Sounds like some developers’ phones started ringing on Tuesday night. Not because of iTunes 7, but because of QuickTime 7.1.3 and some surprise breakage.
QuickTime has long supported Flash as a media type inside of QuickTime movies, equivalent to video, audio, text, sprites, etc. Some people create QuickTime movies with embedded Flash animations, others use Flash to provide interactivity to QuickTime movies (since Flash has rich support for interactivity and the state of a Flash track’s variables can be accessed by host applications). Only downside is that QuickTime’s support has generally been at least one version behind, so it’s possible to find Flash content in the wild that QuickTime will try, but fail, to play.
So, QuickTime 7.1.3… you know, the one you hastily downloaded so you could watch The Incredibles at the iTunes store… disables Flash support within QuickTime by default. A terse statement from Apple says:
The version of Flash that ships in QuickTime is older than the version available from Adobe and used in Safari, therefore, while we still ship Flash with QuickTime, it is turned off by default.
This was a pretty unpleasant surprise to developers whose applications or sites depend on the QuickTime/Flash integration. On quicktime-api, Henry Martin writes:
We are writing an application which produces QuickTime movies with embedded Flash animations. They must play properly for anyone with QuickTime installed. If I understand correctly, QuickTime 7.1.3 will not allow this behavior unless the user modifies their preference settings.
Meanwhile, Michael Diehr speculates as to the bigger picture.
I think at this point, it is incumbent on Apple to give us a straight answer about what is going on with Flash under QuickTime. For several years there were constant (slow) updates — QT 5 supported Flash 4, QT 6 supported flash 5, etc. For several years now it’s been stuck. And now this. One could speculate that Apple has decided to drop Flash support under QuickTime altogether.
Scott Kevill of GameRanger Technologies is plain ol’ ticked off:
Whose brilliant idea was this? And why wasn’t there any advance notice for this arbitrary decision?
My product must play pre-supplied Flash 5 movie files with QuickTime, and the QT 7.1.3 update just broke that.
How do I override this for my application only (or globally)? Telling my users to enable Flash manually is NOT an acceptable option.
And on quicktime-users, Milton Aupperle thinks it’s the end:
On “other’” QT lists, Apple is saying nothing about it, so it’s a pretty safe assumption they don’t really care what any Developer thinks. My guess is they want out of supporting the interactive market and have decided this is the best way to get everyone to switch to Flash - sort of like they did with SMIL, QuickDraw 3D, Sprites and other technologies they’ve dumped.
Yikes. Nasty.
Isn't it possible that all this means is that the QuickTime plugin won't try to handle SWF files in-browser by default anymore?
Isn't it possible that all this means is that the QuickTime plugin won't try to handle SWF files in-browser by default anymore?Sure, it means that, but it means more too. It means that developers who have counted on QuickTime's version of Flash and the integration of the two (eg, interactive QT movies where all the interactivity is handled by Flash) are suddenly getting calls from users that their apps or sites are broken. I also got word by IM (like five minutes ago) that this partially breaks iCal notification of "alarm" events.
This is a bummer to the highest degree. Flash inside Quicktime was fun and a nice swiss army knife.
I have seen this kind of behavior before with Apple and hope this is not what I think it is..... the end of flash in QT.
There could be other problems going on like Adobe asking too mcuch to license the apis inside QT or Apple is going to release something to compete
Wow. I looked at Apple's Quicktime Interactivity page a week ago, and it made mentions of Flash all over the place. Looking there now shows nothing but the tiny "Adding a Flash Track" how-to on the right, without even so much as a "BTW, this won't work anymore unless you enable it manually" disclaimer. Something tells me it's gone for good.
seems a little strange since this breaks the "interactive booklets" they sell at their iTunes store, too...
As an ex Quicktime VR developer, I've seen this before. When Version 6 was released, Apple removed the ability to poll a VR panorama or object for it's size / percent downloaded.
The result was that VR objects and panoramas were no longer able to have download indicator progress bars. For rich Quicktime (or any) Interactive media download indicators are pretty much the make or break feature to keep viewer attention.
This change to basic QT behaviour has never (to my knowledge) been explained, hence why I'm an *ex* QT developer.
Hey, folks! Don't think Apple is so mad! It's always possible to turn ON Flash Player, via QuickTime. How?
System Preferences->QuickTime->Advanced->Look at the checkbox... Turn on Flash!
Hey, folks! Don't think Apple is so mad! It's always possible to turn ON Flash Player, via QuickTime. How?
System Preferences->QuickTime->Advanced->Look at the checkbox... Turn on Flash!Multiply these steps by 10,000 support calls and you can see why developers whose apps depend on Flash-in-Quicktime are upset. That's what the outcry on the lists is about.
Steinberg reports today that 7.1.3 corrupts the interface in some of its audio plug-ins. There is a link to a de-installation program.
This is a huge deal for me as well. I don't want to think this way, but I have to say I'm inclined to agree with Milton Aupperle's suggestion that Apple is loath to support interactive QT development.
I have posts regarding this latest update at:
http://beta.ivrpa.org/node/589
I'm curious as to how much of a role Adobe plays in this little drama. Did they throw a hissy fit? Did Apple call their bluff during negotiations? Was it just getting to be too much of a hassle to maintain the Flash compatibility within QuickTime?
I think it's probably true that Apple never thought of the developers. I do think that relations with Adobe and the Macromedia buyout play a role, though.
This also blocks the creation of QuickTime files from within the Flash authoring application...
You have to manually enable Flash in the QuickTime preferences in System Prefs to get this feature to work again in Flash.
I personally am extremely upset, as a long term mac user from about 1988, I just purchased a new ipod 5th generation, but I had to then had update itunes to download video, then I have to update to the new quicktime, but before I do I see this thread...I can't believe this, it's so not what Mac has been about for so many years, you know, the simpler the better for the user one? What is up with that? Is this part of the problem of going to the new unix based systems with PC processors? Or a portion of Bill Gates owning a huge portion of the corporation now? I don't know, but this is just not what Apple is about...another issue I have is, I just downloaded my first tv show (episode of prison break I missed ; ) And itunes wouldn't let me copy it to my ipod, apparentely it's copy protected, no warnings..... nothing, so when I tried to copy it over, it said it's not authorized for my ipod.
hhmmmm well my credit card sure was authorize...so now I need to wait another 5 hours of download time and pay another fee for another version of this? Not to mention all the flash on my webstore not working anymore with quicktimes new version. Major league irritated, I'd venture so far as to say pissed off!
7.1.3! Ok they've gone mad. I got "Quicktime Alternative" and Everything works fine...
Get it here...
http://www.filehippo.com/download_quicktime_alternative/
Adobe feels the pain believe me. I was in the midst of writing a book called Dynamic Media: Music, Video, Animation and the Web inside Adobe PDF. It deals with creating rich media PDF. Adobe's engineers were busy writing Acrobat 8 to play Flash on the Mac and they decided to use Quicktime to play back all media inside PDF.
On the PC - The flash plugin will play flash inside of PDF and therefore all the latest of versions of flash can be used. But on the Mac - you were limited to Flash 5 files and nobody saves their flash files in that version any more.
Suddenly during this critical time for Adobe ( Since they paid so much money to aquire Flash for PDF playback ) Apple turns QuickTime's Flash track off. It's like - Hey Adobe - do it like you do on the PC - Make Flash run using the Flash browser plugin and let Mac users enjoy all of the capabilities in the latest versions of Flash.
- So - at this point rich-media PDF with flash works perfect on the PC - The mac users have no flash playback. Adobe is currently working to get the Flash player working for Flash playback inside PDF. I had to rewrite my book in the last minute to reflect all of these issues and Adobe tells me that flash should be working in PDF by April.
Adobe paid a fortune for Macromedia - They now own PDF and SWF to clear up all of the imcompatabilities of the format in the past. Some cool things are coming with interactive PDF - This whole thing might be a blessing in disguise for Mac users - They won't be limited to Flash 5 files in interactive PDF
I have Flash MX 2004 Professional, QT Pro 7.3.1 and I need to get my animations into ppt. and Final Cut. I 'm not even USING any action script!!! this is just strait tweening- VERY simple- HOW do i bypass QT if its not going to cooperate?? I work on a mac. I need to put this animation into ppt. I used to be able to. ppt doesn't recognize swf files
GREAT. SO. I CAN'T USE GAMERANGER BECAUSE I HAVE THE GLITCHY QUICKTIME? DO I HAVE TO DUMP THIS VERSION OF QUICKTIME IN ORDER TO USE GAMERANGER? ARE THERE ANY SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM? I CAN'T EVEN INSTALL THE GAMERANGER APP BECAUSE AS SOON AS IT TRIES TO MOUNT IT STARTS JUMPING ALL OVER THE PLACE. GAMERANGER IS FOR MAC-ONLY ONLINE GAMERS, AN ARTICLE BY BRAD COOK ON APPLE.COM PROCLAIMS:
How would you like to visit a place where you can hang out with thousands of fellow Mac users, make friends, chat, and play Mac games any time you want? Oh, and it won't cost you a dime! http://www.apple.com/games/gettingstarted/multiplayer/
I was told how to disable QT 7 Flash application to allow the web pages to function properly, but there are embedded files which do not allow this unless you can teach people how to delete dll files in the proper program directories. How do you tell an organization of 30 thousand people who depend upon a disabled application to launch their businesses that their programs no longer work for their associates? - Especially when they are not computer savvy? This is indeed, a repeat of Bill Gates, which got everyone up in arms so, I guess Apple isn't any different once they got too big for their britches, too.
whatabout today--- qucktime to flash .. because some quicktime will not play well as a flash video///why
Hy folks. I have recently downloaded QuickTime 7.3.1. And I can not find "Enable flash" or something like sounds like this. Apple have removed completly flash support from QuickTime?
Things get even worse. Quicktime 7.1.3. turn off Flash by default, but later versios of Quicktime didn't had the opportunity to turn it on. For me one of the most serious results is that I can't use flash anylonger in Keynote Presentations. Today I downloaded Quicktime 7.4 in the hope the Flash support would be restored. But not a change. Is it possible to download Quictime 7.0 or 7.1.2 to restore this feature?
Hi Richard C. Vervoorn.
Try to download the previous version of QuickTime from here:
http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=quicktime
http://oldapps.com/quicktime_player.htm
I hope it helps.
But I have though that nobody else going to use an *OLD* version of QuickTime player, just we, who makes content to quicktime. Sad.
I am inserting a swf file in an Adobe Acrobat PDF. When I click to launch this module, embedded in the pdf it starts up the Adobe Illustrator program instead of my Flash player. I have already set this file type to default to flash on my Mac and it works if I use it as a stand-alone. But when I embed it in the pdf it always goes back to Illustrator. How do I get the Adobe Acrobat Professional to see it as a Flash application within the pdf??
A quicktime,
J'ai une conference en ligne donnee par unspecialiste de renommee internationale avec un powerpoint anime par Quciktime sur un site accessible gratuitement et sans inscription parce qu'en France, certains pensent, comme moi, que le service public peut considerer que le savoir peut etre gratuit et de qualite. La production de cette video m'a pris personnellement une quarantaine d'heures de travail benevole.
Evidemment, je reçois des mels et des appels telephoniques d'etudiants et de collegues qui me disent que le powerpoint n'est pas visible mais n'maginent pas un instant que c'est un mauvais tour de QUICKTIME. Cette interruption prote un prejudice important a tout le site. Comment faire pour sortir de ce mauvais pas?
Bonjour Hilgert. Je ne suis-vous pas sûr que je vous comprends, svp pouvez-vous écrire ceci en anglais? Si vous avez besoin du verision précédent qui permet à jeu les dossiers instantanés dans Quicktime, vous pourriez essayer de le télécharger à:
http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=quicktime
http://oldapps.com/quicktime_player.htm