
Apple's Relationship with Pro Music Needs Mending - xwvvvvwx
http://cdm.link/2016/09/apples-relationship-pro-music-needs-mending/
======
wwweston
I can't give this a big enough amen.

Ten years ago there was simply no question in my mind that apple hardware + OS
X was the right choice for audio/music production (not to mention a relatively
hassle free Unix workstation for developers + some desktop software usage).
Twenty years ago? Still Apple.

Over the last 3-4 years, however, I've come to the conclusion that my next
purchase needs to be something else if for no other reason than to clearly
understand the alternatives.

This is key:

> The bad news: Apple still can’t seem to keep third parties synced up with
> its now annual release cadence. In a now yearly ritual, Apple has broken
> plug-in validation for its own Audio Unit format. Open question: why? Why is
> this now a regular feature of updating an operating system for a format that
> has basically remained unchanged for years? Why shouldn’t desktop upgrades
> be the kind of no-brainer mobile upgrades are.

I have a hard time avoiding at least one of two conclusions:

(a) Apple either now lacks the necessary talent to do the quality of work they
sustained with OS X for a while

(b) they fundamentally simply do not care at an institutional level

(And if it were really only about Audio Units, that'd be one thing. But it's
not.)

~~~
beedogs
I also have a feeling it's a hardware/software combination. All the post-
Haswell Macbooks (from 2013 onwards) seem to fare much, much worse for audio
applications than the ones produced prior to the switch.

I recently got rid of a late 2013 Retina MBP in favour of a late 2012 15"
RMBP, and the difference in audio performance is _astounding_. No dropouts
anymore, all my plugins work again, and Ableton is once again usable. I was
hoping for a difference in performance but I was amazed at how much better the
older one performed, with identical memory and SSD disk.

And that's not the only issue I had with the 13" Haswell RMBP. Often it would
lose its entire USB chain (which includes the built-in trackpad and keyboard!)
which would require me to remote into it to shut it down. Thunderbolt wasn't
much better, with frequent network dropouts over a gigabit tb adapter. The
poor thing barely worked out of the box and it didn't get much better.

I don't know what happened specifically with Haswell, but it seems like Apple
and Intel haven't really been working to ensure it's a stable platform.

It's a mess.

~~~
willtim
It's likely the OS power management features and/or hardware CPU throttling
that is causing you dropouts. The hardware and software have been optimised
for occasional CPU use, slim looks and long battery life.

~~~
brokenmachine
Lol, disable USB to save power!

The battery life is _amazing_ when you can't do anything!

------
pavlov
Apple's relationship with pro-anything is collapsing.

I write Mac software for a YC company in the pro video space. Our new product
started deployments a couple of months back, and a major source of problems
has been the Apple platform -- both hardware and software. It's so bad that
we're actively working to move off the Mac completely. (I've spent 15 years
doing Mac software, so this is a big deal for me.)

Apple doesn't have pro hardware anymore. The 2013 Mac Pro is a complete
failure, maybe the worst computer they've ever made. We deployed a dozen Mac
Pros, and four of them suffer from a GPU overheating problem that's widespread
but little talked about -- Apple has been replacing Mac Pros quietly for
years.

The original Mac Pro was a great computer for the pro market: lots of
extensibility, high-quality cooling system. The new Mac Pro removed all that
and offers no benefit to users like us. It's really more like a cylindrical
rebirth of the infamous Power Mac G4 Cube.

The same heat problems apply to their laptops. Many MBP models with NVIDIA
graphics end up needing yearly motherboard replacements, which Apple is
providing through a special replacement program. (My previous MacBook Pro has
had this done three times.) Apple's drive towards ever-thinner and ideally
fanless computers like the 12" MacBook suggests that this trend isn't going to
change. I'm afraid the next MacBook Pro will be the "worst of both worlds", a
combination of traits from the 12" MacBook and the Mac Pro.

Meanwhile on the software front, macOS has become an unstable and
unpredictable platform for high-performance media applications. The emphasis
on power saving, sandboxing and relentlessly throttling down userspace
applications has made it quite hard to ensure that all our processes keep
ticking along as they should. Working around macOS features designed for
fanless laptops is such a waste of time when our deployment environment would
ideally be a rackmount old-style Mac Pro.

Looks like there's going to be lots of Windows 10 in my future :(

~~~
bo1024
It would be an amazing thing for the world if professional-software developers
like you began to target Linux (as well).

~~~
randall
It's difficult for us because we need GPU stability. The best place for that,
for now, is going to be Windows.

With Windows we can more or less hope customers can use a more mixed variation
of hardware and get ok results. With Linux, it's unlikely we'd be able to let
people go it alone.

~~~
brokenmachine
Could you have recommended hardware configurations for Linux? I guess it would
limit your market though.

I would _love_ to leave Windows completely, but I need Ableton Live to work.
Microsoft have completely lost what little goodwill I had towards them with
Windows 10 and it's spying.

------
addicted
I don't get how any professional can trust Apple after the past few years. If
as a pro, you aren't at the very least actively looking for alternatives to
Apple products you are doing your future self a huge disservice.

After using nothing but Apple products for a decade, I am being forced to wean
myself off them, because I cannot depend on Apple for the tools of my trade.
What they've done with their Pro hardware is ridiculous. Even if they release
the greatest computers ever released for Pros in a month, their history over
the past few years makes them completely unreliable.

Final Cut Pro, Aperture, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, XServe, OSX Server,
form, in one way or another at least a majority of their pro offerings, for
any useful definition of the word Pro, and Apple's behavior with these
products have ranged from dumbing down, to neglect, to straight up
abandonment.

And it's not just pro users, but also "prosumers". iPhoto, Mail, Calendar,
iWork all been dumbed down to the point of not being able to serve any
prosumer needs.

Apple provides experience and value to consumers that seems far beyond their
competitors but their actions towards pro users couldn't have been more clear
in their intent. Lip service with an occasional teaser to keep you hooked.

~~~
bane
Apple needs to be very careful, by effectively abandoning the pro creatives
market, their products start to look more and more like expensive toys and
convenience products. Supporting pro-level consumers, they made their
offerings indispensable at work and thus more convenient for users at home.

~~~
chiph
Not only that - developers, pro-sumers, and audio/visual professionals are
often asked for recommendations on what to buy by friends & families. They're
"influencers", and Apple is abandoning them at their peril.

~~~
collyw
I am sure thats where a lot of their "cool" factor comes from.

------
macawfish
I was a heavy Logic 9 user. I've been into producing for 18 years or so now,
since I was a kid, a die-hard Mac user. I've been through Digital Performer,
Cubase and Logic Pro. Apple was holding it down with the pro software after
they bought Emagic. It's kinda sad to see that the situation has deteriorated
to this level.

Well, I started getting fed up with Apple ~6 years ago now. After my hard
drive crashed, I moved to to producing on exclusively on Linux as a personal,
mental and spiritual challenge. This was very difficult in 2011. As much as I
wanted Ardour to be what I wanted it to be, the only thing that was stable
enough to get stuff done on was QTractor...

Since then, Linux has gotten waayyyy better for music production. KXStudio is
_excellent_. (don't waste time on Ubuntu Studio, it's not configured well).
There are plenty of amazing LV2 and LADSPA plugins, and even some good VST
plugins like TAL NoizeMaker. Ardour is great if you're lucky to get a stable
build. As far as "mainstream pro" music production on linux... it's maybe not
quite there yet for a general audience, but if you're a
producer/composer/independent artist with some technical patience, Linux audio
production is completely amazing. It's a whole different paradigm with plenty
of room for professionals. The fact that Jack is totally modular from the get-
go is extremely powerful. It means that stuff can be combined in all kinds of
ways. (check this thing out if you haven't already:
[http://moddevices.com/](http://moddevices.com/) )

And honestly, Bitwig has completely switched up the whole situation. Right now
I'm running Bitwig on Arch and it's beastly. The only thing I miss from Logic
are those excellent MIDI editing tools, non-destructive quantize. I'm also
missing my favorite LV2 plugins (ZynAddSubFX). But Bitwig has plenty of synths
and a fully modular system for creating endless sounds, so I'm set.

Don't need or want Apple at this point. I'm good :)

~~~
Keyframe
I'm an amateur in sound and music and only do occasional audio mixing and
mastering on a basic level, and only if I need to, for video. Friend
introduced me to Reaper and I've been blown away as it was easy (reportedly
some people have issues with that, hah!) to use, cheap, and quite nice. Do you
know if it will come to Linux as well? I know they've announced something
about that.

~~~
macawfish
Interesting. I haven't really checked out Reaper. I have some friends who are
at the Garageband level of computer music production. They have struggled with
QTractor. Maybe I'll suggest Reaper, since it's only $60.

The cost of Reaper, an i5 thinkpad with KXStudio, 8 gigs of ram and terabyte
hard drive is like $200. You could make a top quality album with that setup,
no problem.

~~~
Keyframe
I consider myself rather smart, but I'm really dumb when it comes to audio
software. DAWs especially so. I got reaper, went through their tutorials and I
was mixing and mastering for broadcast stereo output, from 0-100, in about a
week. I even dabbled with some music ideas and things like that and it's as
easy as anything. I've tried Nuendo and ProTools at work, but it was
overwhelming (or I was too lazy). Only other DAW that I liked was Digital
Performer, but its font rendering on Windows rendered it unusable. I couldn't
read anything in the UI.

------
cageface
For whatever reason, Apple seems to be struggling across the board when it
comes to software engineering. They are slow to execute new features and when
they do they are often buggy. With each release cycle they fall farther and
farther behind their competition. I'm having a hard time thinking of any Apple
applications that are better than their competition. I don't know if they're
having trouble attracting top talent or if there's something off in their
culture but they need to fix it. Swift is a good foundation to build on but it
won't be enough on its own.

They're lucky Microsoft has been asleep at the wheel for the last few years or
actively shooting itself in the foot (Windows 8). But MS seems to be getting
its act together lately.

~~~
tallanvor
The answer is pretty simple: Apple is a hardware company. As much as they'd
like to claim otherwise, their software is simply there to support hardware
sales.

Microsoft had an identity crisis for a number of years where they weren't
quite sure where they should go, but their move back to being a platform (with
regards to Azure) and making sure that the rest of their lines support that
work is starting to pay off. Of course, they do need to tighten things up,
especially around Windows... That division in particular seems to be trying to
move too quickly and it's showing.

~~~
FussyZeus
I don't think it's that cut and dry, Apple's always been a hardware company
but they've had excellent software to match their excellent hardware. I'd
argue the hardware is still more or less on point, it's the software that's
been struggling lately.

Even as a relatively new developer to the Apple space, in the time I've worked
in iOS/OSX the quality has taken a stark dip in terms of stability and
functionality, and seems to coincide with Jobs no longer being at the company.
I think having one guy who is in a position to yell at literally anyone for
doing less then stellar work is an asset no company appreciates until it's
gone, and we all know that Tim Cook is in no fashion at all a Steve Jobs, he
can't put people to task like that.

~~~
radiowave
Apple produced software, yes, but 10 or more years ago it was well understood
that many of their users were buying Macs to run third party software, such as
Logic (which Apple now own), or Final Cut Pro (ditto), so maybe that goes some
way to explaining the change in Apple's software focus.

------
__jal
Yep. I've been increasingly disappointed in Apple's OS X releases. Not even
considering this upgrade for a point release, at least. And they're doing a
very good job of promoting third party replacements for their own apps...

For a while, I thought they were chasing IOS marketshare hard, and would come
back to fixing the desktop. But I'm beginning to wonder if that isn't the
intent; I'm sure the 30k-foot-view financials says OS X is now the second-
class product.

The problem is that OS X is the generative platform. Writers and programmers
and musicians and designers and artists use Macs to produce. And a lot of
these folks (me included) are getting restless.

I'll be fine - honestly, I only own one OS X box today, and my main personal
desktop is Linux. I'd be annoyed for a while if I had to switch to a Linux
laptop, but vim is portable, and if they continue to baby-proof the OS at the
expense of automation and traditional Unix tools, it will be less annoying
that staying put.

If the plan is to bring iOS to the point where, say, Ableton and Pro Tools
runs sufficiently well there, then they better get on that before the OS where
those tools do run rots out from under them. And if that isn't the plan, I'm
sure I'm not the only one who would be very curious to know what it is.

~~~
jseliger
I think the simpler answer is that Apple stopped caring about "pro" apps/users
quite a while ago and that it is unlikely to start again in the near future.
Video people have moved to Adobe Premier on Windows; photography people have
ditched the depreciated Aperture for Lightroom (maybe supplemented with Dark
Table); and now music people will have their turn.

~~~
brusch64
I was pretty surprised, when I found out that Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL,
Composer of the film music for the new Mad Max movie) was using a Windows PC
in his studio. Maybe more and more are moving from Apple hardware back to
Windows hardware. Altough you still see most of the people using MacBooks for
their live acts.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I've been really torn about upgrading my music computer.

On the one hand I hugely prefer macOS over Windows. But macOS now has regular
showstopper bugs that simply shouldn't be there - like the issue with AU
validation, and a bug in Yosemite that made it impossible to connect more than
a small number of USB devices.

Also, the Mac Pro is so poorly specified it's competing with it's own
predecessors. It makes more sense to buy an ancient "cheesegrater" 5,1 Pro and
upgrade it with a new processor than to buy the new Darth Waste Bin model -
not just because of the basic spec and performance, but because the new Pro
has no PCIe slots, some popular high-end music hardware comes on PCIe cards,
and adding an external PCIe/Thunderbolt card cage doubles the cost.

Windows actually has a broader range of VSTs available than macOS.

So I'm not surprised pro users are switching to Windows. I don't love the
idea, but if Apple can't offer the performance the market needs, users have no
choice but to switch.

------
niels_olson
I write this from a Surface Pro, leaving a retina macboook and an ipad pro in
my bag: really glad to hear someone in a core Apple industry putting together
a solid case for "Apple: please vector some engineering talent to macOS, now".

The masses follow the makers. The makers are dissatisfied. Pay attention.

------
eddieh
I feel like this article is FUD. Nearly every professional audio interface for
Mac, iPhone, or iPad has a 1/4" stereo headphone output for real studio
monitor headphones. No pro is concerned that they lost the 1/8" output for
bargain headphones on their iPhone.

Any iMac or MacBook Pro from the last 5 years is sufficient for any pro audio
workflow. A Mac Pro is still sufficient and is way overkill. A lot of people
can be pretty productive on an iPad too. New Macs are coming, Apple isn't
abandoning the Mac.

I just updated to macOS Sierra and all my pro audio equipment has either kept
working as is or the manufacturer released a driver update within days of the
macOS Sierra release.

~~~
wrigby
> Any iMac or MacBook Pro from the last 5 years is sufficient for any pro
> audio workflow.

Just a few days ago, Pro Tools popped up the annoying "A CPU Overload Has
Occurred" dialog box while I was working on a mix. Mid-2015 rMBP, 2.5 GHz.

It was a pretty simple session, too - nothing that breaks any rules, like
reverbs on inserts. 12 or so tracks and three stereo effects (on their own
busses).

I'm amazed every day at how much capability my MBP puts into my hands, but it
is not without limitations. To say it's sufficient for any pro audio workflow
is a bit of a stretch.

~~~
willtim
The problem with the ultrathin MBP, like all ultrabooks, is that it is not
designed for sustained CPU use. It overheats quickly and the CPU will be
throttled. You will be better off with a proper mobile workstation like the
Lenovo Thinkpad P50 or P70 with Xeon CPUs and better cooling.

~~~
dijit
We should be boycotting Lenovo for their absolutely abhorrent business
practices, not promoting them.

~~~
willtim
I use them only as an example I'm familiar with. What abhorrent business
practices are you referring to? I find Apple's 0.005% European corporate tax
arrangements abhorrent personally.

EDIT: the HP ZBook Studio G3 also looks quite good

~~~
pascal_cuoq
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish)

“On February 20, 2015, Microsoft released an update for Windows Defender which
removes Superfish.”

Microsoft has to uninstall the malware that Lenovo had put on the computers it
had sold. Lenovo did not remove it on its own. Let that sink in.

~~~
willtim
Lenovo didn't really understand what they were bundling with their cheapest
zero margin machines. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately
explained by stupidity.

------
renaudg
I'm one of the commenters on the original thread, and I'm surprised that
people here aren't discussing the other elephant in the room : pro audio
software developers being exceptionally reluctant to take advantage of Apple's
Developer Preview program, much more so than your average dev.

My original comment below :

 _"...this reveals a deeper, more cultural problem at Apple. The inability to
ship OS builds to developers in time for them to adapt..."_

I'm a developer and sorry but... no. The first developer preview of Sierra has
been available since June 13th. That's 3 full months, and indeed you must have
noticed most developers of non-audio apps have spent the summer shipping
updates.

Yet somehow in the audio world, all hell breaks loose come September each
year, it seems plug-in developers only start looking at the new OS the same
day as their customers, and they scramble to make panicked "DO NOT UPGRADE YET
!" statements. Not being ready on day 1 is unfortunate, not having started
working on it is simply unprofessional, sorry.

But the worst part is that they manage to get away with it, because most of
their customers (musicians are notoriously conservative with their computers)
nod in approval and go "yeah yeah don't worry, I'm still on MacOS-
from-8-years-ago anyway. F __* Apple always breaking stuff " (just look at the
forums if you don't believe me)

It simply doesn't have to be this way in most cases, and this is the real
issue you should be talking about IMHO.

~~~
willtim
To be fair to them, a developer preview is not the final shipping product, so
it would not offer any guarantees anyway. It's better for them to test once
the final code ships and educate their customers not to instantly upgrade just
because Apple recommends it.

~~~
mortenjorck
In edge cases, yes, certain would-be compatibility issues on Apple's side will
get worked out before release. But that's part of why beta programs exist in
the first place - vendors are supposed to test their products with the beta
OS, and file bugs as they encounter them!

You make it sound as if Apple is re-architecting the audio system with each
beta update. But all that happens long before an OS hits beta: Apple's betas
are by and large feature-frozen. There's simply no excuse for a major vendor
like Steinberg or Native Instruments to delay testing until there are
literally _computers already shipping that will not reliably run their
software._

~~~
willtim
Yes I was trolling a bit. But I believe this is how they would probably
justify it. Perhaps if Apple offered a beta window larger than 3 months they
might cooperate.

------
gallerytungsten
An article from the recording world, with a similar perspective:

[http://tapeop.com/columns/end-rant/115/](http://tapeop.com/columns/end-
rant/115/)

~~~
makomk
From the article: "It's important for professionals to be able to choose when
and how they upgrade their software tools. With macOS, this is getting more
and more difficult to do, and this is the main reason I want to leave the Mac
ecosystem."

Of course, this is even more true of Windows 10, where Microsoft have decided
they want to force updates on users on their chosen schedule - and of course
just like with macOS, newer hardware can't run older versions of Windows. Have
we reached the point where no major OS is suitable for actual, productive
creative use?

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
OS X is still marginally better than the alternatives, but it's becoming
increasingly flaky, and Apple's hardware support is a year or two short of a
mass exodus to other platforms.

Win 10 is abhorrent in so many it's impossible to list them all. But it's
increasingly usable and mostly stable. Some pro users can live with the
horror. Others can't.

Linux is still a hobbyist, experimenter, and IT infrastructure OS. It's good
at all the above, and it's being used for some creative pro applications. But
it's not a straightforward option for anyone who just wants to get on with
paid professional creative work.

It would be interesting if one of the main audio sequencers appeared on Linux.
Bitwig is already there. But if (say) Ableton Live switched, it would start a
mass stampede away from macOS.

Unfortunately Linux fragmentation makes that unlikely.

So - no, we do not currently have a rock solid no-nonsense OS for professional
use, and it's looking less and likely that we'll have one any time soon.

This is ridiculous in 2016. But here we are.

------
makecheck
Hardware and software both suffer, and both seem to come from a sense of “well
we’re just gonna do it this way now, having put no thought into it at all, and
you have to deal with it”.

For instance, there was absolutely zero reason to release an “update” to
GarageBand that outright _removed_ a substantial number of features and
_destroyed_ backward-compatibility (I don’t think I had a single song that
even SOUNDED THE SAME after opening it in the “improved” version; many
settings were just thrown out, or hard to find because they were just _moved_
for no good reason). This is just plain stupid management: inept decision-
making that shows a complete lack of respect for the financial and time
investments made by previous customers.

And hardware decisions have felt the same. Not only was the Mac Pro _not_ what
Pros really needed but even the damn _web site_ for the thing made it
impossible to really understand what the machine could actually do. I didn’t
want to sit through animations and fancy scrolling just to find a data sheet.
You have to have end-to-end, seamless understanding of what you’re trying to
do in an endeavor, and this is clueless behavior.

And one last factor makes me wonder: when Apple does so well in the stock
market, what does that do to employees? It probably doesn’t take a lot of
massive profit from stocks to make people reconsider their jobs; I figure
there have to be a few new millionaires who just decided to leave, causing
perhaps entirely new teams to take over some projects.

------
pragmar
Software updates in general are just getting sloppy, this isn't limited to
Apple. The Windows 10 anniversary update had issues as well. Makes me long for
the old MS service pack model.

~~~
72deluxe
That's something I never thought I would see someone say!

But it's true! At least you could install updates when you wanted, not when
your remote masters in Redmond decided.

------
hasbroslasher
Yep, it's scary.

I'm a loyal Logic user (10 years) and a "pro" musician. I started getting
worried when Pro X came out. The weird prosumer approach, their poor attempts
at beating NI at synths, it all had me worried. Logic used to be fairly bare-
bones by comparison but I never had to deal with the kind of bullshit Pro X
has thrown at me: whole projects developing strange audio glitches for no
apparent reason, constant missing audio files (even on newer tracks),
meaningless warnings, system overloads on simple tracks, crashes, you name it.
Maybe I was less bitchy when I was 20, but damn, it seems that things have
gone downhill.

That doesn't even start on the hardware: $1200 for a computer with sub-optimal
hardware pains the engineer in me, especially when the thing breaks every
couple of years and has to go to the sandboxed repair store to get fixed.

Like many others in this thread, I leaving for Linux next time and I guess
I'll make due with whatever they have.

------
dharma1
I dunno. Logic is still my favourite DAW. Everything still works, I can even
use my 15 year old Emagic AMT midi inteface with it.

I wish they would sort out the AU validation though.

I don't use Apple headphones or Apple Music - not sure if they have much to do
with "Pro Music", whatever that is.

------
applecore
It's hard for Apple Inc. to care about anything else when 70% of revenue and
90% of profits comes from their flagship product, the iPhone.

------
isarat
This is absolutely a sad news and points towards the sad state of Mac for pro
users. The investment on Apple desktop hardware is super expensive and often
we end up with under powered hardware but macOS works well. These are for a
regular user but pro users wants more. I recollect Oculus comment on why they
stay away from Mac. There are lot of consolidations happens to make the
devices seamlessly getting connected but unlike iOS walled ecosystem, Mac has
a large third party developers heavily invested on the platform. They're sadly
left here without anything!

------
GreggThurman
Sorry to hear about your problems, but it was inevitable.

Back in 1997 I commented on the AOL Apple Forum that Apple should dump the
creative community in favor of the larger consumer market. At the time the
creative market represented about 1.5% of total computer usage. Mac market
share was 2%, but only in the US. Everywhere else it was non-existent.

Not that I had anything to do with it (I didn't) Apple did just that, and
today its the world's largest, most profitable tech company. Beyond computers,
Apple manufactures iPhones, iPads, Beats headsets, Ear Buds and Air Buds,
Apple Watches, and Apple TV. Apple also offers on demand movies, TV and music,
not to mention books and news.

Twenty years ago you couldn't open a Mac catalog without be deluged by
creative programs and accessories Adobe was a big deal, today not so much.
Most people recognize Adobe as the developer of a crap media player

I want to thank you very much for supporting Apple back in the day. I did too,
with a 27 person electronics and software development (Linux) firm. It was
hard back then because field support was virtually non-existent (unless you
did graphics).

Frankly, the creative industry's need for specialized softwares and extremely
powerful computers makes me wonder if you and Apple haven't come to a fork in
the road, where each goes their own way.

I wish you the very best.

------
KaiserPro
They did the same for the VFX industry, actively stopping the leading
compositing software to go and do other things.

However at least Jobs told the collected heads of the VFX houses to go fuck
themselves in person.

------
readymade
I do think, as one of the commenters on the original thread suggests, that
some of the blame lies with the often latent relationship audio software
companies have with Apple's release cycle. Ideally QA begins while the OS
update is still in beta. This varies quite a bit from company to company, but
it's not something to sweep under the rug. The news of audio drop out issues
(poison to live performers) persisting through multiple major versions is
horrifying though.

~~~
wwweston
> Ideally QA begins while the OS update is still in beta.

Would help a lot if (a) Apple had longer lead times to actually get things
right internally _before_ they went to beta and (b) beta cycles were a bit
longer and (c) companies didn't have to do this every damn year.

On the other side... what are the benefits of having yearly regimented
releases again?

~~~
eridius
> _what are the benefits of having yearly regimented releases again?_

It's what consumers expect. If Apple ditched the yearly upgrade model there'd
probably be a shitstorm of bad PR and people complaining about how it's not
just their hardware offerings that are getting out of date, now the OS is too.

------
S_A_P
This article is conflating consumer audio and pro audio. Most of the points
made in this article != pro audio concerns. I DO NOT CARE that the 1/8" jack
is missing from the new iPhone and that has nothing to do with pro audio. I
never looked to apple to make studio reference headphones and if I ever used
them, it would be to check a mix to make sure that the music sounded ok with
the typical users headphones.

Ive used various mac/windows based music platforms over the years since around
1997 and still think Mac is the better platform for audio. Heres why: 1)
ios/osx has a baked in low latency audio framework in Core Audio which means
even on board audio can run at < 10ms round trip latency 2) Logic is still the
most solid DAW Ive ever used 3) Windows has yet to offer a compelling Audio
experience with out serious hardware.

I will agree that the new mac pro was a big step backwards from the previous
version. I had an 8 core mac pro from 2008 and that was the perfect music pc.
Im sure the new one is fine, but I dont care about the aesthetics of the
computer as long as I can depend on it to record a session and not fail.

The Native Instruments issues dont really surprise me and in my experience
with that company their software quality ranges from buggy to mediocre
(Komplete 1-8) to the point were I could not find a compelling reason to
continue using their software. I could certainly understand a company acting
defensive and blaming the OS manufacturer when they are flooded with bug
reports.

To that I would also offer a counterpoints of Propellerheads Reason. Their
software is consistently bug free and solid performing. So it does not seem to
really be a "Mac" problem. I currently use a universal audio apollo 8 and that
also performs solidly via the lightning interface at near real time latency.
Point being, its possible to make solid software for mac.

Anyway, I don't think that the mac is perfect for audio, and the situation may
be worse for video, it sounds like the new mac pro is a dud for pro users,
which is disappointing.

~~~
6stringmerc
As a semi-pro I tend to disagree with your reasons why Mac is better because
1) Tons of USB 3.0 audio interfaces work with Windows plug & play with <10ms
latency (Focusrite comes to mind, Sweetwater lists a ton) that can be paired
with any reasonable spec Windows laptop to be just as good and probably for
less money [a], 2) Ableton Live and/or Reaper have been extremely solid in
ways that yes Logic & ProTools also are solid, but this is a tie to me, and 3)
Serious hardware goes back to #1 in that Windows actually has plenty of
options that, let's be honest, a real serious Mac-based musician would invest
in anyway. The gold standard UAD used to be Mac only but it's on USB 3.0 now
so that kind of evens the field.

I grew up with Macs, but when I learned how to manipulate PCs and, to the best
of my ability, overcome a lot of the inherent issues. A lot has been budget
oriented. VSTs and the like don't run on Mac, that cuts off an entire
community!

[a] Also there's ASIO4ALL which runs on a high grade machine pretty dang well
- not Core Audio perfect, but it's surprisingly good in my experieince. Just
needs like an i5, 8GB RAM and a decent HD (works great with SSDs).

~~~
S_A_P
I dont think that contradicts my point. My point was that core audio will let
your built in sound card run sub 10ms. To do that with windows, you could use
ASIO4All, and I think it is a generally good solution. However, its a bolt on,
and not part of the windows audio subsystem. I ran windows 7 on my mac pro and
used a card with WASAPI enabled drivers and they still couldnt perform as well
as the native ASIO driver(which is itself a bolt on to get around crappy
Windows audio performance) Its not impossible, and PLENTY of people use
windows for audio but saying that out of the box it performs as well as osx is
disingenuous at best. USB 3.0 is only just now becoming available while
lightning has been available for a while.

Also, Mac runs/supports VST just fine, and having coded in both VST and AU
APIs they are similar enough to make porting to either platform relatively
trivial(though not fool proof).

~~~
6stringmerc
Ah well I guess I'm off on the VST thing - hadn't been available at the time,
still late XP early Win7 at the latest maybe?

Honestly though using the guitar approach that I was favoring, even having
native audio drivers wasn't my ideal "sound chain" approach - personally
speaking - so I was pretty much destined to use an outside interface for
modeling and whatnot, among other approaches. I wasn't an "out of the box"
kind of person but understand why Mac has that particular advantage, but for
my not-genuinely-pro under-the-hood level I could still tell PC had equal
footing to do powerful things that are more defined by the skill of the user
than the inherent capabilities or quality of the platform. Basically a wash,
thus not really a Mac advantage except in a kind of narrow defined view, a
good one though.

------
Tmedia
Too much whining here. Mac Pro Garbage Can sucks. We knew it on day one and
know it today. iMac 5K is a great machine. If you think Mac OS is bad, try
Windows. We did and we we went back.

After a few false starts, final Cut Pro X is clearly the way of the future. It
reduces our production time by 25%.

El Capitan was stable on all of our machines. We are still testing Sierra and
don't expect to deploy for a good while.

------
amelius
I'm wondering how one could produce "pro music" on an OS which is not real-
time in the first place (?)

For people who happen to not know what a real-time OS is, see [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-
time_operating_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-
time_operating_system)

~~~
sangnoir
> I'm wondering how one could produce "pro music" on an OS which is not real-
> time in the first place

I'm not sure if your question is serious or not,but just in case it is: you
can listen to poorer quality 'preview' while editing and render the final,
full-quality audio in slower than realtime.

~~~
amelius
In a live performance situation, where the software generates effects (based
on live input), you really have to do everything in real-time.

Also, in a recording situation, I could imagine that the artists want live
feedback.

That said, you could use tricks, like making the output reverb whenever
there's a buffer underrun.

------
72deluxe
I'm waiting for the break in FireWire drivers as afflicts all my audio
interfaces every OS update. It's infuriating that the same piece of audio
hardware suddenly stops working with a new OS, yet if I reboot my MacBook Pro
into Windows it still works great.

------
the_duke
Why would Apple really care about the "Pro" market?

It's tiny in comparison to the consumer market.

And the revenue for Macbooks is on par with iPad, and less than a third of the
iPhone. They have not been a priority for Apple for many years now.

~~~
soundwave106
Apparently in 2008 the market for computer music software was $425 million
([https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-market-size-for-music-
softwa...](https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-market-size-for-music-software-
products-DAWs-plugins-virtual-instruments-loop-libraries-etc\);) I can't
Google anything more recent but I would say that, while not pure consumer
before, it's not completely niche.

Also, one of the advantages of developing pro art products is that they can be
siphoned into consumer products or fun "freebies". The audio engine in Logic
Pro for instance is the same as what is used in Garageband. With everyone
taking photos and video on their phones these days there's probably even more
opportunity in those areas.

------
mtw
If it wasn't for iOS dev, i would have switched to a Win10 laptop a long time
ago

------
droopyEyelids
People make a big deal of Apple's failure to update their computer line up,
but I belive they're missing the point that we're hitting the wall with
technology that matters in a laptop form factor.

Apple was the first for all the big impact technologies of the recent years:
ultra high def displays, new hard drive technolgies, and the latest wifi
standards.

But what do you want now? A new processor? They're only delivering slight
marginal improvements in the i5/i7 mobile range. More RAM? Yeah, apple could
offer 32GB models, but that's not relevant to the music industry. Everything
else is about as good as it gets.

There just aren't laptop scale improvements in technology as of late.

~~~
addicted
This is contradicted by the fact that it isn't legally possible to do any sort
of VR work using Apple's lineup of computers.

But you may have hit upon the real disconnect. Apple is waiting for new shiny
features, while Pros simply want things that make it easier (and in the case
of VR, possible) to do their jobs.

Edit: I meant VR, not 3D.

~~~
eridius
What do you mean by "legally possible"?

~~~
Someone
I think (s)he implies you need to run Mac OS on a hackintosh to do that, and
that's something the license forbids.

------
paulcole
The average person just doesn't care. Like it or not, Apple makes products for
average people who want a somewhat affordable status symbol.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Just stop with the status symbol crap. I didn't buy a mac to be like everyone
else. I bought it because the hardware is solid. For example the keyboard
doesn't flex a half inch like nearly every plastic piece of crap windows
laptop out there.

~~~
paulcole
Millions of people buy Apple products because of the status they convey. Those
are the people Apple cares about serving. If their "hardware is solid" as well
then that's just a happy byproduct.

Are you really saying that status symbol is not a MASSIVE part of Apple's
marketing strategy?

~~~
nicky0
What exactly about Apple's marketing would you say is "status symbol" based? I
mainly see ads with a focus on the products themselves.

~~~
walshemj
the $14k iwatch

~~~
nicky0
Yeah, there is that..

But look at an Apple classic ads like the "There's an app for that" series.
Nothing really aspirational or status-reaching about those ads.

~~~
Infinitesimus
I'd say the "I'm a mac, I'm a PC" ads did a great job conveying a certain kind
of image of the "mac user" vs the boring office guy that was the pc user. At
least that's the vibe it gave me when I first watched them

Of course it is silly to assume most of Apple's sales come from people looking
for the wow factor and ignore the Apple appealed to geek hearts as well early
on.

Anecdotally, I still think a significant number of people outside the highly
selective HN crowd view Apple as a status symbol or a go-to. Doesn't mean
apple doesn't make subjectively great products though

