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

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

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.)

This is the answer for like 80% of devs.

Then you have IK Multimedia [except MODO Drums] and Native Instruments [for their non-Kontakt plugins]. So the one category missing is companies with large product lines running on legacy code.

[kidslow]

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!

The real test will be when you experience a hardware failure and need to upgrade the system. Only reason I ended up with an M1 is a catastrophic hardware failure on my laptop. My solution is have one Mac at least a generation behind the bleeding edge and one many generations behind. I never upgrade to the current generation MacOS.

To paraphrase Hyman Roth about the whinging developers. This is the business they have chosen. Maybe one is in the wrong business if they're going to get bent out of shape about technology advancing, or maybe it's just kvetching like anybody in any line of business would do. Many of the obstacles of the recent say 4-5 releases of MacOS are caused by Apple advancing the security of the OS to the point that it is no longer convenient to do things the way they used to be done. Of course the other half is Apple pushing changes to sell more hardware.

[Bombadil]

Funny, I feel the opposite. Mostly. I have an M1 mini, 1tb/16gb config. It works fine with Rosetta, but is significantly more efficient with Native versions.
Speaking of which, one thing I've noted since these machines came out is that it is often the smaller guy getting the M1 fix in before the big boys. That kind of argues against budgetary constraints. If Scuffham Amps can come up with a beta as of last January, that was fully functional, I don't see why Amplitube isn't updated, other than to sell us more stuff. Out of all IK's products, only a few have made the transition.
I think some companies will try to leverage a paid update out of this.

[plexuss]

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!

The real test will be when you experience a hardware failure and need to upgrade the system.

I likely will not upgrade. My plan is to buy another 2010 5,1 and carry on. The trash cans suck. If the M1 platform becomes usable then maybe, but on the used market. I refuse to give Apple my money directly. I am planning to migrate to windoze if needed.

In the OP's first post the complaint was about devs, not users. I grant that generally Core Audio is more usable from an end-user perspective than what goes on with windoze. But the issue was not with end users but with devs. From a dev perspective Apple's tech is no end of cost and frustration. Some devs have stopped supporting Apple because of this.

Let's face it all the tech on the platforms is far from being realistically wonderful work with. There is just so much tech crap coming out these days.

[kidslow]

Funny, I feel the opposite. Mostly. I have an M1 mini, 1tb/16gb config. It works fine with Rosetta, but is significantly more efficient with Native versions.
Speaking of which, one thing I've noted since these machines came out is that it is often the smaller guy getting the M1 fix in before the big boys. That kind of argues against budgetary constraints. If Scuffham Amps can come up with a beta as of last January, that was fully functional, I don't see why Amplitube isn't updated, other than to sell us more stuff. Out of all IK's products, only a few have made the transition.
I think some companies will try to leverage a paid update out of this.

It's not budgetary constraints unless you factor time as one of those constraints. Even if a one-man dev has nothing documented, smaller developers likely to understand their code better than a large shop who has cycled through generations of developers and product managers who did shit all to document things while they were there.

Surprisingly, Waves was on the ball here, even though I bet they suffer from such legacy problems. Apparently not including how to uplift their code to a new hardware architecture. However they did leverage a paid update out of it. Because of course if any company would, it would be them.

[escalona]

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.

My opinions have collided with your on a number of occasions on this forum. In this case I am 101% with you there. And even more: I'm a PC user. Nonetheless, at work (I teach) I am forced to work on our shiny, expensive and uber-posh new Macs... oh, well, too bad 80% of all our software doesn't work on those.
I'm not going to keep thrashing on Pa because I know a number of sensitive folks around these parts who are still under the ever lasting Kool-Aid influence (though it's been many years already... does it ever dilute?) Never mind. The Slate thing is particularly interesting to me. They don't fix software things that don't work. They keep selling hardware that is subpar (but hey, their support is awesome, just get another set of headphones/mics, etc...). They get on vacation all throughout 3/4 weeks during Christmas (sorry for not including other religious/cultural/vegan options here... I'm a atheist anyway)... but they keep shooting sales emails non stop all throughout.
Even PSP, who I know is Antoni and his few friends, are trying their best to update their entire catalog with the help of some vodka shots. Other small developers have done some amazing work to stay on top. All you get from the not-so small ones are complains and whining (Slate literally "not my fault Apple decided to move away from intel" when trying to justify his top of the line $2k interface doesn't work anymore... so what, half-wit? thousands of clients and that's all you got for them?). Not to talk about D*ck, he will just plainly insult you without any context.
Like others here, I see two ways, a) companies who take on the "f#ck Apple" option or b) users who take on the f#ck those lazy, greedy bastard devs (mentioned above).
I don't know man. I feel your pain, and I'm sorry and I wish it was different.
I'm just so happy with PSP and all the other small developers... and my working-class Pc...

[BONES]

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.

You do understand that all that means is that you are happy to settle for average performance, right? OTOH, in the PC world, we install drivers written by the people who manufacture the product, so we will always be able to extract more performance than you. I see this most blatantly with graphics cards - if you install an nVidia Quadro card into a Mac, it will work OK but if you put the same card into a PC and install nVidia's drivers, you'll get measurably better performance. With certified per-application optimisation, you get better performance again. e.g. If I am using Autodesk 3DS Max, I can load settings verified by Autodesk to provide better performance for that application than the standard settings. If I switch to Adobe After Effects, I can switch the settings to another preset, certified by Adobe. More importantly, if I forget to switch settings, it will only take me a few minutes to notice the difference and switch them over (on the fly, of course).

With audio, it would mean you miss out on some schweet features if you don't install the software that comes with the product, like the DSP effects you get with Yamaha and Steinberg I/O devices that allow you to run realtime effects on your live vocals or instruments.

Meanwhile, how many people struggle to get ASIO working on Windows due to driver issues?

Absolutely no-one as far as I know.

Before moving my audio work to Mac, I certainly did.

17 years ago. Do you think nothing has changed since then? Because I've been using Mac and PC for longer than that and, in my direct experience, PCs have gotten better while Macs have gotten worse, in that there was a time when there were some aspects of working on a Mac that I quite liked but today there is nothing, nothing at all, that is better about using a Mac compared to working on a PC.

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...

It does if you believe Apple's own data but if you look at independent comparison tests, you'll see that Apple's silicon is competitive but hardly world-beating.

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.

Everything you describe is exactly my experience with Windows over the past 15 years, possibly even further back than that. It's decades since using Windows was anything even approaching a chore - you install your software, including drivers, you plug in your device and off you go. If I switch my device on while I am listening to something it will switch over seamlessly as soon as the device starts and if I switch it off, it switches back. If it switches and I don't want it to switch, I click on the speaker icon in my system tray and change it. It really couldn't be simpler and it always just works.

[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.

My opinions have collided with your on a number of occasions on this forum. In this case I am 101% with you there. And even more: I'm a PC user. Nonetheless, at work (I teach) I am forced to work on our shiny, expensive and uber-posh new Macs... oh, well, too bad 80% of all our software doesn't work on those.
I'm not going to keep thrashing on Pa because I know a number of sensitive folks around these parts who are still under the ever lasting Kool-Aid influence (though it's been many years already... does it ever dilute?) Never mind. The Slate thing is particularly interesting to me. They don't fix software things that don't work. They keep selling hardware that is subpar (but hey, their support is awesome, just get another set of headphones/mics, etc...). They get on vacation all throughout 3/4 weeks during Christmas (sorry for not including other religious/cultural/vegan options here... I'm a atheist anyway)... but they keep shooting sales emails non stop all throughout.
Even PSP, who I know is Antoni and his few friends, are trying their best to update their entire catalog with the help of some vodka shots. Other small developers have done some amazing work to stay on top. All you get from the not-so small ones are complains and whining (Slate literally "not my fault Apple decided to move away from intel" when trying to justify his top of the line $2k interface doesn't work anymore... so what, half-wit? thousands of clients and that's all you got for them?). Not to talk about D*ck, he will just plainly insult you without any context.
Like others here, I see two ways, a) companies who take on the "f#ck Apple" option or b) users who take on the f#ck those lazy, greedy bastard devs (mentioned above).
I don't know man. I feel your pain, and I'm sorry and I wish it was different.
I'm just so happy with PSP and all the other small developers... and my working-class Pc...

The Slate stuff really rubbed me the wrong way after being a supporter of his for many many years. I almost purchased one of those interfaces but so goad I didn’t! Why make an intel only interface?!

And I wonder does anybody even call Slate out about the FG-X 2 plugin that was supposed to be released many years ago but never released? I digress..

For what it’s worth a lot of the unsupported plugins work in rosetta on my M1 Max, but for efficiency having the native version is so much better and stable.

I think the smaller devs who are passionate about making quality stuff and staying on top of updates is the way to go. I’ve heard great things about PSP but never gave them a try. Klanghelm is even Native M1 and he has been pretty silent with new stuff (although I heard he was working on a new EQ plugin for many years now).

I’m hopeful that the big developers start putting more effort into the plugins and maintaining/updating them. It should not be that a 1 man development team can deliver native M1 support faster than a bigger company with tons more resources. I would be embarrassed if I was some of these bigger companies!

[SoftSynthLover99]

@bones Apple’s silicon chips are way more than competitive. That’s such a huge understatement. The M1 chip was outperforming many computers and PCs worth thousands more.

The M1 Pro/M1 Max chips are insanely powerful. If you haven’t used one in a production environment you just won’t understand. I’m running sessions that use to make my previous macbook pro fans sound like an airplane. The M1 max doesn’t even get hot. I’ve yet to even hear the fans come on and I’m running large sessions with tons of plugins oversampled at 4-8x. Oh and at the lowest buffer…..

I don’t know of any previous Macbook Pro or PC laptop that can do this without sounding like jet engine. You may not believe the hype but it’s not actually hype if it’s true

[BONES]

No, no, no, no, no! Here, for the umpteenth time, is an article showing comparisons of real laptops that you can go to a shop and buy, all for roughly the same price as the new MacBook Pro they test against. As you'll see if you look at the graphs, Ryzen powered PCs absolutely slaughter Apple's M1 in all but one test. And in most of them, Intel also beats the M1, albeit by a slimmer margin. It is just that one benchmark where the M1 does really well and, even there, it is still bested by Intel.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/393822/ ... -4000.html

[BONES]

The M1 Pro/M1 Max chips are insanely powerful. If you haven’t used one in a production environment you just won’t understand.

I am sitting here, in front of my dual Xeon workstation, laughing at your complete ignorance. I have 16 CPU cores and 32 threads available, and an nVidia Quadro RTX5000 graphics card that is likely worth as much as your entire computer. I know precisely what a powerful computer feels like in the most demanding of post-production work. Doing audio is an absolute doddle by comparison.

I’m running sessions that use to make my previous macbook pro fans sound like an airplane. The M1 max doesn’t even get hot. I’ve yet to even hear the fans come on and I’m running large sessions with tons of plugins oversampled at 4-8x. Oh and at the lowest buffer…..

So what? Who gives a flying f**k if the fans are on or not? I've always got the telly on when I'm working, and at this time of year I've got a big desk fan blowing air on me, so I wouldn't know whether my laptop fan is on or not. It's utterly irrelevant. If it did matter, I'd probably have bought another liquid cooled laptop like the Acer I had a few years ago. Choice is a wonderful ting.

I don’t know of any previous Macbook Pro or PC laptop that can do this without sounding like jet engine. You may not believe the hype but it’s not actually hype if it’s true

Except the benchmarks show, quite clearly, that it's not true. And before you start bleating about the comparison being the older, slower M1 chip, I'd point out that both Intel and AMD also have newer, faster generations of CPUs available now, too, and that the step-up for Intel is the biggest they've managed in years.

[SoftSynthLover99]

No, no, no, no, no! Here, for the umpteenth time, is an article showing comparisons of real laptops that you can go to a shop and buy, all for roughly the same price as the new MacBook Pro they test against. As you'll see if you look at the graphs, Ryzen powered PCs absolutely slaughter Apple's M1 in all but one test. And in most of them, Intel also beats the M1, albeit by a slimmer margin. It is just that one benchmark where the M1 does really well and, even there, it is still bested by Intel.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/393822/ ... -4000.html

This is the 1st generation M1 chip. I personally have a max spec M1 Max. But did you ready the part of the article that said this:
“ None of this bothers Apple’s M1 much though. Based on TSMC’s most advanced 5nm process, it’s a stone cold killer, with Macworld reporting no fan noise at all during the run. That can’t be said of the x86 laptops, which all vary from fairly quiet to a little rackety.”

This is the point I’m making. These machines are silent workhorses that don’t even flinch when pushed hard. And that was the basic m1 chip! The M1 Pro and M1 Max are even crazier when it comes to real world performance. Like I said you just have to try it to truly understand. Looking at benchmarks don’t do these machines justice.

[SoftSynthLover99]

No, no, no, no, no! Here, for the umpteenth time, is an article showing comparisons of real laptops that you can go to a shop and buy, all for roughly the same price as the new MacBook Pro they test against. As you'll see if you look at the graphs, Ryzen powered PCs absolutely slaughter Apple's M1 in all but one test. And in most of them, Intel also beats the M1, albeit by a slimmer margin. It is just that one benchmark where the M1 does really well and, even there, it is still bested by Intel.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/393822/ ... -4000.html

This is the 1st generation M1 chip. I personally have a max spec M1 Max. But did you read the part of the article that said this:
“ None of this bothers Apple’s M1 much though. Based on TSMC’s most advanced 5nm process, it’s a stone cold killer, with Macworld reporting no fan noise at all during the run. That can’t be said of the x86 laptops, which all vary from fairly quiet to a little rackety.”

This is the point I’m making. These machines are silent workhorses that don’t even flinch when pushed hard. And that was the basic m1 chip! The M1 Pro and M1 Max are even crazier when it comes to real world performance. Like I said you just have to try it to truly understand. Looking at benchmarks don’t do these machines justice.

[SoftSynthLover99]

The M1 Pro/M1 Max chips are insanely powerful. If you haven’t used one in a production environment you just won’t understand.

I am sitting here, in front of my dual Xeon workstation, laughing at your complete ignorance. I have 16 CPU cores and 32 threads available, and an nVidia Quadro RTX5000 graphics card that is likely worth as much as your entire computer. I know precisely what a powerful computer feels like in the most demanding of post-production work. Doing audio is an absolute doddle by comparison.

I’m running sessions that use to make my previous macbook pro fans sound like an airplane. The M1 max doesn’t even get hot. I’ve yet to even hear the fans come on and I’m running large sessions with tons of plugins oversampled at 4-8x. Oh and at the lowest buffer…..

So what? Who gives a flying f**k if the fans are on or not? I've always got the telly on when I'm working, and at this time of year I've got a big desk fan blowing air on me, so I wouldn't know whether my laptop fan is on or not. It's utterly irrelevant. If it did matter, I'd probably have bought another liquid cooled laptop like the Acer I had a few years ago. Choice is a wonderful ting.

I don’t know of any previous Macbook Pro or PC laptop that can do this without sounding like jet engine. You may not believe the hype but it’s not actually hype if it’s true

Except the benchmarks show, quite clearly, that it's not true. And before you start bleating about the comparison being the older, slower M1 chip, I'd point out that both Intel and AMD also have newer, faster generations of CPUs available now, too, and that the step-up for Intel is the biggest they've managed in years.

Aaah you’re one of those guys. Mind already set on your version of the truth. More power to ya!

[AnX]

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.