Microsoft's attempt at making an all in one media player for its OS.

It's actually not too bad, although the visualisation options aren't as extensive as those of other players.

There is actually one saving grace of old WindowsMediaPlayer that is not true of other media players (WinAmp, XMMS, QuicktimePlayer): It retains the look and feel of the window manager it exists in. If I go to the trouble of making windows green with an ugly font, I want all my windows to look like that, and if I have to go through the trouble of modifying skins to do that, it isn't worth my time. But I want a media player that looks like a computer window and not a walkman or something.

Anyone else find it amusing that computer media players have been imitating the UI of walkmen or normal stereo equipment, which was developed to make use of incredibly limited UI capabilities? They actually seem to be competing for who can make things the hardest to work with. (And this includes the new WMP - the latest version copies a lot from the Apple Quicktime player, and adds skins ala Winamp.)

People actually seem to like this. Perhaps it's an example of taking the "real world metaphor" principle of UI design too far. Or maybe it's people getting tired of the WIMP interface and being willing to work with others.

The "Interface Hall Of Shame" http://web.archive.org/web/20021118090010/http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm has an extremely negative review of the new QuicktimePlayer at http://web.archive.org/web/20020601171751/http://www.iarchitect.com/qtime.htm (including pictures), covering multiple abuses of the "real world metaphor" principle.

(Links 1 and 2 were dead - replaced by web archive references.)