A version for Mac (revisited)

I'd've put this in the old thread, but it got locked.

Just a heads up, really.  WaveLab, which is in many areas a direct competitor to Audition, is currently being ported to the Mac; until now this possibility has been strenuously denied. 

http://forum.cubase.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=859110#859110

Paul

An amusing comment there...  "Philippe finally bought a Mac?"  ...if you're familiar with WaveLab's history.

The move to Intel chips certainly has to help in this regard, as was noted in the old locked thread.

OK, so to state the logical implication here: if WaveLab, why not Audition?  It would be easier now than any other time so far.  Well, that is excepting the "complete market domination" thing, which doesn't appear to be a priority to Adobe.

I can't help but to take a pessimist's view on things right now.  First you have Adobe's hide-it-under-a-bushel approach to marketing Audition 3, and then what I fear is the exact same folks responsible for Audition also doing double-duty for Soundbooth (I have SB CS3 but it has no credits on the About screen.  Anyone have CS4?  I wanted to compare AA3's credits to SB's.  Or maybe there aren't any on purpose.).  So unless Adobe is willing to invest more tech staff into that department, you'll have one of two things: Audition 4 with improved performance and helpful new features OR Audition 4 ported to Mac but kludged on both platforms.  (NO, I don't know anything about Audition 4, nor has anyone told me it exists.  I'm just deducing the next logical event in the life of this product the same way you or anyone else would.)  Well, historically we've never heard advanced announcements about upcoming releases, and news typically appears every 18-21 months or so, so I guess as usual we will have to be patient.  (We're at 17 months now, if you don't count the 3.0.1 update.)

I am curious when WaveLab Mac will release and how costly it will be.

Despite what many say macs have their uses - mind you I can't think of one 

I really hope AA don't waste their time going down that path.  The have a small share of a large market on the PC why would they want another small share of an even smaller market?

Lets not distract those AA programmers with talk of macs 

FWIW, I'm not aware that anything has changed about this. Let's face it - they have enough trouble trying to get it to work acceptably on a PC, never mind a steenking M'cDoorstop!

BTW, I was not entirely surprised at this revelation.  We have already been told that the WaveLab UI is getting a complete revamp for v7, and I hazarded a quiet guess that this might include the use of a cross-platform framework, such as QT.

OTOH, I though this was a possibility with Audition 3, seeing as Adobe have other programs with a similar UI which are cross-platform (not least, SoundBooth), and I was wrong then.

Paul

I did a little checking to see what, if anything, I could add from what Adobe has said, and there are a couple of things (although I think that most people know the first one already); On the newer Macs, Audition runs fine under Bootcamp and Parallels, and for the most part, the developers appear to think that this is quite sufficient.

The only other thing is that obviously, they re-analyse the situation from time to time - but they have explicitly said that unless the Mac/PC market dynamics change, nothing about the situation will alter, simply because it isn't financially worth it.

Also, it has been pointed out that it took about 8 years for a transition in the other direction to become stable enough to use (that was PT from Mac to PC), and since there are apparently similar degrees of complexity involved in a port of Audition, chances are that for a long time there would be a lot of relatively dissatisfied Mac users, and a disproportionate amount of development time would need to be spent to get anywhere with the situation - all at a loss to the established users. What this means in terms of market dynamics is that PCs would virtually have to fall off the face of the earth before a Mac port would be seriously considered.

The problem with the port appears to be the main engine, as far as I can tell - whilst a lot of the 'external' bits of the program have been modularised into VSTs, the core of it most certainly hasn't been. In that sense, Audition is completely different from Soundbooth, which was developed from the outset explicitly with dual platform running intended.

I have spoken to people who've done experiments with dual platform conversions, and apparently even though on the face of it, they look like needing no more than a recompile, the reality is completely different, and far worse. In fact being able to do this is no more than a utopian dream...

Well said.  Thanks for the details, Steve.

I would also point out that in an interview/podcast I did with the product manager of the Audition team, they said in no uncertain terms that there will NOT be a Mac version.

Implicit was the notion that Audition is firmly established in its niches (radio in particular), and we're already on Windows.  I doubt they would gain much market share with a Mac version, anyhow.

Good point, Blair.  One thing we can say about the Mac crowd is that they're persistent and noisy, keeping this question alive seemingly in perpetuity.  But that doesn't necessarily mean there's any significant demand that would translate into a profitable market share.

For restoration tools and 2-track editing, there's nothing close to Audition in value for the Mac, though, is there?

I doubt they would gain much market share with a Mac version, anyhow.

I'm sure they wouldn't - Mac users make a thoroughly disproportionate  amount of noise...

I think that there would be a lot more market share to be had from a Linux version, myself. But that's not likely to happen either - for the same code reasons as mentioned above.

Good point, Blair.  One thing we can say about the Mac crowd is that they're persistent and noisy, keeping this question alive seemingly in perpetuity.  But that doesn't necessarily mean there's any significant demand that would translate into a profitable market share.

Steinberg think it will, though (especially if Adobe don't come too!), after resisting firmly for many years.  There are certainly people in the WaveLab forum who are entirely Mac based except for their WaveLab machine - they are keen to move over completely.

For restoration tools and 2-track editing, there's nothing close to Audition in value for the Mac, though, is there?

WaveLab is typically 50% more expensive, but comparable to Audition in many ways (not wanting to start an argument here - I use both, for different jobs).

I think that there would be a lot more market share to be had from a Linux version, myself.

I disagree.  Getting a Linux-based DAW going can be a highly frustrating process, especially if you want to use a firewire interface - the Mac is a much better starting place for an audio system based on *nix  (of course, a Mac and a Linux port would be much more closely related to each other than either to Windows, because of the underlying similarity of the operating systems). 

Paul

I think that there would be a lot more market share to be had from a Linux version, myself.

I disagree.  Getting a Linux-based DAW going can be a highly frustrating process, especially if you want to use a firewire interface - the Mac is a much better starting place for an audio system based on *nix  (of course, a Mac and a Linux port would be much more closely related to each other than either to Windows, because of the underlying similarity of the operating systems). 

Don't quite follow how this is a market share argument... and since the OS's have a similar underlying feature set, why ultimately is a mac environment going to be inherently better for Firewire?

All I am saying is that ultimately, Linux is more likely to get itself a reasonable market share - and probably of people who aren't a bunch of noisy elitists. It still has a way to go, but recently it seems to have come on in leaps and bounds.

Don't quite follow how this is a market share argument... and since the OS's have a similar underlying feature set, why ultimately is a mac environment going to be inherently better for Firewire?

When I last looked you needed to compile at least a couple of audio subsystems (Jack and something else??) before you could start to run audio applications on Linux. Audio certainly wasn't built-in to the standard operating system. If you want firewire you also have to compile FreeBob too. The Mac would appear to have all the necessary framework in place (like Windows has MME, WDM and DirectX) so all you need is the interface driver and application.

Cheers

James.

All I am saying is that ultimately, Linux is more likely to get itself a reasonable market share - and probably of people who aren't a bunch of noisy elitists. It still has a way to go, but recently it seems to have come on in leaps and bounds.

People have been saying that for fifteen years.  I still don't know anyone personally (and just one through the Internet) who uses Linux as a desktop (I have one for experimenting with*, but nothing more - same deal for Mac OS-X).

(Jack and something else??)

RT kernel, perhaps?

Paul

* Indeed, I am a qualified Red Hat Support Engineer!

All I am saying is that ultimately, Linux is more likely to get itself a reasonable market share - and probably of people who aren't a bunch of noisy elitists. It still has a way to go, but recently it seems to have come on in leaps and bounds.

I was one of these people that got interested in the Linux operation.  Being part of an open source type of product really appealed to me.  But, to be totally productive, I had to shy away from it.  I tried the Ubuntu studio.  I had no problems using the command console to get what I needed (apps, packages).  It was the compiling of packages that got out of hand.  I just could not get ALSA and JACK to work right.  I had to just give up. 

I totally agree that the Linux community has REALLY made leaps and bounds.  It all depends on the wants and needs.