Snow Leopard's QuickTime may pack Pro features at no cost
An architectural overhaul to Apple's QuickTime media software due as part of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard may ship with a media player that bundles once-premium features at no cost.
That's just one of several Snow Leopard-related tidbits to crop up in recent weeks after the Cupertino-based Mac maker equipped its developer community with the first pre-release builds of the next-generation OS since early December.
Removal of Pro licensing
Apple has distributed the QuickTime multimedia framework with a limited version of QuickTime Player for so long that the original reason for adding the optional Pro version has almost been lost to history. QuickTime Pro unlocks advanced recording, sharing, saving and exporting functions after users buy a Pro license key, which the company sells for $29.95 and also bundles with some of its Pro software titles.
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QuickTime Player 7.5 basic (left) compared to an unlocked Pro version (right).
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