Finale 2014.5 is a-coming ... someday

[mikehalloran]

Those of us on the email list have received this news. For those who have not,

http://www.finalemusic.com/blog/mark-ad ... dium=email

Nice that it will be a no-charge update for us who have Finale 2014.

[Phil O]

I have a love/hate relationship with Finale. It's so buggy. I hope they focus on bug fixes rather than a lot of new buggy features. Just sayin'.

Philippe

[mhschmieder]

I'm also wondering whether Finale may end up being Steinberg's notation program.

There seems an awful lot of collaboration between the two companies based on some of the news at their site as well as some of the links.

[Steve Steele]

I'm also wondering whether Finale may end up being Steinberg's notation program.

There seems an awful lot of collaboration between the two companies based on some of the news at their site as well as some of the links.

I really really hope not.

[mikehalloran]

The latest reports are that El Capitán 10.10.2 beta 1 & 2 do not crash Finale 2014. Unfortunately, beta 3 does.

Let's hope that they get this fixed soon. Meanwhile, it still works when I boot from Yosemite.

[Steve Steele]

Apparently quite a few users are requesting ReWire support for Finale 14.5. Has anyone heard if they've commited to this?

I need ReWire in Finale. I've had to get by with Finale (proud user since 1993) and sometimes Sibelius or Notion for their ReWire integration. I'd prefer to discontinue use of those programs (although Notion is pretty cool on the iPad). Speaking of which, I hope Finale will surprise us with an iOS version. Doubtful I'm sure.

Thanks.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Rewire is critical as long as Finale is 32 bit. IAC works as well, but I'd be very happy with Rewire in the "new" version.

[mikehalloran]

Rewire is critical as long as Finale is 32 bit. IAC works as well, but I'd be very happy with Rewire in the "new" version.

I wonder why MakeMusic released 2014 as 32bit after all the announcements that it would be 64. I should have asked my source about that last time we talked.

[Phil O]

Yeah, I hear rumors of internal "stuff" going on at MakeMusic, but nothing definitive. I hope whatever "stuff" is going on has a positive impact on Finale. I would imagine 64 bit would be a high priority. Don't ya think?

Phil

[MIDI Life Crisis]

As recently as this week, a MM rep posted on their Mac forum that they hope Apple will fix this or that, yet they are looking towards 2016 to release a F2014 update. So how's that Steinberg notation app coming along?

[Phil O]

So how's that Steinberg notation app coming along?

I just found alternatives for my old Adobe software (rather than upgrading). I'm hoping I won't have to do the same with Finale.

Don't get me started on Adobe.

Phil

[MIDI Life Crisis]

What alternatives? I'm worried about the future of my CS5 & 6 stuff, not to mention MS Office. Not a fan of Apple's apps in that regard. PowerPoint is so much better than Keynote.

[Phil O]

What alternatives? I'm worried about the future of my CS5 & 6 stuff, not to mention MS Office. Not a fan of Apple's apps in that regard. PowerPoint is so much better than Keynote.

Check out Affinity Designer and Photo:
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/

Also check out Gimp and Pixelmator. I use Pixelmator a lot, but it does not do true greyscale, so I use Gimp for converting to greyscale if needed.

I'm using Apple's Numbers as a replacement for Excel (Microsoft, I know), but the transition is not easy.

I'm using Pages (yuk) as an alternative to InDesign, but I hear rumors that Serif is working on a page layout program as well. InDesign CS5.5 is still working for me under Yosemite and is starting to feel clunky under El Capitan, but I'm not going to upgrade. I'm done with Adobe.

BTW, one thing I like about Affinity Designer is it opens many of my old FreeHand files.

Phil

[mikehalloran]

PowerPoint is so much better than Keynote.

Oh gosh yes unless you are Al Gore or Ken Burns. They both did nice things in Keynote. Unfortunately, it got dumbed down a bit like Pages and Numbers to match the iOS versions.

I'm not too worried about Office. 2008 still works great in El Capitán even if not quite as fast as in Yosemite. I never did like 2011 and went back to 2008 when it ran a lot better in Mavericks.

MS did release a non-subscription of 2016 for Mac – finally. All of the Mac products are developed about 2 miles from my house in the original PowerPoint Building and I was told that they were waiting for OS 10.11 before they released a non-subscription version. Not pleased that the $149 street price for Home & Student includes only one license instead of three. The $199 street for Business includes Outlook, now missing from H&S. Office 2016 is still buggy with network and internet features that don't quite work yet. As long as 2008 remains functional, I can wait.

Office 2004 hasn't worked since 10.6.8 with Rosetta.

[mhschmieder]

I hate to stay off-topic, but do the final updates to non-subscription Adobe Creative Suite products break permanently on El Capitan? This is HUGE for me if so; I'll need to park a computer at Yosemite and eventually buy a separate computer for later OS's. I refuse to go subscription on stuff I use sporadically; it adds up fast. I won't even buy a product that is already subscription-based.