QuickTime Incompatible With IE 6
Microsoft released its newest browser for Windows last week--and in doing so, it dealt a blow to Apple’s QuickTime, to thousands of Web site developers and to its own customers. Microsoft changed the way the new Internet Explorer 6 handles multimedia technologies such as QuickTime.
As a result, Web pages containing QuickTime movies might not display properly when viewed using the new browser. To fix the problem, Web developers must adapt their pages and Windows users will have to download an updated version of QuickTime.
Was Microsoft out to undermine a competing media technology? Maybe, but Apple is partly to blame for the problem. In any case, the latest development does nothing to help QuickTime--which is popular on Windows but not as widely used as Microsoft’s and RealNetworks’ media technologies.
To understand the problem, it helps to know how Windows browsers handle anything other than text and graphics--including multimedia such as movies. To display this content, a browser uses small software add-ons, called plug-ins, that extend the browser’s capabilities. There are two plug-in formats: the Netscape format and Microsoft’s own format, called ActiveX.
Internet Explorer for Windows has long supported both formats, but for the new IE 6, Microsoft dropped support for the Netscape plug-in format. As a result, Windows users who upgrade to IE 6 won’t be able to access content that requires a Netscape plug-in. This problem also will affect users of the forthcoming Windows XP, which will include IE 6. Microsoft representatives declined to say why IE 6 no longer supports the Netscape format.
So why is Apple partly to blame?
Because it could have delivered an ActiveX version of the QuickTime plug-in long ago but instead continued to use the Netscape format for the Windows version of QuickTime. Other major Web media technologies--including RealNetworks’ RealSystem and Macromedia’s Flash--have supported the ActiveX format for some time now.
But Apple apparently assumed that Internet Explorer would always support the Netscape plug-in format and thus left QuickTime for Windows vulnerable to Microsoft’s whims--not a good position. Apple already has released an ActiveX plug-in for the Windows version of QuickTime, but this only partially addresses the problem.
Web developers must now update every Web page that contains QuickTime movies to ensure that the movies display properly. Apple has fixed its QuickTime site, but many high-profile sites were slower.
If you’re a Mac user who doesn’t publish QuickTime movies on the Web, all of this is irrelevant to you. But if you are publishing QuickTime content, sprint to Apple’s QuickTime Web site (https://www.apple.com/quicktime) and click the Developer button to learn how to adapt your pages. It isn’t hard, but it can be time-consuming: You’ll need to add a snippet of code to every page containing a QuickTime movie.
The IE 6 plug-in problem is a pain for Apple and for Web publishers, but it’s also a hassle for IE 6 users. Thousands of older Web pages containing QuickTime movies are unlikely to be updated, and when Windows users go to those pages, they could see a blank box where a movie should be. Some of them might blame QuickTime, but many will blame Windows.
Mac users need not be jealous of Internet Explorer 6. The new Windows browser is a bit spiffier-looking than its predecessor, provides improved privacy-oriented features and adds specialized toolbars for working with images and streaming media (in Windows Media format, of course). But it falls short of its Mac cousin. For example, its print-preview function is vastly inferior, and it lacks the Scrapbook, where you can save Web pages for later viewing. Mac users still have the best browser on the block--and it still supports Netscape plug-ins.
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Jim Heid is a contributing editor of Macworld magazine.
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