Potentially very big, very good news for QuickTime:
“America Online Inc. Tuesday made its AOL 9.0 client available to beta testers,” reports eWeek.
“Several long-rumored changes such as a switch from Microsoft Internet Explorer to AOL Time Warner’s own Netscape browser are not included in the current beta release. However, one notable change was the inclusion of Apple Computer’s QuickTime media player in lieu of RealNetworks’ RealOne player, which had been the technology powering AOL’s media player.”
America Online did not respond to requests for comment.
[UPDATE: eWeek has updated thier original article with the following, “However, one notable change was the inclusion of Apple Computer’s QuickTime media player in addition to RealNetworks’ RealPlayer software. QuickTime’s AAC audio codec is being used to power AOL Radio, while AOL’s video offerings continue to be encoded in RealNetworks format.”]
Full article here.
THE SUMMER IF MAC IS HERE & THIS IS JUST ICING ON THE CAKE.
I totally agree. First ITMS and new iPods and then this. Good going Apple!
This is the first potential step towards getting iTMS to be part of AOL.
On the other hand, Real Player is complete garbage, so I’m surprised it took this long for some kind of switch.
Sadly, Amazon has cosen to use Windows Media 9 for its streaming purposes.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nf/20030522/bs_nf/21574
(It’s all about licensing fees. MS undercut the competition yet again.)
Phew, finally…thank God that Apple didn’t scratch Quicktime when M$ wanted them too. Quicktime is VASTLY superior to anything out there. It just blows my mind how much better it is.
They’ve updated the story — now RealPlayer is back. QuickTime is only there for AAC audio. Boo.
Doesn’t matter a scrap of difference for Mac users in Australia, AOL is only avail for Windows….. Ahhh well, I’ll have to go for another ISP.
damn. well, at least now I can keep loathing AOL
Oy vey, I have to say, it’s the simplicity of the program that’s amazing. RealPlayer when you launch that thing there is just a bunch of crap that shows up that is totally unnecessary.
Either way, they haven’t given me much of a reason to use it. I have it, but that’s only because certain programs require it. I wish people would start going less mainstream.