{"id":15851,"date":"2016-09-28T16:11:08","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T20:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=15851"},"modified":"2016-09-28T16:13:14","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T20:13:14","slug":"pro-music-perspective-on-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/28\/pro-music-perspective-on-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro Music Perspective on Apple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Kirn<\/a> (via Michael Yacavone<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Apple’s desktop OS is too often unstable and incompatible, and the yearly update cycle isn’t helping. […] Instead, we’re being treated to disastrous, showstopper audio reliability problems.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Here’s how bad this is: you show up to a gig, and out of the blue, your machine starts popping or dropping buffers or creating random distortion. That’s clear-the-floor stuff, things that could make people never want to play again. […] People who work in support paint an ugly picture, and then anecdotal evidence is useful, because it covers a range of different situations. And it’s getting been worse through El Capitan: “OS X 10.9 (rare occurrences), OS X 10.10 (occasional occurrences) and OS X 10.11 (most occurrences, compared to the aforementioned OS versions).”<\/p>\n

Now, it’s not uncommon to wait a few weeks when an OS comes out to make sure your complex ecosystem of software hosts, plug-ins, and hardware is compatible. But note the OS numbers – that’s years without a fix, and instead worsened regressions. That’s simply unacceptable. OS X 10.9 Mavericks is about to turn three years old (older if you count pre-release builds).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is apparently fixed, with some caveats, in Sierra. But:<\/p>\n

\n

In a now yearly ritual, Apple has broken plug-in validation<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

There are some workarounds for plug-ins, but this reveals a deeper, more cultural problem at Apple. The inability to ship OS builds to developers in time for them to adapt, a tendency to change OS internals without properly documenting the results, or whatever the reason, the upshot is the same. If musicians can’t trust an upgrade, they won’t install it – and that means they will avoid critical fixes, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Kirn (via Michael Yacavone): Apple’s desktop OS is too often unstable and incompatible, and the yearly update cycle isn’t helping. […] Instead, we’re being treated to disastrous, showstopper audio reliability problems. […] Here’s how bad this is: you show up to a gig, and out of the blue, your machine starts popping or dropping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1143,95,131,30,1381],"class_list":["post-15851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple-software-quality","tag-audio","tag-bug","tag-mac","tag-macos-10-12"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15851"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15853,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15851\/revisions\/15853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}