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

[AnX]

Thread title needs to be changed, it's total bullshit, and offensive to hard working devs who constantly have to do extra work to fix the bizzare way apple decide to "update" their hardware/software

[Aleksey Vaneev]

M1 is faster with -ffast-math Apple Clang compiler switch only. But that's prone to generating mathematical errors. Without that switch, the difference between Rosetta2 and native is inexistent. Other developer's mileage may vary, but in any case it's just incorrect to compare native to Rosetta2 layer. Also, Apple did not use the fastest Intel mobile CPUs, so comparing Apple M1 to previous "sub-prime" processors does not make Intel's advancements justice.

[SoftSynthLover99]

Thread title needs to be changed, it's total bullshit, and offensive to hard working devs who constantly have to do extra work to fix the bizzare way apple decide to "update" their hardware/software

Innovation is not “bizarre” apple are moving towards an ecosystem that is infinitely more powerful and less expensive which benefits everyone especially professionals. The same spec MacBook Pro I have now would’ve cost me around $8k for the intel version a few years ago brand new. So with the M1 Pro Max I get better performance and save over $3K. It’s not unreasonable to expect plugin developers to take advantage of that power and stay up to date.

And please it’s not offensive to the hard working devs because they are the ones who’ve had M1 support already available for users! In fact I applaud the hard working devs I know iIt’s not an easy job and I’m not suggesting it is. But 3 years is unreasonable IMO.

As musicians writers and producers we are are constantly getting called out for making “trashy pop music” or whatever insult is popular nowadays to suggest modern music is worse than the past. When in reality we are working all day from morning to night on recording sessions with no breaks and have to be on A+ game 24/7. Do you hear us complain? Nope we just get it done. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect companies to “get it done” the same way when you spend thousands of dollars on software.

[SoftSynthLover99]

yes this thread gets my vote for the 'most ridiculous'

Really? I find it interesting to discuss all the different needs and expecations of customers in the context of some of the typical challenges developers have on their end. It may help customers and developers to better understand each other and avoid conflicts. I find it useful in this regard. *shrug*

ok, the premise of the title of this thread is quite out of context with reality.
done

Reality is we are 3 years in to the apple silicon move and some developers are still dragging feet. That is the reality. So yeah some lazy developers are getting exposed by the transition.

KVR loves to trash Waves but they were quick in moving all plugins to M1 native. What that shows is they can be trusted to stay up to date and that WUP might not actually be a bad thing. So hard working developers are also being exposed for being awesome at what they do

[whyterabbyt]

Reality is we are 3 years in to the apple silicon move

So who got access to ARM-based OSX systems a year and a half before the June 2020 announcement of the Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kit ?

[SoftSynthLover99]

Reality is we are 3 years in to the apple silicon move

So who got access to ARM-based OSX systems a year and a half before the June 2020 announcement of the Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kit ?

Early 2019 is when Apple reached out to all the developers so it’s been known about for quite some time. Those in the know likely knew about it sooner than that.

[whyterabbyt]

Reality is we are 3 years in to the apple silicon move

So who got access to ARM-based OSX systems a year and a half before the June 2020 announcement of the Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kit ?

Early 2019 is when Apple reached out to all the developers so it’s been known about for quite some time. Those in the know likely knew about it sooner than that.

'Known about' and having access to a usable development platform are two different things.

[MirkoVanHauten]

Yeah and Apple is definitely not known to mess up everything shortly before or after the release, lol. Those alpha version were surely worth it XD I remember the same bs when it was about notarization. I constantly get emails from all devs begging me to not update MacOS. I'm sure they're all just lazy af

I couldn't care less. If it's not worth for those devs yet, why should they put all the work in? Especially in a first version of a chip?

[AnX]

Thread title needs to be changed, it's total bullshit, and offensive to hard working devs who constantly have to do extra work to fix the bizzare way apple decide to "update" their hardware/software

Innovation is not “bizarre” apple are moving towards an ecosystem that is infinitely more powerful and less expensive which benefits everyone especially professionals. The same spec MacBook Pro I have now would’ve cost me around $8k for the intel version a few years ago brand new. So with the M1 Pro Max I get better performance and save over $3K. It’s not unreasonable to expect plugin developers to take advantage of that power and stay up to date.

And please it’s not offensive to the hard working devs because they are the ones who’ve had M1 support already available for users! In fact I applaud the hard working devs I know iIt’s not an easy job and I’m not suggesting it is. But 3 years is unreasonable IMO.

As musicians writers and producers we are are constantly getting called out for making “trashy pop music” or whatever insult is popular nowadays to suggest modern music is worse than the past. When in reality we are working all day from morning to night on recording sessions with no breaks and have to be on A+ game 24/7. Do you hear us complain? Nope we just get it done. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect companies to “get it done” the same way when you spend thousands of dollars on software.

It's not the devs fault apple make everything such a cluster f**k...

[FapFilter]

It's not the devs fault apple make everything such a cluster f**k...

definitely agree in general, though such a switch in processor architecture is indeed not an easy task for everyone, but sometimes can be necessary, or at least give great advantages over previous technology.
There's no excuse for so much trouble with most of the other OS updates where basic technology stays the same for (a) decade(s).
If it at least ran more efficient than the competition because of that, but in my brief experience, it actually doesn't even.

[SoftSynthLover99]

Reality is we are 3 years in to the apple silicon move

So who got access to ARM-based OSX systems a year and a half before the June 2020 announcement of the Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kit ?

Early 2019 is when Apple reached out to all the developers so it’s been known about for quite some time. Those in the know likely knew about it sooner than that.

'Known about' and having access to a usable development platform are two different things.

That is true. I know people who code (I myself don’t) at such a fast an insane rate that I may be biased to how development works, but it just feels like some of the plugin developers take users for granted. They are quick to throw up tons of marketing campaigns but slow to roll out useful updates like Native M1 support.

I think you guys are overestimating how hard it is to code for someone who does it for a living vs someone who doesn’t know how. Like sure a beginner may have trouble coding but not someone who’s been doing it over many decades.

I stand by my thread title. Many developers are Native M1 now in 2022. Those who aren’t, I can’t help but see the laziness or lack of respect for paying customers.

BTW these aren’t free plugins. We all pay our hard earned money for these products. It’s not unreasonable to expect them to stay up to date with new technologies and OS updates.

[rod_zero]

One thing that is a constant year over year about the apple vs mac discussion is that mac users always state their personal experience as evidence, maybe because "artist types", who buy apple, are emotion driven and are not aware of how evidence works in science. No matter how much evidence you present they always "feel" another way, so this debate continues to be pointless because for a lot of people is about feelings. It is also incredible the amount of money apple can squeeze out of their clients, their prices have increased so ridiculous and they keep pushing the envelope to surprise of no one. Finally the prices of peripherals, the ever ever resolved quality of their cables which still break to this day, it is all a very masochist and abusive relationship with their customers.

The big problem on windows is and always will be the ASIO drivers, after I used focusrite, maudio, NI, personus and some others USB audio interfaces i also thought windows was a lost cause, then I got an RME and experienced the enormous difference good drivers make. Hopefully now you have STeinberg UR line which also has very good drivers and the thunderbolt ones which can also work very well on windows.

As for the topic at hand, this software industry is bloated, I can imagine many developers don't see the point or wait until the last chance to update for new MacOS, specially those focused on sales volume. Slate is no surprise, they has always give me a very bad vibe, it is that kind of sales man that would tell you anything to convince you, and he uses BIG, IMPORTANT, AWESOME, words in his marketing as if every product is the second coming of christ.He reminds me of a certain orange politician in the way he talks.

I guess companies like U-he are way more agile, with better software development practices that help them reduce costs when updating to apple latest new tech every year.

[chk071]

I guess companies like U-he are way more agile, with better software development practices that help them reduce costs when updating to apple latest new tech every year.

U-he started as a Mac OS developer, and, I'm pretty sure they're still heavy Apple users, so, it's no wonder that they support it well.

[Super Piano Hater 64]

I think you guys are overestimating how hard it is to code for someone who does it for a living vs someone who doesn’t know how.

I think you're just plain misunderstanding a lot of things.

First things first. You seem to think this is all up to the programmers. At big companies, they're not the ones who decide what to do next. That's up to the investors, executives, and professional managers who (with rare exceptions) could not write a "hello world" program to save their lives. They have even less of a clue than you do. As a rule, they will absolutely blow off ALL maintenance work in favor of a marketing push, or a new product/feature release. The flashier, the better, because their goal is to take credit for every possible success and turn it into a fat bonus, a raise, or a promotion. If they can get away with it, they'll fire all the programmers and have marketing and sales do all the work. I'm not naming specific examples but I'm sure you've already thought of one or two brands that are obviously following this playbook. Companies like this will willfully ignore a compatibility deadline until the last possible second, because they have better things to do than make invisible improvements to products that are already bringing in shiny sales figures. And by "better" I mean "more lucrative for the people in charge."

That's about half the equation here.

The other half concerns what programmers actually do. If you're writing something from scratch, there are cases where, sure, you can just cut loose and write a bunch of code, and maybe you'll get close enough to the finish line that you won't have to nuke your prototype and start over. That's a rare occurrence. The vast majority of programming work consists of figuring out how to fix something in an existing design. It's research first and engineering second. The bigger the codebase, the longer you have to study it before adding or changing any code. Sometimes you spend weeks digging into a subtle bug, and the only change you need to make is to use a different operator on one particular line. Sometimes there's "just one" bug, but the change needs to happen in hundreds of places all across the codebase, and it conflicts with other work that's already in progress. Sometimes a fix to one bug will expose another totally different bug, potentially something that causes crashes or data corruption, especially in a language like C++, which is used for almost all audio software. Sometimes that happens because you ran the code on a new platform where the memory semantics are different. It builds with no warnings, and then you run it and all hell breaks loose. Try working in the industry sometime and I bet your perspective will change.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

In general, it's correct what Super Piano Hater 64 wrote, but in case of M1 native porting, the main hurdles are making sure -ffast-math switch does not break something (it did break something in my case, so I had to find workarounds), and a possibility of not being able to recode some SSE code for NEON. That's in the case of plugins. But in the case of e.g. iLok, it's just a complete hell to port it to M1 I believe.