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Simon Willison’s Weblog

Don’t make me lie to you

So what’s the deal with this?

QuickTime: Enhance the experience. QuickTime Pro screenshot, with buttons to buy now or buy 'later'.

I’m sure you’ve seen it. I get it from QuickTime on Windows, and I get it from QuickTime on my Mac as well. If this was attached to some lousy spyware infested privacy flaunting piece of junk I wouldn’t be so surprised, but it’s not: it’s from Apple, a company who are meant to pride themselves on the usability of their software; software that normally just gets out of the way. So why bug me with this junk? More importantly, why force me to lie about my intentions? I have absolutely no intention of ever upgrading to QuickTime Pro—but every time that blasted window comes up I have to promise to put off my purchasing decision until “Later” in order to proceed.

It annoys me even more because out of all the lousy streaming media formats out there, QuickTime sucks the least. Why spoil the experience with an advert for a product that seems to be made obsolete by Apple’s own iMovie anyway?

Posted 7th May 2004 at 2:18 am

This is Don’t make me lie to you by Simon Willison, posted on 7th May 2004.

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29 comments

  1. This has very much annoyed the $%?�£!@ out of me as well, for a very long time. But a couple of months ago, when searching for a Real/Quicktime alternative I stumbled onto Media Player Classic and the K-lite codec pack. The combination turned out to be a very good solution to the spam/nag/spy/bug-plagued releases from Apple and Real. It might, at least on your Windows machine, be able to provide some relif...

    John Magnus - 7th May 2004 02:46 - #

  2. Hah! I was going to mention Media Player Classic too. These days I don't touch any media player that comes straight from a commercial vendor, simply because I've never had a good experience with them. Even if Apple didn't have that Quicktime Pro ad screen, Quicktime player would be a horrible piece of shit.

    Give me foobar 2000 for my music, Windows Media Player classic with plugins for movies, and I'm set.

    Lach - 7th May 2004 03:32 - #

  3. I once read on one of those Mac tips/tricks sites that if you set the date/time on your Mac (not sure about PCs) to some date very far in the future (like 100 years or so) and then open Quicktime Player, when the "nag" screen comes up, click "later", and then go change the date on your machine back to what it should be. Apparently, when you click "Later," Quicktime Player sets a date when it should nag you again. If that date is 2104, it'll be a LONG time before you see that message again. **ALERT** I just tried it on my Mac running OS 10.3.3. I turned off "use network date/time" (or whatever it's called) in System Preferences, then set the date to sometime in 2037 (this was as far forward as I could go). Then I saved the new date/time info, opened Quicktime Player, clicked "later", turned my Network Date/Time back on, then opened Quicktime Player again. NO ANNOYING NAG SCREEN!!! You're welcome.

    Matt - 7th May 2004 04:30 - #

  4. Yes, it is annoying but QT Pro is pretty nice for people who like to save video files and even gives you some editing - you can clip portions off of a video - though the editing bar requires a pretty steady hand - you're much better off in the free imovie but it's nice for a quick clip. You can also export with a lot more choices and you even get a mini MIDI keyboard with the audio controls. So, if you want a basic editor and like the ability to save QT files - then QT Pro is worth it. As far as I can tell, it's a lifetime deal - I bought QT 5 Pro and have been upgrading to Pro since then (installer is smart enough to figure it out automatically).

    jbelkin - 7th May 2004 06:32 - #

  5. it bugged me so much i followed their suggestion and download quicktime pro- except i snagged it off of bittorrent

    rayg - 7th May 2004 08:43 - #

  6. Simon, I'm pretty sure you don't mean flaunting. How about "slighting"?

    Jeremy Dunck - 7th May 2004 13:48 - #

  7. I agree that it is very annoying but there's a reason....Quicktime kinda sucks compared to Quicktime pro. I have the free player at home and have always used the free player until one day we needed to convert some AVI files over to MPEG2's so we could integrate them into a DVD we were making on a Mac. Any number of free utilities we used on the web seemed to do the trick but all were lossy and skipped frames. On a whim we bought QT pro for the $30 (or whatever). It not only converted the AVI file to MPEG2 but it was fast, didn't skip frames, and came out clean and smooth. IMHO I think the nag should go away if you hit later enough times but if you need it's features, QT pro is pretty good.

    Loyd - 7th May 2004 13:53 - #

  8. I just tried Matt's suggestion to change the system date far into the future then tell it later on Windows. Seemed to work. Thanks Matt.

    waylman - 7th May 2004 14:48 - #

  9. rayg, So... You're proud to be a thief? I bet your parents are proud. Are you going to teach the same code of ethics to your children?

    Melangell - 7th May 2004 14:57 - #

  10. Hey Simon, Actually the fact that QT is trumped by iMovie is a misconception. I'm just getting into some QT stuff now for a web site for our church. It's uses go far beyond streaming a movie. It's more of a delivery system for rich media. While I'm not up on all the capabilities of iMovie, I'm pretty sure it isn't anywhere near as full featured as QT :) Tom

    Tom - 7th May 2004 16:34 - #

  11. They've been doing it since way back before it was popular, it's been there since 1993 or something stupid like that when QuickTime first came out and no-one new about the Pro version and it was all a big deal. I have no idea why they still do it. Everyone who wants QTP will get it. Everyone who doesn't wont.

    Xian - 7th May 2004 17:33 - #

  12. Come on. This is a non-issue. The simple and obvious answer is that Apple is a business and it's trying to sell a product. The more of those pro versions they sell, the more resources they could have to continue a free version.

    deepkid - 7th May 2004 20:23 - #

  13. Easy, just switch to Windows and stick with Windows Media Player. It is really superior to Quicktime in every way, only if you are a Slashdot type of idiot I don't recommend it to you, since you are going to bitch about it all day long.

    Tim - 7th May 2004 20:38 - #

  14. rayg isn't a thief, just a liar. There's no such thing as a "QT Pro download." The QT you already have installed is already a full featured Pro install, you merely need a serial number to activate the features and make the nag screen go away. But of course the nag is only a problem on Windoze platforms. The nag only appears the first time you launch QT. Mac users don't quit apps and don't have to reboot twice a day like Windoze users, I last rebooted my Mac about 6 weeks ago, and I leave QT running. I would never see the nag, even IF I didn't have a paid Pro upgrade (it comes free with certain Mac apps).

    Charles - 7th May 2004 23:18 - #

  15. Tim-- except for the fact that MS is using Windows Media Player as a deployment mechanism for DRM license agreements, I think Media Player doesn't suck.

    Is there a name for the type of idiot that slams a major audience segment for no apparent reason on a technical blog?

    Jeremy Dunck - 8th May 2004 02:51 - #

  16. Tim says: "Easy, just switch to Windows and stick with Windows Media Player." Lol! Easy and switching to Windows in the same sentence!

    solid - 8th May 2004 15:00 - #

  17. Gemal had a similar problem not too long ago. His solution was to combine Winamp with the RealAlternative and QuickTimeAlternative codecs from the KL Codec Resource Site mentioned earlier. Works like a charm!

    I don't recommend installing the entire codec pack because it can lead to problems. Note that you need to add the extra file types to the Directshow encoder's extension list as described here.

    Basje - 8th May 2004 15:47 - #

  18. I can second (third?) the date solution. I've done this on all my Windoze machines (they need re-imaging every three months or so), and did it on my Mac ages ago when I installed Panther. Works like a dream.

    And yes, it is an annoyance — but it has to be better than WMP ;o)

    Ben Poole - 8th May 2004 20:56 - #

  19. Charles: You sound worse that some linux zealot. I use on a regular basis windows, macosx, linux, and solaris. Personally I find windows xp as stable as the next. The machine I'm writing this on has been up for 36 days 2 hours. I can't even remember why I turned it off last time, I think I was putting a hard drive in. I've personally seen an ibook crash when unplugging headphones. I'm glad that you like Macs alot but that doesn't mean everything else out there is inferior. Windows XP takes alot of steps in the right direction.

    Ryan - 9th May 2004 18:50 - #

  20. Being visually picky, it has always bothered me that the buttons on this dialog are obviously not native OS X aqua buttons. I suspect they are just bitmaps of the original 10.0 style buttons, which now look odd, rough, and out-of-date.

    Steven Garrity - 9th May 2004 19:30 - #

  21. While I agree this is annoying, I don't agree that iMovie has replaced QuickTime Pro. For batch processing, QTPro used to be the best solution. Instead, I think that ffmpeg has replaced QTPro (at least in my workshop) for batch manipulation. While it doesn't support encoding to QT, it does support MPEG4, which is essentially the same thing but standards compliant. Getting ffmpeg is as easy these days as:

    fink install ffmpeg

    from a root prompt.

    Robert - 10th May 2004 21:16 - #

  22. QuickTime first came out what, 12 years ago? And let's see ... if since then, I've averaged viewing three clips or streams a week, that means I've seen the "Go Pro" dialog, umm, 1,872 times!

    It has become like an old friend who stops by the front door unannounced a few too many times. Familiar, comfortable, even expected, but never welcome!

    Jay Small - 11th May 2004 13:06 - #

  23. Hay jus a quick piece of advice for mac people tierd of quicktime whining about formats and stuff a programme called "VLC" that is about is ACE its does all i ask. When i cant open a movie in quicktime or quicktime only plays 9 seconds of a 50 mb movie i use VLC it solved all my probs (apart from playing AVI format on my mac) :@ PS- VLC is free by the way and for MAC OSX no nagg either.

    Apache' - 11th May 2004 17:06 - #

  24. Hay jus a quick piece of advice for mac people tierd of quicktime whining about formats and stuff a programme called "VLC" that is about is ACE its does all i ask. When i cant open a movie in quicktime or quicktime only plays 9 seconds of a 50 mb movie i use VLC it solved all my probs (apart from playing AVI format on my mac) :@ PS- VLC is free by the way and for MAC OSX no nagg either.

    Apache' - 11th May 2004 17:06 - #

  25. Jeremy - I think he meant flout.

    David - 12th May 2004 09:46 - #

  26. For Windows users, RealPlayer is more annoying. This player force us to run a REAL SPYWARE called realsched.exe.

    philsci - 12th May 2004 19:46 - #

  27. David - Thanks. This is an interesting usage quandary which I never knew about.

    Similar to cleave, really.

    Jeremy Dunck - 13th May 2004 00:20 - #

  28. just dump the mac its becoming a pc using pentium 4s, there will be osk for x86 before long, the war is coming to an end the pc prevails, throw your shitty macs in the upgrade bin and join the real world of power and cjoice and get windows xp for complete choice and compatability. only microsoft can write an op system that works with infinate hardware combinatioons and installs all software with one click

    simon othen - 16th June 2005 04:30 - #

  29. Quicktime??? What a joke. Quicktime $30 for a really crappy bit of software, that is FAR INFERIOR to all kinds of free software out there- ESPECIALLY for encoding video. see http://www.neilslade.com/ipodvideo.html

    Neil Slade - 12th November 2005 05:22 - #

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