Catalina: Apple turns macOS into a closed platform; many audio-devs warned from the upgrade

[machinesworking]

I'm considering to impose subscription only licenses "exclusively" (sounds better) for mac users. While offering perpetual licenses only for windows. I think that's reasonable.

(personally, I'd prefer dropping Mac altogether, but it's still 30% of my audience)

The risk for any mac developer offering perpetual licenses is dangerously high. We'll likely stop. Changing licensing for mac only is a most pragmatic answer to it, and obviously mac users don't care too much about additional costs and paperwork anyway, according to Apple: just matter of the right wording ( ).

Ships sailing on the Apple sea predicable need more repairs. This has a price.

Rather than going a subscription route, I'd suggest a simple upgrade model where any OS updates that require significant developer effort to resolve, get charged an appropriate update fee. Want Catalina support? That's $5 per plugin (for example) due to the lost time/effort. I'm not sure you want to be punitive in the pricing, or look to turn a huge profit on upgrades, but charge just enough where you can recoup development cost/time when multiplied by percentage of the Mac user base that you believe would pay to upgrade. If one day Microsoft did the same thing, you could charge the Windows users the same type of fees.

Or build it into the cost of the plugin. $50 for Windows-only binaries. $65 for Mac+Windows binaries. "Why are we charging extra for Mac? Ask Apple to stop creating extra work for us."

And if a user doesn't like it? Either don't upgrade, don't update your system, or again...take it up with Apple.

I'm OK with this, OS updates aren't mandatory, it's not fun as an end user to have to update software than charges for updates, but extra work is extra work.

I get the feeling none of the developers up in arms here coded for OS9 or PPC? because some developers did charge for those transitions, and although it was frustrating to a degree, most of them were smart enough to add in a few new features to sweeten the deal with the cost of an upgrade with compatibility. I mean it's weird to me to even have to point this out as a solution? it's so blatantly obvious.

[machinesworking]

Markus might want to mention ReWire in regards to Catalina. I'm pretty certain with the abandoning of rewire in Reason 11, that it's not making it to Catalina. That will negatively affect my workflow a bit, Ableton Link isn't a replacement.. I suppose that's more of a DAW developer issue, but..

[perpetual3]

No, I don’t understand what you mean. I can’t imagine what is “menacing” or threatening or whatever else you could have meant about my response to a developer who wishes to no longer support me as a customer and possibly future customer as well.

See? You understood perfectly what I meant. I will explain:

Fabien told that he will probably HAVE TO change the perpetual license policy regarding the macOS platform, charging a signature fee, or an upgrade fee, to which you replied that he will lose you as a customer.

That, to me, is menacing (or threatening, if you prefer). Regarding my wording, here is what https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/257159 says:

"You can think of menace as a more harsher yet subtle way of saying threaten."

I know the verb isn't as commonly used as To Threat, but I wasn't remembering the latter, and menace is closer to my language (and the meaning is basically the same).

I know what the worlds menacing or threatening mean. But how you can interpret my response - as a customer - to be so boggles my mind.

[elxsound]

I'm considering to impose subscription only licenses "exclusively" (sounds better) for mac users. While offering perpetual licenses only for windows. I think that's reasonable.

(personally, I'd prefer dropping Mac altogether, but it's still 30% of my audience)

The risk for any mac developer offering perpetual licenses is dangerously high. We'll likely stop. Changing licensing for mac only is a most pragmatic answer to it, and obviously mac users don't care too much about additional costs and paperwork anyway, according to Apple: just matter of the right wording ( ).

Ships sailing on the Apple sea predicable need more repairs. This has a price.

I’m sorry, but let me be Captain Obvious here and let you know that this was just poor planning.

I’ve worked with one guy who went on to sell “lifetime subscriptions” at a one time payment for all content, only to figure out that he was loosing money on it.

Well, yeah.

But look this was your business model and considering it wasn’t the norm, its hard to think it wasn’t somewhat obvious that there’d be changes in operating systems, changes in hardware, changes in DAWs that might require maintenance updates. Its not like this hasn’t happened before.

So you ignored all of that, decided to do it anyways, and then complain about how its not working out for you.

Well, yeah.

[Markus Krause]

Markus might want to mention ReWire in regards to Catalina. I'm pretty certain with the abandoning of rewire in Reason 11, that it's not making it to Catalina. That will negatively affect my workflow a bit, Ableton Link isn't a replacement.. I suppose that's more of a DAW developer issue, but..

So does Rewire not longer work in general for technical reasons or did they abadon it just in Reason 11?

[FabienTDR]

Rather than going a subscription route, I'd suggest a simple upgrade model where any OS updates that require significant developer effort to resolve, get charged an appropriate update fee. Want Catalina support? That's $5 per plugin (for example) due to the lost time/effort. I'm not sure you want to be punitive in the pricing, or look to turn a huge profit on upgrades, but charge just enough where you can recoup development cost/time when multiplied by percentage of the Mac user base that you believe would pay to upgrade. If one day Microsoft did the same thing, you could charge the Windows users the same type of fees.

Or build it into the cost of the plugin. $50 for Windows-only binaries. $65 for Mac+Windows binaries. "Why are we charging extra for Mac? Ask Apple to stop creating extra work for us."

And if a user doesn't like it? Either don't upgrade, don't update your system, or again...take it up with Apple.

Good point. I certainly projected my bad feelings about these development into the future, assuming apple will raise the fees once they can. This isn't the case yet.

[FabienTDR]

I’m sorry, but let me be Captain Obvious here and let you know that this was just poor planning.

I’ve worked with one guy who went on to sell “lifetime subscriptions” at a one time payment for all content, only to figure out that he was loosing money on it.

Well, yeah.

But look this was your business model and considering it wasn’t the norm, its hard to think it wasn’t somewhat obvious that there’d be changes in operating systems, changes in hardware, changes in DAWs that might require maintenance updates. Its not like this hasn’t happened before.

So you ignored all of that, decided to do it anyways, and then complain about how its not working out for you.

Well, yeah.

Poor planing? I'm not sure to follow. Cudos for getting your software products to run on Catalina so quickly, and get them all tested. Please post an experience report here, could help other devs at fixing these "trivialities"...

The issue is the OS's politicians favor for a lack of backward compatibility. Not each individual plugin developer's lack of predictive power over the latest IT Zeitgeist, trends and numerous dead ends.


See, my love is into audio processor development, presentation and ergonomy. In doubt, they have priority over OS political bingo, over replacing libraries, reinventing the wheel, endless fixing of issues introduced not to the developer's or end user's benefit and reading apple docs all day long. For now, we'll adapt system compatibility texts ("Catalina insufficient for..." ), and reconsider mac pricing in one way or another.

[machinesworking]

Markus might want to mention ReWire in regards to Catalina. I'm pretty certain with the abandoning of rewire in Reason 11, that it's not making it to Catalina. That will negatively affect my workflow a bit, Ableton Link isn't a replacement.. I suppose that's more of a DAW developer issue, but..

So does Rewire not longer work in general for technical reasons or did they abadon it just in Reason 11?

I'm not on Catalina, and I'm probably jumping the gun here, but why would Reason Studios drop rewire support for their own DAW Reason 11 right before Catalina? Reason/Props came up with rewire in the first place.. I mean the chances of it working correctly on Catalina seem really low to me, especially the chances of it remaining stable.

This isn't as much a Apple issue as it is a Reason Studios dropping rewire issue, but if you stay in Mojave you avoid the issue that any future updates to unsupported OS's might cause.

A side note, Reaper and Ableton Live both really upped their game in rewire support, which for me makes it that much more painful that Reason Studios is abandoning rewire.

[syntonica]

.
This isn't as much a Apple issue as it is a Reason Studios dropping rewire issue, but if you stay in Mojave you avoid the issue that any future updates to unsupported OS's might cause.

I'm not sure if Catalina was a factor, but with adding VST support, this obviates much of the need for Rewire in either Mac or PC. Since Rewire lives deep in the OS and that's starting to become a hassle, they may have just decided to abandon it altogether.

[Haptix]

Markus might want to mention ReWire in regards to Catalina. I'm pretty certain with the abandoning of rewire in Reason 11, that it's not making it to Catalina. That will negatively affect my workflow a bit, Ableton Link isn't a replacement.. I suppose that's more of a DAW developer issue, but..

So does Rewire not longer work in general for technical reasons or did they abadon it just in Reason 11?

I'm not on Catalina, and I'm probably jumping the gun here, but why would Reason Studios drop rewire support for their own DAW Reason 11 right before Catalina? Reason/Props came up with rewire in the first place.. I mean the chances of it working correctly on Catalina seem really low to me, especially the chances of it remaining stable.

This isn't as much a Apple issue as it is a Reason Studios dropping rewire issue, but if you stay in Mojave you avoid the issue that any future updates to unsupported OS's might cause.

A side note, Reaper and Ableton Live both really upped their game in rewire support, which for me makes it that much more painful that Reason Studios is abandoning rewire.

Could be because reason can be loaded as a plugin to a daw nowadays, so why would it need rewire anymore. but just guessing here.

[Markus Krause]

From the technical specs that i have red there seem to be some additional restrictions because of security. If Rewire would not longer work it would be the next bummer.

Is there someone who can test if rewire still works?

[Urs]

I'm a bit surprised that someone whos against all kind of "making money with copy protection" and being dependent of the will of 3rd parties, gives up some freedom without difficulties for a company that introduced some sort of mandatory copy protection which doesn't even work properly because you either can already disable it on the client side or can loosen it up on the application side...

If I'm not completely mistaken, regardless if someone disables that quarantine bit whatsoever, the host software can still run the integrity test. That makes PACE EDEN signing surplus for plug-ins on macOS. It also enables any host to run the same kind of security that PACE offers for free. Heck, our plug-ins can check themselves!

Now, how many cracked Logics and Lives are there on Mac? (Next mission: Convince them to check!)

I am all for code signing. I don't give a shit about notarisation as a developer, but as an end user I think it's good that the entitlements I mentioned are managed - in an untampered OS, the application can only ever do what I agree too. It can't just read out my contacts and my photo library without me knowing. We've almost become victim to socially engineered attacks several times, the advent of deep learning in malware is not going too make our lives easier.

[elxsound]

Poor planing? I'm not sure to follow.

... and reconsider mac pricing in one way or another.

As in because you've just now miraculously discovered Apple makes changes to requirements, and you've tied this new discovery to your business model.

[machinesworking]

Poor planing? I'm not sure to follow.

... and reconsider mac pricing in one way or another.

As in because you've just now miraculously discovered Apple makes changes to requirements, and you've tied this new discovery to your business model.

This again points out that Fabien and others were not coding for OS X until Intel. If I recall correctly a few developers said it was a PITA, then proceeded to do what I suggested, offer a cheap update that gave functionality with maybe a new feature or two to sweeten the deal, or didn't offer it at all until the next major version of the plug in came out.

Personally the big downside to companies that do not charge for maintenance fees to their products is they tend to rerelease FX or synths as "new" that do exactly the same thing with surprise surprise a few new features everyone wanted. Ohm comes to mind.. among others.

This is how Ableton handled PPC to Intel.
https://www.ableton.com/en/pages/2006/i ... c_support/

They used the extra money to pay to code the next version and reimbursed people who paid the fee to keep current if they bought the upgrade in the future. This is how you do it.

[machinesworking]

Could be because reason can be loaded as a plugin to a daw nowadays, so why would it need rewire anymore. but just guessing here.

For sure, why keep up a feature that people whinge about, that your own DAW doesn't "need" anymore? Ableton has arguably the best choices for time stretching out there, so rewiring it has always been a plus, no surprise they improved support for it. Reason has it's instruments and FX mostly, the sequencer isn't as game changing as clips or anything.

Still I don't like useful software being kicked to the side. I've always wondered why nobody didn't create a "super rewire"? One that didn't only use one core etc. At least on OS X all the tags are there, the system wide support for MIDI and the easiness of using SoundFlower to route audio always made me wonder why someone didn't perfect some version of rewire without a master/slave relationship? I can pull it off sort of with Jack, and IAC MIDI in OSX but it's not elegant and you only want to do it if you think you have to..