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

[LeVzi]

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.

Well all you achieved there is you are an apple fanboi. I have watched , since I came into the music scene, Apple having twice the problems Windows users have. I can't actually recall any major issues with the OS that's caused major issues in Doze land. I have had issues with hardware recently, but never the OS. Drivers for hardware (Audio Interfaces) are down to the company supplying the interface, that's not a windows thing. VST's still work on my system in 32 bit bridged world.

Apple are the culprits here, as was said, they break backwards compatibility without a care in the world, and you all subscribe to it, just because the M1 is a decent chip, well guess what , both AMD and Intel have chips that are as good and better, again, as was said previous, yet you seem to disregard that. The new Intel chip beats the M1 in single core and multiple core performance. Only good thing about the M1 is the power consumption in comparison.

I don't deny the M1 is a good chip, but look at the cost of it. I'd be furious if I'd lost the use of 90% of my plugins from the start.

[Fraggle]

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.

Totally support your rant - I feel the same - I have all Kilohearts plugins and am 'waiting' for them to go M1 native. They are small compared to N.I. but still I think your rant applies to them as well. Currently they are working on updating their whole arsenal to version 2 , so its a big job, but like you said, all developers were given warning in advance - 101% support your amazement and disappointment.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Power consumption is 5nm thing, just saying...

[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.

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

By saying that you basically claim that Devs couldn't possibly survive by supporting Windows alone - which I highly doubt. It certainly wasn't true back in the day.

I still think Mac users are a highly vocal minority who - while constantly forgiving Apple all and everything - expect being spoilt rotten for free by every other company.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

From my experience, Mac delivers a higher customer support overhead (while the OS is classy/shiny and everything, it's practically not as user-friendly as it is advertised). But despite having much smaller installed computers base, Mac users buy plugins about 75% more frequently than Windows users.

[sqigls]

I don't deny the M1 is a good chip, but look at the cost of it. I'd be furious if I'd lost the use of 90% of my plugins from the start.

the M1 isn't just a good chip (and i'm not flaming you here, just stating my experience) I've been running the same projects that were bringing my older mac and windows i7 machines to their knees at the most efficient buffer sizes... but now in 96k instead of 48, generally at or (way) under 256 sample buffers, using 'divine' modes in real-time, there's little to no heat coming from the case unless driving the GPU hard, it's dead silent when i'm recording mics (in 96k with oversampling and the rest) and i haven't even hit the ceiling.

I took the plunge and went straight to Monterey and installed Rosetta when i bought the new MBpro. The only real casualty for me has been the Exponential Audio verbs, and almost every day i get emails from devs about native silicon releases. Other's mileage is gonna vary of course.

Lazy developers are the last of my concern. There are that many plugin options nowadays, and by now i've stopped supporting shit developers anyway.

[LeVzi]

I don't deny the M1 is a good chip, but look at the cost of it. I'd be furious if I'd lost the use of 90% of my plugins from the start.

the M1 isn't just a good chip (and i'm not flaming you here, just stating my experience) I've been running the same projects that were bringing my older mac and windows i7 machines to their knees at the most efficient buffer sizes... but now in 96k instead of 48, generally at or (way) under 256 sample buffers, using 'divine' modes in real-time, there's little to no heat coming from the case unless driving the GPU hard, it's dead silent when i'm recording mics (in 96k with oversampling and the rest) and i haven't even hit the ceiling.

I took the plunge and went straight to Monterey and installed Rosetta when i bought the new MBpro. The only real casualty for me has been the Exponential Audio verbs, and almost every day i get emails from devs about native silicon releases. Other's mileage is gonna vary of course.

Lazy developers are the last of my concern. There are that many plugin options nowadays, and by now i've stopped supporting shit developers anyway.

I agree , it's a very powerful chip ,and how they get the power consumption so low is credit to the technology, I cannot claim the same thing from my Ryzen 9. But my cooling system is extremely quiet, and I could have gone a lot quieter if I needed to record, but I don't.

My point is, every OS update on a mac seems to cause more damage than ever, and devs must find it hard to be forced to update quickly, and as often, doesn't seem like long ago Catalina arrived and Mac users were screwed then.

I feel for mac users, and especially Ableton ones, because that went extremely unstable on Mac, I know some that went back to Logic just for stability.

I think Apple, if they were honest, would have everything "in house" and 3rd party anything would be removed, that way they can monitor and keep everything really stable which has really been their biggest selling point until recent years.

[Fraggle]

Through the 1990's and until 2008 I used Windows PCs for work, gaming and music. I switched to Mac in 2008. Never regretted it.
Never had to fix any of my Macs.
I recently tried a Windows 10 Dell laptop and was reminded of how incoherent the OS is.
For music I have never had an audio issue in the 12 years of using Macs. They cost more up front , but as Widows PCs are so often at the repair shop , I can firmly say that over a life cycle of a Mac I save money compared to its PC equivalent.
Regarding the OP's point (as I said above) I 100% support his view.

If others love Windows 10 , or any other windows OS , lovely for them.
From my experience, that OS is a pile of sh__t that makes doing anything 'hard work'.
I want to be productive - my computer works for me , not the other way around.

[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.

By saying that you basically claim that Devs couldn't possibly survive by supporting Windows alone - which I highly doubt. It certainly wasn't true back in the day.

I still think Mac users are a highly vocal minority who - while constantly forgiving Apple all and everything - expect being spoilt rotten for free by every other company.

I think developers can survive on Windows alone, at least small one-man shops, anyways.

However, while typically only a fraction of a developer’s userbase, Mac users tend to make up about half of their paying customers, maybe more.

But all I was really saying was a developer that is prone to erratic, emotional behaviour is one that is going to burn you, too, sooner or later. So it’s good when they reveal their instability sooner than later so I know to avoid them.

[Bombadil]

I'd love to use TrackS in my Native Logic template. The ones I use, I know pretty well and like. However, since it's not Native, I use Logic stock effects in the template.
I have yet to push my M1 to capacity. Maybe, I should try.
All 3 of my 3rd party synths are Native, + Alchemy, + Sculpture, etc. If I upgrade from Omnisphere 1 to 2, that would be another. Plenty.
If IK can port Sampletank 4 to M1 Native, I don't see why it can't do it with their other plugins. Sampletank 4 is a bit creaky at this point.

[plexuss]

From my experience, Mac delivers a higher customer support overhead (while the OS is classy/shiny and everything, it's practically not as user-friendly as it is advertised). But despite having much smaller installed computers base, Mac users buy plugins about 75% more frequently than Windows users.

This is the logo of the company that provides 3rd party repair support exclusively for apple laptop products, repairing macbooks down to the component level in order to keep the customers happy but more importantly to take advantage of an opportunity left by a major customer service gap created by Apple. The company has about 15 employees and is owned by a 30-something year old (eg. they are successful). Their logo basically describes Apple customer mentality:

Messages Image(3073016195).png

[sqigls]

black sheep screwdriver?

[jamcat]

If IK can port Sampletank 4 to M1 Native, I don't see why it can't do it with their other plugins. Sampletank 4 is a bit creaky at this point.

I think it’s because of the sheer size of T-RackS. There are lots of models in TR. Same for AmpliTube.

[plexuss]

black sheep screwdriver?

Oh come on, you can do better than that! It's quite a brilliant logo because the logo itself implies something about the customers in both the context of apple and the repair shop.

sheep noun, often attributive
\ ˈshēp \ plural sheep
2b: a timid docile person especially one easily influenced or led
(Merriam-Webster)

[teilo]

You do understand that all that means is that you are happy to settle for average performance, right?

I'm not much of a gamer. I'm a writer, programmer, and musician. I do not have "average" performance on my M1 Max laptop. I have better performance than I can get on any Windows laptop for the same money, and it doesn't turn into an oven, is silent, and more portable. As for GPU: also not remotely average performance. Almost as good as the best mobile GPUs available, at a fraction of the heat and wattage. I also work in IT (I'm the CIO of a manufacturing company), with high-end CAD workstation-level laptops. I work in Windows all the time, all day, every day.