Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#81

Post by Krustopolis » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

shlom22 wrote: post #39

tpush wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at someone like Billie Eilish and her Apple Music-exlusive content. Obviously not literally "rock", but becoming a global star is still very much a thing.

Billie Eilish is our Lennon, Elon Musk is our Tesla and Donald Trump is our JFK. What a mess we are in culturally.

Lennon, Tesla, and JFK were deeply flawed human beings living in a different time, with far less media coverage than today. I suspect your view of the past may be unfairly rosy due to the effects of time.

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#82

Post by mortenjorck » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

smcphile wrote: post #71

jasode wrote: post #2

I own Apple Logic and thus I'm grateful for the continuous updates. On the other hand, I'm mystified why Apple continues its investment in this audio program. Yes, when Steve Jobs bought Logic from Emagic in 2002, it made strategic sense to fortify Apple's "software portfolio" to make Mac hardware more attractive. But that was before the surprising massive success of iPhones in 2007. Now, it seems like sales of Logic…

> Anybody have any thoughts on what Logic does for Apple that Aperture didn't? I'm not familiar with Aperture. According to Wikipedia it and iPhotos were abandoned to the benefit of Photos. Not knowing why Apple made this choice, I don't know if doing something equivalent with Logic would make sense. I do know Logic. It's a well respected DAW and some musicians do buy a Mac just to be able to use Logic. Also, DAWs ta…

> I do know Logic. It's a well respected DAW and some musicians do buy a Mac just to be able to use Logic.

I think you just hit on the test Apple has historically used to decide which pro software to continue developing and which to discontinue.

Logic and Final Cut are both decades-old industry standards that demonstrably sell Mac hardware. Aperture, though? It was too new to have the installed base of either. It debuted around the same time as Lightroom, and as competitive as it may have been, I have a hard time imagining a Windows user in the 2000s specifically eyeing it as a reason to switch to Mac.

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#83

Post by jseliger » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #50

pier25 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that Apple knows a lot of people need to keep on buying macs to use Logic and Final Cut. Look at the price of Logic compared to other DAWs. Apple is almost giving it away for free. It only costs $200 but in contrast comparable DAWs cost many times that. Ableton Live Suite costs $750. Nuendo costs $1000. Etc. AFAIK Aperture never had such a hardcore following and didn't offer such a unique product. The pho…

> AFAIK Aperture never had such a hardcore following and didn't offer such a unique product. The photography market is clearly dominated by Adobe anyway. At the time, sure - but none of my friends and contacts who do part-time and professional photography have anything good to say about Adobe Lightroom - the move to Lightroom CC left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, as have the many Cloud-related SNAFUs (apparently a…

I have switched to Capture One, which is overly expensive and has less-intelligent defaults, but I can also buy a perpetual license.

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#84

Post by giancarlostoro » Tue, May 12, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #53

jasode wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But yeah, AVID Pro Tools works on Windows so it doesn't do anything for Apple. Before Apple bought it, Emagic's Logic ran on both Windows and Mac. After Apple acquired Logic, they immediately discontinued the Windows version. Can't Apple hypothetically run the same playbook and discontinue Pro Tools for Windows?

Apple could buy all DAW companies (Steinberg, Ableton, etc) for peanuts and destroy music production on Windows if they wanted. Heck they could even buy Adobe without much effort and make it mac exclusive too. They don't do it probably because that would be considered a below the belt move and not worth the trouble since the mac is only 10% of its revenue.

They would probably be sued for being anti competitive if they bought out all the DAW companies and did that.

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#85

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

gdubs wrote: post #79

jasode wrote: post #2

I own Apple Logic and thus I'm grateful for the continuous updates. On the other hand, I'm mystified why Apple continues its investment in this audio program. Yes, when Steve Jobs bought Logic from Emagic in 2002, it made strategic sense to fortify Apple's "software portfolio" to make Mac hardware more attractive. But that was before the surprising massive success of iPhones in 2007. Now, it seems like sales of Logic…

Anecdotally — I have a lot of friends and colleagues in the music industry — I wouldn’t say Pro Tools is more prestigious. It seems pretty split on people’s preferences and old habits die hard, but a LOT of top composers and producers use Logic.

Avid has pissed off a lot of users by being greedy while not providing a reliable product.

PT was pretty much the industry standard ten years ago, but since then there's been a lot of churn to other DAWs - primarily Logic and Cubase, although a lot of dance/rap newcomers use Live and FL Studio.

Bottom line is the resources Apple needs to devote to its media products are barely a rounding error, and the rewards are increased traction with professionals and a few extra hardware sales, especially at the high end.

It's a conservative strategy, and not a terrible one.

The disappointing part is that it could have been part of a consistent product plan ten years ago. Now there's always the worry that Apple will lose interest again for another 5-10 years.

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#86

Post by dfee » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

djaychela wrote: post #59

crazygringo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, I didn't know that. I mean, that seems like a pretty shitty thing to do to an existing userbase. I guess they could, but risk generating a lot of ill will. I'm curious how discontinuing Logic was received. Seems very risky.

Music Tech teacher here... when it was discontinued, I was working (part time) in a couple of schools who used Logic on PCs, as well as working for a few people who used it in their own studios. In the case of one of the schools and a number of the clients, I was the one who broke the news to them - generally greeted by disbelief initially, and then once they had checked up on it, absolute fury. If the intention was…

Tough (sincerely), and congrats on finding a gig that rewards you daily with passion and enthusiasm.

But at the same time, I have little sympathy for people who hate Apple for a move like this - regardless of the optics and whether it was intentional.

No one has to use a Mac, but frankly, there’s a reason why the creative crowd does. And, it’s beyond just brand image. They have a clear and complete vision for their software (which yes, breaks at the edges), but overall provides the best foundation for the markets they cater to.

Apple doesn’t want to be hamstrung by people running Windows on shoddy devices for premium software and thus exited that market. They also don’t want to make software for shoddy Android devices, so are conservative where they do.

It’s not an attack on users, but a refocus on the golden path.

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#87

Post by SeanLuke » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #2

I own Apple Logic and thus I'm grateful for the continuous updates. On the other hand, I'm mystified why Apple continues its investment in this audio program. Yes, when Steve Jobs bought Logic from Emagic in 2002, it made strategic sense to fortify Apple's "software portfolio" to make Mac hardware more attractive. But that was before the surprising massive success of iPhones in 2007. Now, it seems like sales of Logic…

> That's plausible but AVID Pro Tools is even more prestigious than Logic and AVID's market cap is only $250 million[0].

In no universe is Pro Tools more prestigious than any of its competition.

I think Pro Tools is viewed as The Thing That All Studio PHB Managers Purchased At Some Point So It's Reasonable For Studio Techs to Be Trained For. Kind of the "nobody ever got fired for picking IBM" of the music industry. In my opinion, AVID does not have a reputation for making innovative products. See what happened when they acquired Sibelius (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKx1wnXClcI).

My limited experience with the industry suggests that Ableton, Bitwig, and Logic are the Cool Tools for Producing Music, that Cubase (Steinberg) is particularly popular with composers, that FL Studio is the cool low-cost leader among students, and that Reason is The Outsider. Notice which software is not in this list.

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#88

Post by boromi » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

I'd still use Reaper

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#89

Post by mm89 » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

robenkleene wrote: post #67

jasode wrote: post #2

I own Apple Logic and thus I'm grateful for the continuous updates. On the other hand, I'm mystified why Apple continues its investment in this audio program. Yes, when Steve Jobs bought Logic from Emagic in 2002, it made strategic sense to fortify Apple's "software portfolio" to make Mac hardware more attractive. But that was before the surprising massive success of iPhones in 2007. Now, it seems like sales of Logic…

The reason Apple keeps Logic is they generally have a strategy of trickling down features from big pro apps to smaller consumer apps. Logic -> GarageBand, Final Cut -> iMovie, Xcode -> Swift Playgrounds. The AVID idea doesn’t make much sense as Logic and Final Cut are already integrated into their product lines. I think there’s a certain amount of truth to the brand prestige argument, but I think the more important p…

In this case, many of the features appear to be improvements upon features originally introduced in Garageband iOS, so the features are trickling backwards consumer -> pro.

Re: Apple unveils biggest update to Logic since the launch of Logic Pro X

#90

Post by whatok » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #78

whatok wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know how Live works, I've owned it for way too long now. I'm talking in relation to features Logic has lifted from Live, if you are just starting out and don't really know what's going on, it's a very hard ask to spend double on base Ableton (3x? for Suite) vs Logic especially when Logic comes with more stuff.

OTOH you need to have a mac and there are cheaper Live versions to get you started. Also if you buy a midi controller in many cases you get a free version of Live which is plenty for people getting started.

Yeah, I'm thinking of the person who either fell for the Mac propaganda or already had one. There still is a sizable advantage to knowing that things will probably work out the box on a Mac laptop vs random PC laptop but the price gap is unreal. Live Intro is definitely enough for most people to get a feel for things.