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Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

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Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#61

Post by sbr464 »

tmikaeld wrote: post #38
sbr464 wrote: post #8

I hope that fix mentioned works! I just changed the time setting now. I use an iMac pro, I’ve definitely noticed it over the last few weeks, typically when several chrome tabs are open or heavy use it seems. I also noticed it pretty bad when using a Universal Audio Arrow device, and web midi also. Currently I close chrome and reopen to fix. Happens every 1-2 days.

As mentioned in the comments on the link, it doesn't work. It just lowers the amount of "clicks". I noticed the bug the same day the Mac mini 2018 came out and have found no solution.

Ah, that sucks. It’s definitely pretty bad, especially for a 6-8k+ machine.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#62

Post by bonestamp2 »

iainmerrick wrote: post #45
mastazi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article comes from CDM which is a music production website, MacBooks are very popular in that field, and basically all audio producers use external audio interfaces, it's not an uncommon use case. This is not the first time that this type of issues happens (from memory, last year an OSX update broke compatibility with Native Instruments Maschine, a very popular music software). So I think the point that the artic…

music producers are one of the most Apple-leaning crowds, and yet they feel like they are being ignored by Apple. [...] this is a small market in the grand scheme of things. This is the same point that’s often made about developers. But if it’s not developers and it’s not music producers, what is the large market for Macs that dwarfs everything else? And are they at least getting the products and features they want?

> what is the large market for Macs

There are legitimate reasons to buy macs, but I'd say most people want them because they look nice and they consider them a status symbol.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#63

Post by viburnum »

docker_up wrote: post #41

Apple appears to be coming to some sort of head at this point. This is speaking as someone heavily invested in Apple products and shares. Their iPhones have reached a peak, where it appears people are no longer willing to pay so much for them. They are too damn expensive, with nothing to justify their costs. I am one of the morons who upgraded to the XS, but only because I needed the 512GB storage. If not for the inc…

Worse than 2012 MacBooks.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#64

Post by rock_artist »

I'm a former full-time musician working as an audio dev those days.

Developing audio-plugins (AU) make you use a lot of DAWs (digital-audio-workstations). There's some issue with Logic Pro X that has been logged for quite a while now.

A few days ago I heard the reason it isn't addressed for more than a year now... The developer in-charge on that feature isn't allowed to access other parts of code needed for fixing the issue.

Apple quality-control in the past years has been totally wracked. What concerns me isn't this issue, but the future of it: - it might won't be fixed at all! (arghghgh) - it might be fixed after very long time (and who know maybe they'll break or regress something else).

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#65

Post by saagarjha »

siquick wrote: post #14
uvu wrote: post #3

Generally, Apple MacBook Pro suck since 2017!

Not sure why this getting downvoted. Had my MBA for 6 years and worked perfectly the whole time, just needed to install a new battery after 4 years but that was a personal preference. I've had my MBP w/o touch bar for 13 months and I seriously regret spending $2300 on it. - The keyboard is continually sticking, the left Command key is now completely separated from the keyboard and falls out all the time. I make so ma…

> The battery life barely lasts more than 2 hours

There is something either seriously wrong with your Mac, or you're running every core full-tilt continuously.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#66

Post by mnm1 »

komali2 wrote: post #7

That's a weird glitch, and generally I'm not a fan of apple hardware (I think it's overpriced, that their keyboards suck, that they don't have enough ports, and I don't enjoy working in osx), but this article comes off as almost biblically haughty. Apple should have tests around clock updates affecting external audio quality? I mean, maybe after this bug being discovered, sure, but before, was that a connection that…

So even though Macs are the de facto standard in the music industry and Apple makes software for music composition (logic pro) that supports all the external audio devices mentioned here, they couldn't plug one of these in to test? Are you kidding me? That's some atrocious testing process especially for a company whose slogan is "it just works". Clearly, this isn't the case anymore. The literally did not test their own software with their own hardware, yet we're supposed to excuse them? Like the article says, Apple's QA is basically non-existent. This is the most obvious testing scenario for the audio subsystem used by professionals I can think of. Apple should be ashamed of themselves. This is not an industry where even one audio skip can be tolerated. But it sure goes along with their new marketing strategy of bringing out garbage, untested, broken systems and pretending they are still pro equipment. This fiasco does away with that for the audio industry, that's for sure.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#67

Post by alxlaz »

komali2 wrote: post #7

That's a weird glitch, and generally I'm not a fan of apple hardware (I think it's overpriced, that their keyboards suck, that they don't have enough ports, and I don't enjoy working in osx), but this article comes off as almost biblically haughty. Apple should have tests around clock updates affecting external audio quality? I mean, maybe after this bug being discovered, sure, but before, was that a connection that…

> was that a connection that could have been made in a QA engineers mind?

That's not a connection that should be made in a QA engineer's mind, it's a connection that should be made in an architect or team lead's mind, or better yet, one that should already exist as part of the internal documentation. You don't throw tarballs over the wall at the QA team yelling "you dudes, tell me if this breaks!". You know what's being developed and how, and you design your tests to validate that. Otherwise there are infinitely many tests to run.

As for the connection: the article is low on technical details, and https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/anvufc/psa_2018_macs... suggests there might be several bugs at work here. That being said, if there were a list of top 5 things that could get screwed by date and time change, synchronous playback would definitely make it on that list.

If anything, the output from one of the bug reports ( https://openradar.appspot.com/46918065 ) hints that one of the thing that happens as part of the update is pausing the audio engine. The person who introduced the bug may not have figured it out at the time (which is okay, we all make mistakes), but the whole thing should have gone through code review, at least one round of documentation, and a testing process that's built to spot new problems along with the old ones, based on knowledge about what's new in the code. With the right process in place, there's no way that hits the market without serious testing, not at a pro-oriented company anyway.

Edit: tl;dr: IMHO, that's definitely a testing scenario that should have existed. By spending and commitment, the pro audio industry is probably 1/3rd of the Macbook Pro market, synchronous playback issues routinely creep up in software whenever time and clocking are brought into discussion, and (for at least one of the bugs) the source is not some strange interaction but a deliberate action in the code.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#68

Post by deng »

mastazi wrote: post #21
komali2 wrote: post #7

That's a weird glitch, and generally I'm not a fan of apple hardware (I think it's overpriced, that their keyboards suck, that they don't have enough ports, and I don't enjoy working in osx), but this article comes off as almost biblically haughty. Apple should have tests around clock updates affecting external audio quality? I mean, maybe after this bug being discovered, sure, but before, was that a connection that…

The article comes from CDM which is a music production website, MacBooks are very popular in that field, and basically all audio producers use external audio interfaces, it's not an uncommon use case. This is not the first time that this type of issues happens (from memory, last year an OSX update broke compatibility with Native Instruments Maschine, a very popular music software). So I think the point that the artic…

This glitch is just another nail in the coffin for using Macs in professional audio setups. Another serious issue is the massively outdated Mac Pro. Yes, a new one will come this year, but many people have switched already. See for instance

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2019/2/7/pro-tool...

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#69

Post by jedberg »

threeseed wrote: post #51
docker_up wrote: post #41

Apple appears to be coming to some sort of head at this point. This is speaking as someone heavily invested in Apple products and shares. Their iPhones have reached a peak, where it appears people are no longer willing to pay so much for them. They are too damn expensive, with nothing to justify their costs. I am one of the morons who upgraded to the XS, but only because I needed the 512GB storage. If not for the inc…

You definitely ticked all the cliches. Complains about: 1) Apple products being expensive but buys the most expensive one. 2) Being forced to use iTunes even though it hasn't been needed for any reason for quite some time. 3) Quality getting progressively worse based purely on anecdotes. And of course the "I own Apple products and shares therefore my opinion is important" line. Always a classic.

I just had to use ITunes the other day. It’s the only way to load an ipsw onto an iPhone.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#70

Post by jedberg »

savanaly wrote: post #54
docker_up wrote: post #41

Apple appears to be coming to some sort of head at this point. This is speaking as someone heavily invested in Apple products and shares. Their iPhones have reached a peak, where it appears people are no longer willing to pay so much for them. They are too damn expensive, with nothing to justify their costs. I am one of the morons who upgraded to the XS, but only because I needed the 512GB storage. If not for the inc…

>Apple is the richest company in the world, and instead of paying their engineers top wages... If that sentence caught anyone else's eye, know that it caught mine too and I did a quick sanity check. [0] It does seem that Apple is falling a bit short of other top companies, especially for the upper levels. [0] https://www.levels.fyi/SE/Google/Facebook/Apple

Anecdotally, everyone I know who works for Apple is paid below market rate. They justify it by reminding you that “you get to be part of the mission”.

I know one guy making market and he’s in the video streaming product group.

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