WMP has recently reared its ugly head on the
Macintosh. Now, I don't need to tell you that
Mac people tend to be a bit
anti-Microsoft. We must have some problems with
Microsoft if we're willing to go with a less-supported platform just to avoid using
Windows, right?
First of all, the phrase "Windows Media Player for Macintosh" is self-contradictory. I don't think I need to explain it. I'd certainly like to THINK that I'm not using a Windows box. Do I need this mischevious little devil sending me subliminal messages? I think not.
Ok, so I download this monstrosity from MS's website. It comes in the fairly standard VISE installer package. It searches my hard disk for older versions. It does not remove them, even though I instruct it to do so. It also installs some browser plugins for Netscape, which manage to increase said program's launch-delay by about half a second. Good job!
Ok, now, let's see...it does not play any of the following:
I would have tested it on more file types, but I figured I was starting to see a
pattern here. Basically, it's a media player that really doesn't play a whole lot of
media. And it is worth noting that any
Mac app can invoke
QuickTime at will to play any of the above media types. But wait, wouldn't that be
sleeping with the enemy? Anyway, the one thing that it was able to play was
MP3s. However, I already have about 3 or 4
MP3-capable apps on my system, and WMP has other problems that would preclude me from using it as my primary
MP3 player.
Secondly, it ignores many, many of the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines. For those who are unfamiliar with Mac software development, Apple publishes a set of "rules" that developers are advised to follow when designing apps that use the standard Mac GUI. (ie, anything but a full-screen game) The result is that (almost) every Mac app has almost the same interface, and predictable behavior. Everything from whether buttons should be disabled when the app is backgrounded, to how many pixels should be between a control and the edge of the window are spelled out in this guide.
First of all, WMP for the Mac doesn't even USE a standard OS-level control in its main windows. Only in the about box, does it conform in this way. In windows where it does use OS-level controls, there is the usual tacky bit of white border around the perimeter here, the oversized text field there, the misplaced OK button, and so on. It also stubbornly refuses any attempts at drag-n-drop, a feature which is absolutely essential to my usage patterns, and which should also be supported by any app that works with files.
Not that any of that is surprising, considering almost every other MS app for a Mac breaks these guidelines to some degree. Anyway, there you have it. Less functional than the Windows version, abrasive to Mac UI conventions, and on top of that, it seems to be much slower than any comparable media-playing app. It takes longer to refresh windows, longer to draw dialogs, and so on. All in all, a shitty port of what the general consensus seems to say is a shitty app. Nuff said.