in a totally separate window - it automatically opens things embedded in the browser and starts playing them 6. QT seems to totally screw the ability to get Firefox to go back to launching media files with the good old “Open with…” dialog box, which lets you decide whether to open it, what to open it with, or whether to save it to disk 7.

QT has absolutely no regard for what other media players and file association you might already have configured for your browser and I guess we can add 8, although it was already implied 8. QT is a buggy p.o.s. with worse functionality and security than any half-decent media player including VLC, Winamp, and (in my humble opinion) even the dreaded WMP.

All of this reflects Apple’s horrible attitude to developing software for the PC, which is essentially that they will utterly ignore the now well-established conventions of the platform in terms of installation behaviour, GUI and menu structure, and plugin behaviour and just run roughshod over the whole thing. Which would probably be more acceptable if their software JUST WORKED and was as fully featured as other options on the PC - but unfortunately that is not the case.