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

[kidslow]

There's no "lazy" about it, it's not like the developers are sitting around not doing anything and just drawing a salary. They're working on stuff 100% of the time, it's just a question of what they're working on. Every day spent dealing with Apple compatibility woes is a day not spent fixing other bugs or developing new stuff.

I wasn't the one to use the word lazy. I think that's a mischaracterization and if you'll look back at my first post in this thread, you'll see how I characterize those who haven't made the leap to M1. But since you're a developer riddle me this. Why is it that some go about doing their work and advancing their software to be compatible, and some gripe and complain about Apple? If you don't want to deal with Apple's BS, don't develop for Mac. Seems like a simple solution. Apparently that's the choice you've made. I won't begrudge anyone for making that choice.

And I will add for all the haters, having owned Mac laptops from iBook to TiBook to MacBook, and many many Windows systems over the years the M1 that I have is the lightest, most powerful system I've ever experienced bar none, and the battery life is simply amazing. They're doing something right.

[chk071]

As an Intel Mac (and PC) user, I think I'm more surprised at: (1) how quickly many developers actually did get to M1 compatibility and (2) that anybody thought that Apple introducing a whole new chip and OS's optimized for that chip would somehow go quickly and smoothly.

Imagine what it means for developers: Reading lots of documentation about how to migrate, or re-write their software for the new architecture. Lots of work to do, when you optimized your plugins for the use of certain CPU features, which are no more existant in the new architecture. Horror for me, but, maybe some devs appreciate the extra challenge and work.

Not that they have much of a choice, if half of their clientele is on Apple computers.

[kidslow]

The irony is the developers who integrate more directly with the hardware and optimized everything so that it all performs optimally for things like CPU usage will have a much harder time with the migration than those who rely on a framework that handles most of those decisions for them. My understanding is that devs who rely on Pace iLok for parts of their licensing have been delayed by Pace's slow pace and not by their own design.

[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.

Good thing you wrote that last disclaimer, because, of course you get better performance for almost 4.000 € on a Windows laptop. It surely doesn't "turn into an oven" either.

There's no point in discussion your personal decision, of course, but, that's just pulling things out of... thin air, to avoid swear words.

I didn't even need the disclaimer. The original claim that with Mac you settle for "average performance" is just plain wrong. When the M1 Max/Pro was released, the top tier laptop CPU competitors were the i9-11900H and the 5900HX. The M1 Max/Pro is neck-and-neck with them at 30% less power, and with from 4-7X the memory bandwidth. That's not average.

[chk071]

True (although you're not talking about an average PC here, for almost 4.000 €), but, it's simply wrong that you get better performance than on any Windows laptop for the same money.

[pdxindy]

True (although you're not talking about an average PC here, for almost 4.000 €), but, it's simply wrong that you get better performance than on any Windows laptop for the same money.

I consider heat and fan noise part of performance. If the fan is making noise, it is an impediment to recording live audio.

I also consider battery life part of performance. If I am recording on location and don't have power to plug into, then battery life matters.

[wvshpr]

I think Apple will surprise a lot of people this year with their desktop machines.

Imagine what they'll be able to if there is more air around the processor.

When it comes to developers, I‘ll cut them some slack, especially smaller devs with the pandemic and all its mental health effects it has on people.

I have a little less sympathy with huge companies dragging their feet. Their codebase and organizational skills should be way more robust.

[Ploki]

True (although you're not talking about an average PC here, for almost 4.000 €), but, it's simply wrong that you get better performance than on any Windows laptop for the same money.

They really knocked one out of the park with these chips.
sustained performance, actual hands on snappiness.

I sort of wanted to upgrade to M1 Pro chip, but my original M1 (1500€) w/ logic is doing so well i'll just wait for M2 Pro.
It's an insanity level of performance considering the form factor and the fact how cool it runs.

[thecontrolcentre]

Have you even LOOKED at your post signature lately? Stop whining, make music. God, are you boring.

[filulilu]

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.

Isn't Rosetta backwards compatibility?

[dayjob]

worst thread of 2022... so far.

i expect it'll remain in the top 5 and be a contender at year's end.

[foosnark]

But since you're a developer riddle me this. Why is it that some go about doing their work and advancing their software to be compatible, and some gripe and complain about Apple?

It's like anything else that is annoying, time-consuming, and someone else's fault. You may have to do the thing anyway, but griping and complaining is 100% natural.

It's like filing income taxes in the US. In most other countries, the entire system is much simpler, more efficient and automatic. I'm going to hate it, and I'm going to complain the entire time, but I'm going to do it.

...

I can't speak for other companies' business decisions. But every place where I've done software development (a tiny company that sold software to RV dealerships, a computer game development studio, a 3D multiplayer game engine that licensed to game devs, and an aerospace engineering software company) we always had:

- huge backlog of stuff to do
- difficult decisions about prioritizing it, handed down by product managers to the actual developers
- dependencies on third-party library developers who also couldn't get stuff done fast enough

Something like M1 no doubt gets some priority for business reasons -- but the questions are: what else is even more important, who is able/available to do the conversion, do we have the third-party libraries we need, how many new machines do we have to buy, how long will the conversion and testing actually take, etc.

In the industry where I work now, absolutely nobody uses OSX. And my company doesn't have one single Windows 11 installation yet even for testing purposes. Upgrading my secondary dev machine to it is on the IT guy's list to do... sometime soonish maybe. Chances are, we will not have to do anything different for compatibility reasons anyway (*), and also our clients are likely to wait as long as possible to switch.

(*) Two of the projects I took on last year though, were upgrading from TFS 2013 build servers to Azure DevOps 2020 (a project I specifically asked not to be assigned to because I knew it would be a mostly non-programming hassle of Guess The Mystery Configuration Settings, but was given it anyway because there was nobody more competent), and from Visual Studio 2017 to 2019 (and an older Intel FORTRAN version to their most recent one). Neither of those were any fun and I complained plenty. But we have never had even a single problem with a client who couldn't run our software because they upgraded their Windows computer.

[zvenx]

There seems to me a high correlation between the developers who complain about vst3 and those complaining about having to do an apple silicon native version.

rsp

[chk071]

I can imagine that it's both similarly annoying.

I give VST3 a better chance to survive the next 10 years until there's something new and shiny though.

[kidslow]

Isn't Rosetta backwards compatibility?

It is, today, but at some point Apple will remove the Rosetta layer. More importantly, it is just not as efficient. Some developers (AudioDamage I'm looking at you) will claim otherwise, but it is just not true that Rosetta is as efficient as native ARM. Also, depending on your DAW, if you require a plugin that uses Rosetta you may have to run the entire DAW in Rosetta mode, so the inefficiencies cascade down your whole toolchain.

Also I don't think this will go down as one of the worst threads of the year per @dayjob's comment even despite the rather inartful heading, but I'm not sure how adding a snarky comment improves the thread either dayjob. In between the typical fight over Windows vs Mac, there is an important conversation going on that has to do with how developers keep up with platform changes and what customer expectations should be around that. I know I'm paying attention to which developers are on the ball and it will impact my purchasing decisions going forward.