Lazy developers exposed by Apple M1 transition (lack of native updates)

[SoftSynthLover99]

Small rant here..Why are so many developers so far behind in transitioning to Native Apple M1? Slate Digital, Plugin Alliance, Antares, Universal Audio, Native Instruments, iZotope, Softube, IK Multimedia just to name a few, are all behind in updating their plugins to run natively on M1. What’s going on?!

Shout out to FabFilter, Valhalla dsp, Waves, UVI, u-he, and all the developers who actually give a crap about users and have updated to M1 native. It makes no sense that M1 native support has been put off by a lot of these companies for so long. And to find out all the developers were notified 6 months-1 year in advance of the very first M1 MacBook releasing, yet here we are 3 years later and all these developers are not M1 native?!

And to make matters worse a lot of the developers who aren’t M1 native (looking at you Slate Digital) are CONSTANTLY emailing ads to buy their products, yet they are not updating and maintaining them?

Not one to rant but this is really ridiculous. I skipped the first generation of M1 because I knew it would take some time for the major plugin developers to go native. But yet here we are in 2022 and you have industry standard plug-ins like Kontakt, Auto Tune Pro, UAD not even native yet? Do developers even care these days? Very disappointed to say the least.

[budweiser]

You should call them with a service proposal

[teilo]

All Universal Audio plugins are now native except for Autotone, bx_refinement, and Console.

Native Instruments has a closed beta of M1-native Kontakt, so that's nearly ready.

Antares, Softube, Slate Digital, Soundtoys, and many others need M1-native Pace Fusion support for iLok, which has only just recently gone to RC status. Native iLok support for plugins not using Fusion but only Eden has been out since September, and many of those devs have already released native updates (e.g., Eventide and Nembrini).

Many PA developers already have native builds and are waiting on PA to release them in the installer.

iZotope has announced Q1 2022 for RX 9 and Ozone. RX 8 will not be updated. (This really sucks because RX 8 was very unstable on Rosetta, despite being "compatible." I was forced to upgrade to RX 9 to avoid the constant crashing. And then they released RX 8.5 fixing those issues after they already had my money. Such is life.)

[kidslow]

Why are so many developers so far behind in transitioning to Native Apple M1?

Combination of these four reasons: (1) They think Rosetta is an acceptable solution for their customers. (2) They have no intention of ever migrating. (3) The product(s) had enough technical debt that the process was bound to be a multi-year effort. (4) They don't have the staffing to have migrated all their products, so they're working through them in time.

It does allow us to evaluate which developers and products are customer-focused and have a good handle on their software.

[jens]

Reading a rant like this, if I was a developer I would stop supporting Apple OSes altogether - half out of spite and half out of never wanting to have anything to do with an Apple user ever again.

[kidslow]

That is the choice Photosounder made. Probably not alone in that. Theo de Raadt has made it the ethos of OpenBSD in a way, so it doesn't necessarily doom a project to failure. Seems like a bad business decision to operate out of spite, nor would I want to rely long-term on products from such a vendor who acted that way towards their customer-base, but different strokes and such.

[plexuss]

Reading a rant like this, if I was a developer I would stop supporting Apple OSes altogether - half out of spite and half out of never wanting to have anything to do with an Apple user ever again.

Apple user here since 1981. I hate Apple at this point. I use old hardware and refuse to buy anything new from them. The most I'd consider is a used product. If I were a dev I'd not support Apple - macPOS, Core Audio and AU all suck sh*t both from a user and dev perspective. In fact, I'd have Apple excluded from my business planning and plan accordingly. Hows that for a rant.

But to the OP point.... yes that would be frustrating as a user and customer to not have you fancy new hardware supported fully. But, it's Apple fault as far as I am concerned for putting up so many roadblocks for devs and not giving them the support they need to support their, and Apple's, customers. But that's Apple for you - one of the least customer-centric companies I know of, up there with Tesla.

[BONES]

Small rant here..Why are so many developers so far behind in transitioning to Native Apple M1?

Maybe it's a lot of work which they can't justify for the number of affected customers? Or maybe they just don't give a shit because they are tired of constantly having to fix things because Apple are too lazy to maintain backwards-compatibility? Or maybe they are satisfied with the way their products perform under Rosetta and don't see any urgency in porting them over?

If I was going to blame anyone for this situation, I'd be blaming Apple, not the poor bloody developers who have to do all the work, over and over again, every time Apple decides it's too much work for them to keep supporting older products.

[teilo]

If I were a dev I'd not support Apple - macPOS, Core Audio and AU all suck sh*t both from a user and dev perspective.

CoreAudio and AU sucks sh*t from both a user and dev perspective? What are you talking about?

I've been on Mac since 2005. I've never installed an audio driver, never had audio interface that didn't immediately work with once it was plugged in, never had a single piece of software that didn't "just work" with CoreAudio. I've never experienced a bug in the AU version of a plugin that wasn't also a problem on the VST2 or VST3 version, and I've been using Logic send before Logic Pro X.

Meanwhile, how many people struggle to get ASIO working on Windows due to driver issues? Before moving my audio work to Mac, I certainly did.

I love Windows for backward compatibility. Even Window 11 on ARM64 still works very well with 32-bit x86 apps. But for audio I never want to deal with Windows again.

[zvenx]

I guess for many of them it is a balance between how much work it will require and how much financially or good will it will earn them.

I too though an apple fan boy wondered why apple would yet again changed hardware, but I think the data is undeniable, this thing flies...

Some developers will make the change, some quicker than others, some with less complaints publicly than others.

Not the same at all but I had an interesting experience the last two days... a small (one man) developer I have been testing for wanted to get audio into his vst3 instrument in a way that is compatible for cubase. I am 90% sure he uses Juce framework or at least use to.
I brought to his attention that as of cubase 9, Cubendo can bring audio into vst instruments via the sidechain functionality. He noted that, in two days he had a new version with it included. Makes me wonder all those developers et al who bellyache and bad talk vst3 for the last ten or so years. This Developer just noted it and in two days got it working flawlessly.

I have heard some developers say the same with an Apple Silicon Native version, some do it with little difficulty and some say it is a lot of work and blah blah blah..

I am starting to listen to the complainers much less now.

rsp

[plexuss]

If I were a dev I'd not support Apple - macPOS, Core Audio and AU all suck sh*t both from a user and dev perspective.

CoreAudio and AU sucks sh*t from both a user and dev perspective? What are you talking about?

You're right. I'm wrong. I will email the plugin companies I've discussed this with and let them know they are wrong too. They all have comisserated with me, from the perspective of a dev and a plugin company, that indeed Apple's tech is major PITA more-so than windoze, a resource sucker and causes them no end of pain. Off the top of my head I think I've corresponded with Softube, PA, LVC, Sinevibes, IK, AQ, VPS... and there are more but I can't recall. This was all in the context of customer service issues I was having and then asking them about Core Audio/AU from their perspective. But, no worries I will let me know they are wrong and that Apple's tech is great. Thanks for clarifying.

[MogwaiBoy]

12 months ago everything had to be "Big Sur" compatible - now it's the rush for Monterey. Before that everything broke with Sierra, High Sierra, El Capitan, Mojave, Catalina and on and on.

Honestly, how can you produce music on a Mac at all - do you just spend 6 months of the year waiting for broken plugins to fix themselves

Sorry, didn't mean to offend - this is just madness... Is "M1" going to be stable for awhile?

[plexuss]

12 months ago everything had to be "Big Sur" compatible - now it's the rush for Monterey. Before that everything broke with Sierra, High Sierra, El Capitan, Mojave, Catalina and on and on.

Honestly, how can you produce music on a Mac at all - do you just spend 6 months of the year waiting for broken plugins to fix themselves

Sorry, didn't mean to offend - this is just madness... Is "M1" going to be stable for awhile?

I was forced to ditch Logic after, oh, 30+ years (I started with Logic's foundation, CLAB Creator/Notator) because it became impossible to work with using 3rd party plugins. Logic's resouce management is also horrible. Logic seems fine for people that are using mostly audio tracks and built-in plugins. As soon as you go heavy on 3rd party instrument and plugins, it falls apart.

I swtiched to Reaper, stuck with my 2010 mac pro, didn't upgrade beyond 10.14 and everything is working more-or-less ok now. I'd never upgrade the hardware or software because I know it would suffer from reliability and compatibility. That's my solution for working with Apple - don't upgrade, their latest tech is awful when everything is considered, for non-Apple software usage. Saves me a lot of money too!

[jamcat]

Reading a rant like this, if I was a developer I would stop supporting Apple OSes altogether - half out of spite and half out of never wanting to have anything to do with an Apple user ever again.

That's actually useful when emotionally unstable developers take themselves out voluntarily. It saves a lot of heartache later.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

If I were a dev I'd not support Apple - macPOS, Core Audio and AU all suck sh*t both from a user and dev perspective.

CoreAudio and AU sucks sh*t from both a user and dev perspective? What are you talking about?

I've been on Mac since 2005. I've never installed an audio driver, never had audio interface that didn't immediately work with once it was plugged in, never had a single piece of software that didn't "just work" with CoreAudio. I've never experienced a bug in the AU version of a plugin that wasn't also a problem on the VST2 or VST3 version, and I've been using Logic send before Logic Pro X.

Meanwhile, how many people struggle to get ASIO working on Windows due to driver issues? Before moving my audio work to Mac, I certainly did.

I love Windows for backward compatibility. Even Window 11 on ARM64 still works very well with 32-bit x86 apps. But for audio I never want to deal with Windows again.

I'm new to Mac, and still consider myself a Windows user first and foremost, but the thing about CoreAudio just working is spot on. It's seamless. Plugin interface. Interface just works. My Arturia Audiofuse runs like a champ on my new Mac. Hated that thing on my old Windows laptop. Mac has no problem just switching over to the MBP speakers if I unplug the thing, even while apps are in use. Yesterday, was on a Zoom call and accidentally still had the Audiofuse as the primary audio device when I wanted to use my MBP speaker/mic...no problem, just unplugged the interface. Yeah, I could have gone to system settings, but I was trying to do this fast. Without missing a beat, the audio was coming out of my MBP speakers.

Mac makes me appreciate how badly Windows sucks at handling audio devices (low latencies) and font rendering.