An Open Letter to Steve Jobs.

I sent this email a couple weeks ago to his Steveness since I had heard of people getting some results by doing so. Having said that, I never really expected anything to come out of it, and realizing that I had sent it the day after the new iPhone announcement it was likely too get lost in the shuffle. I more or less decided I was going to let sleeping dogs lie…

It wasn’t until last night that I got so completely fed up with Quicktime that I decided it was time to send the letter again (this time updated with more information) and hope to God that perhaps this time around someone will take notice.

To: Steve Jobs (sjobs@apple.com)
Subject: Problems with Quicktime: Can You Help Me Out!?

Dear Mr. Jobs.

I sent this e-mail about two weeks ago, however I have a feeling it was lost in the shuffle of the new iPhone announcement. I thought perhaps now that things have calmed down a bit I should send it again.

The other week I was sitting around and an ad for the film “Be Kind Rewind” came on TV. In that ad were references to the movie “Ghostbusters” which got me to thinking, “Man, I really want to go watch Ghostbusters!”. So I headed up to my room to grab my Ghostbusters DVD only to discover that it wasn’t there. I then remembered that I had leant it to a friend a little while ago and never bothered to get it back. So I was stuck: I desperately wanted to watch this movie but appeared to have no way to do so. And then it hit me! The Canadian iTunes Movie store has just started renting movies, perhaps they have Ghostbusters available. So I logged on and sure enough, it did! I paid my 4 dollars, let the movie download (surprisingly fast I might add) and got ready to enjoy one of my favorite childhood movies.

I only wish that I could say the experience was as enjoyable as it was as a child.

I headed downstairs, hooked my Powerbook up to my TV and booted into Frontrow (more on this in a bit). I was a bit surprised to see that “Rented Movies” was not an option in the Frontrow interface. So I quit from that  and headed over to iTunes in order to play the movie. It loaded fine and I booted into fullscreen – and thats when the troubles really started.

You see, the reason I wanted to use Frontrow is because of the trouble I have with video files and Quicktime/iTunes. Ever since upgrading to Leopard I have been unable to play movies in fullscreen in Quicktime without a significant drop in frame-rate. Even worse, is that if I export a film from Final Cut Pro and try to run that file without even going into fullscreen the playback is choppy. The same with iTunes: the movies play just fine at normal size but in fullscreen the playback is awful and unwatchable. The odd thing is, all these same files play in fullscreen just fine in both Frontrow and VLC. It’s only Quicktime and iTunes that  seem to have trouble playing in Fullscreen.

And so it looked as though I wasn’t going to be able to watch Ghostbusters on my Computer. Thankfully I was able to copy the file to my iPod Classic and hook it up to the TV to watch it. However this too took a great deal of time since the iPod Classic didn’t seem to like my older generation iPod dock. After multiple attempts I finally was able to get it to playback on my TV. However, this was nerely 45 minutes later.

Sadly the troubles didn’t stop there. Following the viewing I noticed a new version of Quicktime was available and so I decided to update. Since the recent update to Quicktime 7.5 the problems have gotten worse. Now opening those same quicktime files from Final Cut pro result in choppy playback without going into fullscreen, and when I do go into fullscreen, the video playback is virtually non-existant. What’s worse though is that files that used to play just fine, even at their regular size (specifically .m4v files I had compressed from these larger files) were now playing back extremely choppy and had become completely unwatchable. As a video editor this is an extremely huge issue as I am no longer able to view my own work. How am I to ensure that they work for clients if I can’t even properly view them myself?

I guess I’m just disappointed. I’ve been using a Mac for 5 years now and have loved the experience ever since day one. I recommend them to all my friends and family, especially anyone who wants to get into video or audio production – but things like this make me hesitant to do so. What’s even more frustrating is that this issue has persisted for so long and no one cares to look into it.  Perhaps it’s because I’m on a PowerBook? Perhaps the newer version of Quicktime haven’t been fully tested with the PowerPC Architecture? I’m not sure. I find it very strange that everything worked just fine prior to an upgrade to Leopard, and not only that that things playback fine in other applications (including Frontrow, which is very strange). This issue has been plaguing me since January and no-one seems to take any interest in it. I’ve even made a trip to the Genius Bar to have them look into it – however they merely brushed it off claiming they didn’t notice any difference and that I must just have good eyes (I don’t see how someone couldn’t notice a nearly 50% drop in framerate). This was especially perplexing as every other trip to the Genius bar resulted in excellent customer service – they usually go out of their way to ensure I walk away happy. But when it came to this issue it seemed like no one could care less.

While I would love to tell my friends to try renting movies from iTunes, how can I honestly recommend the service when there’s a good chance that they will have the same troubles as me?  While the additions of movies to the iTunes store is great, I don’t think I will be renting/buying anything again anytime soon (nor recommending my friends do the same) until this problem with fullscreen video is resolved. This is really unfortunate because I was really looking forward to using the service a lot! The ease of finding movies I want to see, the low price, and the incredibly fast download times (I still cannot get over how quickly it took a 1.17 gb file to download), make it such a great service. However, if I cannot watch with ease them then what is the point? To go through all of this hassle seems to negate all the convenience factors. Perhaps once these issues are resolved (or I can at least watch my rented movies in Frontrow, bypassing these large issues) I will then start renting movies from iTunes. But again, until I can actually watch them with ease it simply doesn’t make sense to do so.

Now nearly two weeks have gone by, and I wish I could say that things have gotten better. They haven’t. In fact, they’ve gotten much worse. Following the increase of issues with the latest Quicktime Update I did some poking around, posting on message boards and websites, asking others if they had any issues. Turns out I am not alone – and that this is a very common problem… for people with PowerPC Macs. It turns out that every single person who has mentioned having the same problems as me just so happens to be running a G4 or G5 Mac. I felt better knowing that I was not alone, but am still troubled by the problems I am having. If only it was just an issue with playback, perhaps I could just get by using VLC for everything. Unfortunately it goes beyond that. Not only is playback so bad that the files have become unwatchable, but encoding in quicktime appears to also be broken as I am currently unable to do any conversions using Compressor – something that I do quite a bit for my freelance video work. As it stands I cannot send a client their video as I cannot seem to get quicktime compression to function with Compressor. I’ve asked if anyone has found a solution and so far the only “solution” I’ve been told is “Replace your old PowerBook with a newer MacBook or MacBook Pro”. This, sadly, isn’t really a solution. Afterall, I’m only a student who can barely afford the snacks I’m buying let alone drop another 2 grand on a new computer just to get Quicktime working again.

Two weeks have passed and nothing has happened. No updates to fix the problems. No acknowledgement (either privately or publicly) that there’s even an issue. I don’t want much: I just want to be listened to, and either be given a solution, or at least have someone come flat out and say that; it’s not working properly on the older PowerPC architecture, that there’s no solution at the moment, and that they’ll try and work on finding one. I want to be able to enjoy my Mac again, not curse it like I cursed my stupid windows box for so many years.

Thanks for your time and I hope that perhaps this time around someone might listen.

ADAM SCHOALES

There you have it. My letter to Steve. Again, I don’t think that I’ll hear back anytime soon, but I plan to keep trying until someone decides to actually help me out. Also, feel free to leave comments on your experiences with Quicktime. After all, it’s harder to ignore a crowd than it is a soloist.

Update: Well, a couple days ago I sent off another e-mail hoping that perhaps the third time’s the charm. In many ways it was, and in many ways it was not. To make a long story short, I was contacted by a higher-up from Apple who was very gracious and helpful. After a few calls, and emails we came to the conclusion that we were going to have to re-format my computer. So today I spent all day doing so. After hours of prep, installation, and updates I went to see if my woes had finally been solved. Take a wild guess: they weren’t. Now I have to send my computer to an apple store/reseller to have diagnostics run. This means I’m going to be sans-computer for at least a day, if not longer (not to mention the fact that I’m 99% sure they’re going to tell me that there’s nothing that can be done to fix it).

At first I was quite happy: Apple finally got back to me, and seemed to care about my issues. However, the problem still hasn’t been fixed. So, while it was nice of Apple to get back to me they’ve more or less left me in the dark now. I have a re-formatted computer that I’ll have to spend hours on to get it back to the state it was PRIOR to a reformat (which was in the end not required). I also have to now make my way to either Waterloo or Toronto to get to an Apple Store/Reseller that can run diagnostics, and go without my computer for a few days.

And if after all this they tell me there’s nothing that can be done I’m going to be even more pissed than I already am (and believe me, I’m getting pretty God-damned pissed).

I’m not their guinea pig. I’m not alone in my problems. And yet, I’m going out of my way for them to solve their problem… I’m not impressed.

Update 2: There’s an old saying: patience is a virtue. Turns out that may actually be the case. A few days ago I was contacted by Stuart McKenzie, my buddy at Apple, who informed me that he had talked to the engineers at Apple and had been informed that they are working on a fix. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Apple hass finally admitted that this is an issue, that I am not the only one having it, and that they are going to fix it through a software update. There is currently no word on when this update will appear, but they assure me it is coming. Needless to say upon hearing this I was as happy as a clam. But they didn’t stop there. They wanted to offer me a little Good-Will gift as a way of saying sorry and thank you. Again, happier than a clam, 2 clams even. That’s customer service. They’re fixing the problem – and that’s all I could ask for. The gift is just an extra nice touch. Thanks Apple. I’m a die-hard fanboy again. Also, I wanted to appolgize for some of my comments in the last update – I was beyond frustrated and used it as a way to take out my frustrations. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still frustrated that I had to go through all of this – there is no excuse for Quicktime not working on a computer that more than meets the “System Requirements” (including the “Recommended System Requirements”). However, the fact is they are fixing the problem and that is all that matters. So, thanks Apple. No hard feelings?