Apple will switch to ARM processors: what does it mean for plugin developers?

[Youlean]

As for why iOS plugins are cheaper:

Usually there is not much added cost to support different plugin formats. These days plugin frameworks are doing much of the heavy lifting.

So basically FabFilter are looking at iOS revenue as an added bonus on the macOS plugin revenue. In that way they can lower the price of the macOS plugins.

All in all, they are in really bad position now.

[Youlean]

It would be interesting next few year for sure in the plugin market.

Lower prices will not necessarily benefit consumers. There is a lot of cost for developers and we are very small market in order to benefit for larger sale quantity and lower prices.

This could lead developers go into more consumer stuff or going into more profitable industries.

But on the other hand, devs could introduce subscriptions like every f**king app on iOS and milk their customers instead.

[kmonkey]

Let's call it clusterf***

[Haptix]

Let's call it clusterf***

Like it has been since day one in some form or another

[midi_transmission]

Considering how fast the latest iPad's are, I'm sure we'll see ARMS in the consumer laptops and desktops soon enough.

Not going to happen any time soon. Modern ARMs are not fast enough for Diva or "do what you want" OS.

Apple latest iPhones already best Apple latest MacBook Pros in single-core CPU performance (source: https://daringfireball.net/2020/04/the_2020_iphone_se).

They are definitely coming soon:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04 ... s-in-2021/

I'm sorry and no offence. But could we please stop spreading this false information that a iphone is faster than a current i7 that is repeated in every internet forum all the time? A geekbench score is not a valid comparision. The Apple ARM may be super fast, maybe faster than intel, but let's wait for valid benchmarks before stating it as a proof.
Thanks.

[Cinebient]

It would be interesting next few year for sure in the plugin market.

Lower prices will not necessarily benefit consumers. There is a lot of cost for developers and we are very small market in order to benefit for larger sale quantity and lower prices.

This could lead developers go into more consumer stuff or going into more profitable industries.

But on the other hand, devs could introduce subscriptions like every f**king app on iOS and milk their customers instead.

I have 100´s of music apps but none has a subscription. I would never buy into that.
But anyway it might be bad indeed. It could be that prices will rise or these developers leave iOS. The only one which might win here are indeed the iOS only developers which are used to such prices, prefer the app store economy, do not want to care about piracy and some more. I mean a lot apps are actually as good as much more expensive plug-ins, offer even often more in terms of midi control (especially midi out), control things via dedicated multi-touch etc. iOS is a crippled OS and before AUv3 it was a pain often but all these needed workarounds from the past also lead to innovative ways and a more modular system in general (things like connecting 5 DAWs is more easy there for me).
I mean this was coming since years and now it happens. Love it or leave it.

[Youlean]

It would be interesting next few year for sure in the plugin market.

Lower prices will not necessarily benefit consumers. There is a lot of cost for developers and we are very small market in order to benefit for larger sale quantity and lower prices.

This could lead developers go into more consumer stuff or going into more profitable industries.

But on the other hand, devs could introduce subscriptions like every f**king app on iOS and milk their customers instead.

I have 100´s of music apps but none has a subscription. I would never buy into that.
But anyway it might be bad indeed. It could be that prices will rise or these developers leave iOS. The only one which might win here are indeed the iOS only developers which are used to such prices, prefer the app store economy, do not want to care about piracy and some more. I mean a lot apps are actually as good as much more expensive plug-ins, offer even often more in terms of midi control (especially midi out), control things via dedicated multi-touch etc. iOS is a crippled OS and before AUv3 it was a pain often but all these needed workarounds from the past also lead to innovative ways and a more modular system in general (things like connecting 5 DAWs is more easy there for me).
I mean this was coming since years and now it happens. Love it or leave it.

I am talking about regular iOS apps and subscriptions. Try to find a weather app or a wallpaper app without the subscription. I mean, come on, do we really need a subscription for that?!

Sure, there are a lot of cool apps on iOS, but in many cases, these devs are selling macOS apps for higher prices too, so iOS comes as a side income. Developing software takes the same amount of resources on macOS as on the iOS if you are developing from scratch, so if your margins are lower that could be a problem for devs.

Just imagine that Steinberg can't sell Cubase on macOS anymore and need to sell Cubasis for $50. That would destroy their development budget...

[Cinebient]

It would be interesting next few year for sure in the plugin market.

Lower prices will not necessarily benefit consumers. There is a lot of cost for developers and we are very small market in order to benefit for larger sale quantity and lower prices.

This could lead developers go into more consumer stuff or going into more profitable industries.

But on the other hand, devs could introduce subscriptions like every f**king app on iOS and milk their customers instead.

I have 100´s of music apps but none has a subscription. I would never buy into that.
But anyway it might be bad indeed. It could be that prices will rise or these developers leave iOS. The only one which might win here are indeed the iOS only developers which are used to such prices, prefer the app store economy, do not want to care about piracy and some more. I mean a lot apps are actually as good as much more expensive plug-ins, offer even often more in terms of midi control (especially midi out), control things via dedicated multi-touch etc. iOS is a crippled OS and before AUv3 it was a pain often but all these needed workarounds from the past also lead to innovative ways and a more modular system in general (things like connecting 5 DAWs is more easy there for me).
I mean this was coming since years and now it happens. Love it or leave it.

I am talking about regular iOS apps and subscriptions. Try to find a weather app or a wallpaper app without the subscription. I mean, come on, do we really need a subscription for that?!

Sure, there are a lot of cool apps on iOS, but in many cases, these devs are selling macOS apps for higher prices too, so iOS comes as a side income. Developing software takes the same amount of resources on macOS as on the iOS if you are developing from scratch, so if your margins are lower that could be a problem for devs.

Just imagine that Steinberg can't sell Cubase on macOS anymore and need to sell Cubasis for $50. That would destroy their development budget...

Yes, but i mean there are some really great apps as good as most i have as plug-ins. Especially synths could be easy replaced for me (well, beside 2-3 maybe). I just mean for the developers which started with iOS and/or develop exclusive for it.

[Cinebient]

Considering how fast the latest iPad's are, I'm sure we'll see ARMS in the consumer laptops and desktops soon enough.

Not going to happen any time soon. Modern ARMs are not fast enough for Diva or "do what you want" OS.

Apple latest iPhones already best Apple latest MacBook Pros in single-core CPU performance (source: https://daringfireball.net/2020/04/the_2020_iphone_se).

They are definitely coming soon:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04 ... s-in-2021/

I'm sorry and no offence. But could we please stop spreading this false information that a iphone is faster than a current i7 that is repeated in every internet forum all the time? A geekbench score is not a valid comparision. The Apple ARM may be super fast, maybe faster than intel, but let's wait for valid benchmarks before stating it as a proof.
Thanks.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/23/2130 ... ujitsu-arm

[Haptix]

Considering how fast the latest iPad's are, I'm sure we'll see ARMS in the consumer laptops and desktops soon enough.

Not going to happen any time soon. Modern ARMs are not fast enough for Diva or "do what you want" OS.

Apple latest iPhones already best Apple latest MacBook Pros in single-core CPU performance (source: https://daringfireball.net/2020/04/the_2020_iphone_se).

They are definitely coming soon:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04 ... s-in-2021/

I'm sorry and no offence. But could we please stop spreading this false information that a iphone is faster than a current i7 that is repeated in every internet forum all the time? A geekbench score is not a valid comparision. The Apple ARM may be super fast, maybe faster than intel, but let's wait for valid benchmarks before stating it as a proof.
Thanks.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/23/2130 ... ujitsu-arm

I bet that if you take just enough PIC16F84´s and start stacking them together, you will eventually outperform that

[syntonica]

I'm worried this will be the kiss of death for apps like Metasynth - U&I have been spending well over a year having to update their ageing codebase to make it Catalina compatible, now I bet they are pissed that they have to do it all again.

Unless there's some hand-coded assembler in there, a recompile is all that is needed. Even then, the ARM series has the Neon SIMD instruction set. Xcode already compiles to ARM for iOS. It's just a quick switch to make it compile to ARM for macOS as opposed to compiling for Intel. The compiler will still provide auto-vectorization and intrinsics.

The only people that might need to do some rewrites are those who made their own SIMD libraries or used extensive assembly to exploit 32/64 bit Intel architecture.

For me, I just need to change the target and compile away.

Looks like my 2014 MBP is still good for at least another two years before it gets the OS update axe. In that time, I'll be watching with great interest as iOS and macOS finally converge and what sorts of hybrid products might be on offer.

I think the low-end stuff will make the switch first with the Mac Pro being the last to make the switch. That model may see some speed bumps, but otherwise will remain unchanged until it gets its first 128-core CPU. 5 A12Zs are as fast as the 28-core Xeon in the Mac Pro! The A14 should debut here pretty quick and will only be faster. The new Pro design will probably be half the size, or more with room to stuff it full of drives and cards. However, now imagine a 13" or 16" MacBook Pro with more CPU power than the current top end Mac Pro using less energy and producing less heat!

[Urs]

we can definitely expect drop in price for plugins because of the iOS plugins running on macOS.

Well, we have released freeware plug-ins in an effort to bring the market to its knees, but last time I checked our competitors still sold stuff for money

[Urs]

auto-vectorization

I have yet to come across a compiler that does this for anything other than the most trivial loops. You have to give them so many hints, it's faster to just write vectorised code yourself.

(please prove me wrong... I'd love to spend my time on other things)

[syntonica]

Considering how fast the latest iPad's are, I'm sure we'll see ARMS in the consumer laptops and desktops soon enough.

Not going to happen any time soon. Modern ARMs are not fast enough for Diva or "do what you want" OS.

Apple latest iPhones already best Apple latest MacBook Pros in single-core CPU performance (source: https://daringfireball.net/2020/04/the_2020_iphone_se).

They are definitely coming soon:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04 ... s-in-2021/

I'm sorry and no offence. But could we please stop spreading this false information that a iphone is faster than a current i7 that is repeated in every internet forum all the time? A geekbench score is not a valid comparision. The Apple ARM may be super fast, maybe faster than intel, but let's wait for valid benchmarks before stating it as a proof.
Thanks.

With a single-core, it is faster than some i7s and i9s. However, all stops pulled out, it's only about a quarter as fast. Geekbench is not the worst benchmark and does a good job of putting CPUs through various use cases in its testing. Like any benchmark though, keep your salt shaker handy. It's too bad that efficiency isn't compared as well.

[Youlean]

I'm worried this will be the kiss of death for apps like Metasynth - U&I have been spending well over a year having to update their ageing codebase to make it Catalina compatible, now I bet they are pissed that they have to do it all again.

a recompile is all that is needed.

It could be possible that OpenGL will be dropped for ARM (did anyone checked?). If so, or when, this will definitely require a lot of work to fix.