Did you catch that? Event livestream is Mac and iOS only

Most of you noticed something a bit... oddly specific about Apple's streaming announcement for the 9/1 event:

Apple® will broadcast its September 1 event online using Apple's industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards. Viewing requires either a Mac® running Safari® on Mac OS® X version 10.6 Snow Leopard®, an iPhone® or iPod touch® running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad™. The live broadcast will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT on September 1, 2010 at www.apple.com.

What's missing from this picture? About nine-tenths of the Internet; specifically, anyone using a Windows PC. As pointed out on ReadWriteWeb, there is no QuickTime X for Windows yet and no client supporting HTTP Live Streaming. I'm not sure why RWW's Adrianne Jeffries is convinced that it's up to Microsoft to implement QuickTime X (hint: it's not), but Apple's engineering team is still working to flesh out the new QuickTime stack on the Mac -- no surprise that the Windows version is lagging behind.

Yes, HTTP live streaming is an open standard, but that doesn't help much without a working implementation (as Adobe's John Nack is pointing out). Having a fallback stream of plain old RTSP wouldn't just be a nice gesture for the rest of the world -- it'd also be welcomed by the millions of PowerPC Mac users who won't be able to watch the stream, either. Yep, that requirement specifies Safari on Mac OS X 10.6 -- no Intel, no joy. Of course, even if you can't tune in for the video goodness, you can still come here for our lively and informative liveblog.

Update: MacRumors points to this test stream and also suggests that VLC may be able to watch the stream, at least in fits and starts.

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Source: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/08/31alert.html

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Most of you noticed something a bit... oddly specific about Apple's streaming announcement for the 9/1 event: Apple® will broadcast...

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John.B

Worked fine on my iPhone. ;^)

September 01 2010 at 1:52 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Wreck

Let me see if I get this straight, an "open standard," that only works on Apple products. This is typical of Microso... Err Apple.

Posted from my iPad 64GB WiFi

September 01 2010 at 12:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

urth

VLC, originally designed for windows but us Mac users wanted/needed its funcitonality-so should work for this stream too.
http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/apple-software/how-to-watch-apples-september-event-live-stream-on-your-pc/

September 01 2010 at 10:55 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jordan

Buhu .. look at me .. I hate Apple and need to tell that to everybody ..

Man, get a life or at least something better to do than whining in every single comment.

J.

September 01 2010 at 10:42 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Jordan's comment

rogerruthberg

Whoever is behind this "identity theft", please knock it off. Don't turn the message board into an elementary school playground. Even the intended target made the middle school junior varsity debate squad.

Thanks.

September 01 2010 at 10:51 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

milkmage

care to explain that? why AREN'T there going to be another 500 MiFis out there today? what does streaming have to do with it? are you suggesting that because there's a stream the press will be less inclined to blog.. for their audiences.. who can't watch it?

the issue with the MiFi's was interference when Jobs was trying to demo ON THE PHONE. if anything, everyone in the audience will also be watching the stream just to see how well it works... using MORE bandwidth than live blogs.

September 01 2010 at 10:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

brian

2 things:

1) It has bugged me (just a bit) that the iPhone never supported QuickTime Streaming Server, Apple's *other* "industry standard streaming solution". Then again, I never liked RTSP anyway. Their QTSS page now talks about HTTP Streaming http://www.apple.com/quicktime/extending/resources.html Goodie.

2) This is the first time in YEARS that Apple has done a live stream for an event. I think the first one that wasn't live streamed (once the practice had become common) was MacWorld in January 2003. It's been "wait a few hours for a low-quality stream, then a few more hours for a high-quality download" for quite a while. So all those who are used to that aren't LOSING anything (I'm sure there will be more formats available later) they're just not GAINING what The Chosen get to receive. :-)

September 01 2010 at 10:26 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dimwit

@Jordan,
Since when has a post not being about fandroid stopped the tard brigade from storming the beach?
That was just:
1. A preemptive strike.
2. THE TRUTH.
iPhone FTW

September 01 2010 at 10:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

rectalogic

Recent libavformat (so ffplay, MPlayer) supports Apple HTTP live streaming - see http://bit.ly/bl63O1

September 01 2010 at 9:58 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dimwit

Droid Does NOT! FTW
Suck on that fandroids. :D

September 01 2010 at 9:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dark Horse

I think that Jobs and Co. are up to something here.

1. The fact that Apple is streaming this event all but confirms that the event will announce some sort of streaming service.

2. Streaming is being done via HTML, confirming that flash is not needed by the internet.

3. Finally and possible the biggest. Since the event is only available on OSX and iOS devices Apple can later release numbers that X millions of their devices were used to watch the stream. Proving that Apple has the largest audience for streaming video.

BRILLIANT if you ask me.

DarkHorse

September 01 2010 at 9:30 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply