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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

To be more specific, and in response to your reply:

Together with Final Cut Pro, Apple wants to have Mac-only exclusive software that is aimed specifically at cool creative professionals to build up the image that trendy creatives use Macs (and you therefore have no choice but to use a Mac, otherwise you won't have the software you need).

Aperture couldn't really compete with Adobe's whole workflow (since Apple didn't have a full-fledged Photoshop competitor). But also, movies and music are "sexier" in a way.

AVID Pro Tools works on Windows so it doesn't do anything for Apple. The whole point is awesome software that works only on Macs.

The day that every single program creatives use runs as Windows as well as Macs, is the day it becomes a lot harder for a lot of people to justify buying a Mac. It's that simple.

(So it's certainly not about any profit from the software directly, and it's also not just a marketing "halo".)

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>But yeah, AVID Pro Tools works on Windows so it doesn't do anything for Apple.

Before Apple bought it, Emagic's Logic ran on both Windows and Mac. After Apple acquired Logic, they immediately discontinued the Windows version. Can't Apple hypothetically run the same playbook and discontinue Pro Tools for Windows?

Not only that - the next version of Logic was due imminently, with the engineering work done.

It was at that moment that I grew a strong dislike of Apple, having been a real cheerleader for most of the Macintosh's existence.

Oh wow, I didn't know that.

I mean, that seems like a pretty shitty thing to do to an existing userbase.

I guess they could, but risk generating a lot of ill will. I'm curious how discontinuing Logic was received. Seems very risky.

It was clear back then that they didn't want Logic in order to improve it, as being evidenced here by with this hodgepodge of 'catchup' features.

Tbh, I'm surprised they hadn't dropped the product already.

Music Tech teacher here... when it was discontinued, I was working (part time) in a couple of schools who used Logic on PCs, as well as working for a few people who used it in their own studios.

In the case of one of the schools and a number of the clients, I was the one who broke the news to them - generally greeted by disbelief initially, and then once they had checked up on it, absolute fury. If the intention was to get people to buy Macs so they could keep running Logic, in most cases it backfired spectacularly, and made life-long Apple enemies of those users - many of which either stuck with their old version of Logic for a number of years, or who jumped ship to Cubase (in the case of the schools, software cost would have been dwarfed by hardware cost when you have labs of 30+ computers, let alone trying to persuade a Windows-oriented ICT department to support Macs in any way, shape or form).

Tough (sincerely), and congrats on finding a gig that rewards you daily with passion and enthusiasm.

But at the same time, I have little sympathy for people who hate Apple for a move like this - regardless of the optics and whether it was intentional.

No one has to use a Mac, but frankly, there’s a reason why the creative crowd does. And, it’s beyond just brand image. They have a clear and complete vision for their software (which yes, breaks at the edges), but overall provides the best foundation for the markets they cater to.

Apple doesn’t want to be hamstrung by people running Windows on shoddy devices for premium software and thus exited that market. They also don’t want to make software for shoddy Android devices, so are conservative where they do.

It’s not an attack on users, but a refocus on the golden path.

Apple buying a company and axing their products for other platforms is all too common and has nothing to do with "people running Windows on shoddy devices". They kill all the projects for other platforms, strengthen theirs, and hurt users in the process. It's that simple.

More recently, Dark Sky is in the process of being killed for Android

> has nothing to do with "people running Windows on shoddy devices".

You don't really believe that. This is specifically the reason Microsoft introduce their flagship device: the Surface Pro... and Google introduce theirs: the Pixel.

These companies don't suck, but their licensing model causes frustrations for even them!

It's more like... why would they support other platforms?

They're moving to services now, but they've always mostly been a hardware shop. The software was "just" a "feature".

I'd disagree with "the creative crowd does" - I've been doing this self-employed for just over 20 years, and I'd say the split is probably 75/25, Windows / Mac. It used to be WAY more - like 90/10 in the favour of macs, but Windows has got a LOT better - back in the day I used to have to spend the best part of a day setting a new machine up, tweaking Windows settings, etc., to get anything like a reliable setup. Now I can just install Windows 10, do a batch of settings with one app, and you're away. I know that hardware has advanced and that's a part of it, but since Windows 7, the OS is mostly out of the way, and I know plenty of people who are creating music on Windows day in day out, without any reliability issues, and they're spending the money they save on hardware (i.e. not buying a mac) on soundware that makes them sound great.

I use both - Windows DAW is my studio machine (I have a slave which runs more plugins using Vienna), and a 2015 MBP as mobile and for creating videos/images for books as everything looks better. But I'm in the minority in being cross-platform, which is odd to me.

Apple does not have a clear and complete vision for their software. They consistently break things with OS and hardware updates. Many of the developers for audio applications are extremely small teams and cannot turn around updates at the drop of a dime when Apple decides to give them little notice that they're once again breaking shit. There is no "golden path" for pro audio on a Mac and that's evident in their desktop offerings over the past decade.

> cannot turn around updates at the drop of a dime when Apple decides to give them little notice

Which audio software developers are you talking about ?

The ones that are given a chance in June each year to preview the latest OS like all other devs, but decide to turn a blind eye while most indie devs get to work and release steady updates over the summer ?

And then, when asked in September if they're gonna be ready on day 1, reply "you know, there's not even a release date for this new OS thing yet". And then, when the new OS drops in October like clockwork, e-mail their entire user base with "OMG DON'T UPGRADE ! THEY DROPPED THIS BOMB ON US, WOW, TOTALLY UNEXPECTED, HONESTLY ! We'll check this out and let you know maybe, in the meantime DON'T UPGRADE !! APPLE BROKE STUFF AGAIN, DAMN APPLE!". And then, in December or January if you're lucky (or never), finally release a compatible version. Rinse & repeat for year n+1.

Or, maybe you're talking about those audio software developers that were given "only" 2 years notice that, ELEVEN years after macOS 10.6 introduced 64-bit support, it was finally becoming mandatory in Catalina. But they still decided to wait until it was released to believe it, like rabbits in headlights. Tough...

Seriously, audio software developers are the worst. They only get away with this behavior each year because musicians are some the most conservative and risk-averse userbase you can have. If you go to forums like Gearslutz.com, you'll find people asking you in 2020 if it's now safe to upgrade to macOS Sierra, or how to downgrade a brand new MBP to 10.13 because they don't "trust" the new stuff. It's utterly depressing.

> extremely small teams

Did you just wilfully ignore that part because it doesn't fit with your diatribe?

Extremely small teams = 1 or 2 developers, that still have to be creating new software if they want income. Having to divert their energy to fixing something that Apple decided to break hurts their bottom line.

Regardless of if you think your position is correct, pro-audio users are starting to get tired of Apple's bullshit (which really only started around 10.13 onwards), and I see more and more non-Logic users willing to make the switch to Windows.

Even a larger company like Ableton is not supporting the previous version of Live in Catalina and won't release any updates for it:

https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=235803

The grandparent suggests that conservative users are to blame on this and that's partially true but it's not out of irrationality. If you are charging by the hour, you cannot afford any downtime. Studios run extremely lean teams and don't necessarily have a tech person on hand to fix things. If they find a configuration that works, they're going to stick to it.

Why would they update Live 9 though?

For users that do want to upgrade their operating system (and audio users are notoriously bad for staying on old versions, for reasons you already noted) there is a clear upgrade path.

I didn't ignore it, I specifically added "while most indie devs get to work and release steady updates over the summer"

Each year between June-September, I see release notes for indie software like CleanMyMac, Gemini, Hazel... with fixes and improvements for the upcoming macOS. They seem to welcome new stuff with a sense of excitement and eagerness.

In the audio world, there is an attitude of conservatism and an untold expectation that users are always several versions behind, that I haven't seen in any other field I care about.

The differences are:

- those small developers only have 1 or 2 products to update

- audio devs generally have a larger set of products

- audio devs need to keep creating new stuff, it's kind of hard to just rest on your laurels (with some exceptions) in that space

I see it from both sides of the coin: as a user it annoys me that every year my inbox gets crushed under the weight of "DON'T UPGRADE!!!1!" mail outs, and as a solo developer it's hard to update all my products AND find time to create something new. I'd rather not be one of the developers who just sunsets products because they can't be bothered to continue updating them.

>Apple doesn’t want to be hamstrung by people running Windows on shoddy devices for premium software and thus exited that market.

Yea that's really not true at all especially when you can set whatever system requirements you want.

There's nothing spectacular about apple software. It's not any better or worse than windows or android software that has has the same level of investment.

Apple is doing strategic moves to create temporary one-way streets from other platforms to their own and then shut those down before others manage to take advantage. They did that with itunes in the past and they do that periodically with cheaper iphones now.

The same thing happens with software. Shut down the alternative platoforms so you either switch software or you switch platoforms.

There's nothing magical about Apple. Stop trying to justify their decisions, they are not made with your best interests in mind.

No they don’t really care about getting windows users to switch, they’re playing a longer game than that. Most people will never switch their operating system. They want people who want to get into music production to buy a Mac as their first computer.

> I mean, that seems like a pretty shitty thing to do to an existing userbase.

I understand, but realistically how could Apple have done otherwise without creating existential problems for itself?

In a nutshell, the marketing stance of Apple has always been, "Our products are the best, and they're all designed to work well together, so use them exclusively and you'll be good." That's the basic value proposition of Apple (whether or not you agree).

Supporting a Windows version of Logic would have undetermined the core value proposition and strategy of Apple. Apple, for better or worse, offers an integrated solution, using both hardware and software that it controls.

One advantage of Apple's integrated, focused approach is that it potentially allows for better and less costly quality control and testing than supporting every OS and every piece of hardware on the market.

> I mean, that seems like a pretty shitty thing to do to an existing userbase.

So... DarkSky for Android?

Apple could buy all DAW companies (Steinberg, Ableton, etc) for peanuts and destroy music production on Windows if they wanted. Heck they could even buy Adobe without much effort and make it mac exclusive too.

They don't do it probably because that would be considered a below the belt move and not worth the trouble since the mac is only 10% of its revenue.

They would probably be sued for being anti competitive if they bought out all the DAW companies and did that.

Apple is not in a monopoly position, so it's a perfectly legal move.

As long as they didn't become a monopoly in any specific creative field, it would be fine too.

Acquiring all of your competitors is a good way to become a monopoly.

In what arena does Adobe compete with Apple though?

> Apple could buy all DAW companies (Steinberg, Ableton, etc) for peanuts and destroy music production on Windows if they wanted.

That constitutes monopoly and anti-competitive business practices.

Being a monopoly is neither necessary nor sufficient for an anticompetitive business practice to be illegal.

A literal monopoly is not necessary for a court to determine that a firm can exert significant and durable market power over its competitors and customers.

If a firm is able to achieve and maintain a monopoly solely through lawful and reasonable means, such as producing and offering a superior product at a lower price, it is free to reap the benefits of that fairly-attained monopoly.

The hypothetical here was to become a monopoly in professional audio software tools.

Well, that's exactly what we're talking about, no? Buying out all the DAW software houses would give Apple a de facto monopoly in digital audio production.

"Being a monopoly" is not necessary to be in violation of US antitrust law. Merely seeking to become one via restraining trade can put you on the wrong side of the law.

But this isn't the real issue. The real issue is that the US hasn't vigorously enforced its own antitrust law in over 20 years, because a policy of "monopolies are good" was adopted in the 80s and has only gotten stronger over the years. (The Microsoft antitrust case of the 1990s was an exception.)

In this hypothetical world where they bought all DAW software, wouldn’t they have a monopoly on DAW software?

I don’t see how this behavior would be particularly different from John Rockefeller buying up all the means of oil production.

> Apple could buy all DAW companies

There's also the question of how long would this work. This would stimulate windows DAW market; every software shop would want to sell the next mainstream windows DAW.

Cubase would likely gain more market share I’d bet.

FYI: Yamaha owns Steinberg and Cubase.

> "(So it's certainly not about any profit from the software directly, and it's also not just a marketing 'halo'.)"

along these lines and in the absence of other evidence, in these kinds of peripheral situations it's always a good guess that the peripheral product supports the profits of the parent product, and it's value shows up not only in it's own profits but in the parent products' as well, that it's a flanking product meant to protect the primary.

Furthermore DAW are very, very loyal and hesitant to jump ship. I'd bet that for many Logic users being able to keep using their DAW of choice is reason enough to never even consider a diffeent OS / platform.

On a sidenote it has to be mentioned that Logic is just incredible value. I'm an Ableton Live user myself and love it, but the amount of content and the quality of the instruments/effects/tools you get with Logic for such a reasonable price without being expected to pay for an update is unmatched among competing DAWs.

>The whole point is awesome software that works only on Macs.

And that is why I will never go back to Mac.

There is also awesome software only available for Windows, so I guess you can’t use that either. And there is awesome software only available for Linux, so that’s off the table too.

Looks like they'll be stuck doing all their computing on a windows phone -- there's no awesome software on that.

I can't think of any awesome software that only runs on Linux. I can think of a couple examples of not-awesome software (systemd and wayland come to mind). What do you have in mind?

Edit: Maybe WireGuard? But that's kind of niche.

If you qualify "running" to mean "I can run that executable somehow" then sure. I can use virtual machines and emulation to run anything anywhere.

If you qualify "running" to mean "runs well in an environment the developers will support", there is a lot of software that is only available for Linux.

Such as? Most software that runs on Linux runs on BSD and WSL as well.

You missed my point because I wasn't very clear. Apple is actively trying to lock users into its ecosystem, and a few years ago I discovered how hard it was to switch.

I have found that the time invested in learning how to use a tool is far more valuable than having a tool with a few more features. So with that in mind, I choose to invest my time and money learning how to use open source tools.

I would much rather be an expert in an open source tool rather than some tool that only runs in Apples ecosystem. (Just in case one day I can't use Apple hardware for whatever reason.)

Krita is tops. Blender is awesome. Inkscape is getting there.

You missed MY point. If you rely on ANY software which is only available on Windows—whether it's published by Microsoft or say BandLab—you are locked into Windows just as surely as Apple software locks you to MacOS.

Your rationale is valid for avoiding Logic Pro, but not MacOS.

I agree about open source, of course.

Yes, I was agreeing with you, Windows only software _is_ off the table for me. Especially if a "nearly as good" open source alternative that doesn't lock me in to an OS is available.

Because one day, for other reasons, I might be "forced" to switch back to Mac and I will want to take my tools with me.

I was responding to you saying:

> And that is why I will never go back to Mac.

It seems like you've changed your perspective.

I will never "voluntarily" go back to mac because I think Apple does actively try and lock people into the ecosystem.

Update To clarify: because I don't want to pay a premium for a computer where I am running tools that work well or better on other machines.

Makes sense to me, but.. I don't know, maybe its not logical. I ran Macs as my primary machine for 10 years. Now I have a different perspective and don't want to go back.

The premium cost part is interesting. When my labour might be worth something in excess of $100k per year to the right corporation, for me to spend an extra $300 per year* on whatever I consider to be higher quality or even just preferred tools is for me the height of triviality.

* Remember that most people only replace their workstations every 3-4 years. So I'm assuming that the Mac could have an "Apple Tax" of over $1,000. Of course most of their machines are a lot more competitively priced than that.

Ahh see, for me the tools are _not_ preferred. (as discussed above I prefer to invest time learning portable tools) and I don't consider the quality to be better, so its just burning $300. I'd rather give it to my kids as pocket money. Or give it to a homeless person. Or literately do anything with it other than give it to Apple.

That's reading too much into the lines. Apple wanted to guarantee that a central piece of software for Mac's marketing success was under their control. Maintaining a Windows version of that software adds no value to Apple's users, so they stopped developing it.

From there to "Apple bought Logic to lock people to Macs" there is a huge leap of faith. The majority of Mac uses do not use Logic, so if their goal was to lock their users to their ecosystem, this move makes no sense.

Also, there are good and often better alternatives to Logic, including Cubase, which work on all major platforms. So if you don't want to move to a Mac from Windows or Linux for the next Logic version, you have many good options.

> The day that every single program creatives use runs as Windows as well as Macs, is the day it becomes a lot harder for a lot of people to justify buying a Mac. It's that simple.

As long as Macs are the best way to escape from Windows, people are going to buy Macs. It's that simple.

As a counterpoint: Capture One is not a direct Photoshop competitor, yet it became very popular among photographers.

It's a direct Lightroom competitor.

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