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Comment by masklinn | Hacker News Reader

> Many people who do not have access to an Apple computer will not be able to watch the stream.

Which they can if they find the stream address and put it in VLC. It's just HTTP live streaming[0], has been for a few years now. Recent Android device ought be able to understand it as well.

> Contrast with Google who stream their keynote on YouTube. So rather than being inclusive, the company is being exclusive.

Ah yes, the inclusivity of Google putting livestreams on their property, contrasted with the exclusivity of Apple putting livestreams on their property.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming little more than a bunch of video snippets (TS files) linked by a streamed m3u8.

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Are we really to the point where a company explicitly stating that you need their hardware/software to view a stream, and requiring steps that normal people would be completely unaware of to circumvent is considered "equivalent" to Google using their system which can be viewed from any computer with zero additional work?

Well we're apparently to the point where a company can only be open if they use the proprietary broadcast platform of their biggest rival, so we're way past the stupid event horizon either way.

It's just a service. If YouTube live streaming is the best way to reach out to an audience, why not?

I'm sure Apple employees use Google.com to search the internet every single day, which creates revenue for Google...

Or are services from Google.com banned on the Apple campus? Does anybody know if this happens?

Google live streams using Flash and doesn't support the open standard HTTP Live Streaming spec. So, it's really a bit weird. Apple is more open in this case, but not many things support the open standard (specifically: Chrome).

The Google I/O livestream via YouTube worked just fine in HTML5 for me. Last year too.

Oh, odd. Are you manually opted into the "HTML5 YouTube" version (is that still even an option or just the default for everybody now)? I had to manually "click to enable Flash plugin" to watch their I/O stream a few weeks ago in Chrome.

And, last I checked, Chrome doesn't support HTTP Live Streaming, so if you are using Chrome and getting live video without a pulgin, I'm not sure how it works?

Extra note: Chrome on Android does support, but Chrome-the-desktop-browser does not support HTTP Live Streaming. Computers are awful.

Javascript implementing MPEG-DASH: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=109652#c...

To be fair, HLS is not an open standard. Apple has submitted it as an informational Internet Draft, but hasn't taken any further steps towards RFC status and doesn't encourage (or maybe even take) contribution.

Huh? Flash has supported HLS since around 2011, if memory serves.

Maybe I missed something but I had to switch my user agent to an ios device just to get the stream url.

I can't fault them too much because people who are interested in this conference are iOs devs who would presumably need to have a Mac, but i don't appreciate being locked out.

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