The future of CoreAudio and AudioUnits - a real concern

[Steve Steele]

In my spare time I've been talking with developers about the future of Apple's work on the audio kernel of OS X.

Many seem very discouraged. That concerns me a lot. Sternberg has dropped development and support for VST2. VST3 has been a headache for developers, but it will catch on, especially if they get their act together. MAS has limited support. Perhaps MOTU will adopt VST3 but that will only benefit an important but small number of users.

After looking into this for several months, talking with developers, reading articles and comparing efficiency benchmarks of OS X vs Windows 7 http://www.dawbench.com/win7-v-osx-1.htm, and having my own issues with AU with VEPro (the Event Input plugin issue), I've come to the conclusion that Apple needs to 1) optimize CoreAudio in OS X, 2) add features to the AU spec including adding 32 port support (or abandon it all together and port AudioBus or create a new format, 3) and better communicate their roadmap with developers and customer alike. Take a look at Apple's revision history of AU and notice the entries since 2007 https://developer.apple.com/library/mac ... 78-CH2-SW1.

I'm drafting an email to send to a couple of people within Apple. Is anybody here interested in adding their thoughts to this and adding your name to the email when the time comes?

I have a strong passion for Apple. I worked Apple in the mid-late 90s just as Steve Jobs came back, and was interviewed at Pixar to be one of Steve Jobs IT guys. My door pass! http://www.stevesteele.com/misc/pixar.png
I've been using the MacOS since 1989 and DP since v1.7. I think we're at a critical time for pro apps running on the OS X platform. Apple has spent years moving OS X towards iOS and now it's time, IMO that OS X get an overhaul that turns the tables and builds a foundation that iOS can follow. The ONLY reason I upgraded to Yosemite was because the Finder is faster. Otherwise I would have stayed on Mavericks or Snow Leopard.

Apple is also shredding their Human Interface Guidelines as fast as the US government is shredding the constitution (just my opinion). Two big examples are iTunes (a hideous interface), and Safari, which went from being the premier browser IMO, to almost ruining it by simply making the contrast of the tabs, favorites bar, and toolbar a GUI blur (not to mention removing items from the toolbar) for example. Those may seem like no big deal to some, and some of you may even see it as modern but I can guarantee you that it breaks many AHIGs and I believe they are doing it just to look "modern" and sell more units than to improve the user experience (which is what the AHIGs are all about). Granted, moving bak to a 2D interface may have helped speed up the interface but it also added much unnecessary "eye candy", IMO.

Anyway, to the point, although this has been obvious for the last few years, I believe Apple's lack of attention for the pro user, especially the audio professional, along with Mac Pro prices (which could be reduced some if they'd let up choose less expensive video cards), these things, which could start to add up could bite them pretty hard in the next few years if something isn't done about it.

I'd like to stay focused on CoreAudio and AudioUnits and present some Apple people an email with user experiences that have negatively impacted the workflow, faith in Apple, and contributed to possible thoughts of switching to Windows/PCs. This should be most obvious to VEPro users, but although AU is a popular and widely supported format, it's also not cross platform, it's DP's most used plugin format and with VST2 support going away, us DP users now have three platforms that are either not often ported to (MAS), is dying (VST2), and is in question (AU).

As one developer said to me recently, "their (Apple's) AudioUnit SDK has been broken since 10.6 and they don't seem very interested in fixing it."

I'm open to discussion.

Steve

[James Steele]

This not really specific to DP and is being moved to the Theoretical/OT section.

[Steve Steele]

This not really specific to DP and is being moved to the Theoretical/OT section.

Makes sense.

Happy Holidays James.

[nk_e]

I think it is a good idea, but might be more effective if it also came from a group of developers to Apple. Imagine if MOTU, native-instruments, fxpansion, etc., signed a common email. Is there a way to also solicit support (perhaps on a parallel track) from some of the big houses?

[Steve Steele]

I understand. But I'm fairly frustrated as a consumer and composer. I'm sure some developers are saying something. I've heard several complain pretty harshly so I'm sure things have been said.

I think having it come from both is not a bad idea if it gets to the right person/people. I'm curious how many programers they have dedicated to AudioUnits right now.

[Shooshie]

I think that anything we do in the audio field is a little like Lamborghini threatening to tell their customers to use Conoco/Phillips if Exxon/Mobil will not quit drilling in the North Sea. Even if all 250 Lamborghini owners switched to Conoco/Phillips, would Exxon even blink twice before throwing that letter in the trash?

In the case of Apple, if it doesn't have a gold bezel and work with an iPhone, they just aren't going to be interested in it right now. I'm not saying we shouldn't try. I'm just being realistic. When I saw the keynote for the new  Watch, I actually started to feel nausea. All the pretty people bicycling their  Watches on the winding roads of Marin County and limousining their  Watches to the fine wineries of Napa Valley, ad nauseum, made a stunning statement about the directions Apple has turned. Those directions are no longer about helping people do jobs, but about enabling mass narcissism at shockingly profitable prices. Does the narcissist want to spend time sussing out voice leadings in a choral Mass, or wrangling rock-n-rollers to play in time, in tune, and straight for long enough to produce an album? No, the narcissist puts on the  Watch, hops in bed with narcissistic hookup partner, also wearing  Watch (so they can send each other their precious heartbeats, oh my!), then pulls on Gucci bicycle shorts and goes out to sweat where the most people can see him/her with  Watch.

But enough about Apple. These kinds of efforts seem to work better if there are some specific requests, rather than just "fix the AU spec." Fix WHAT in particular in the AU spec? What needs to be done to Core Audio?

Meanwhile, how are our PC/Windows friends doing with DP? Is it working smoothly for them? Are there any major complaints? Are people actually buying DP for Windows?

I probably won't ever use DP for Windows. If something were to happen that caused a permanent split between Apple and MOTU, I'd probably get the best Mac I could find and outfit it with the last version of OS X that worked well with DP, and I'd finish out my days just using that system. Hopefully, I won't have to.

I've not been happy with the Macintosh and its OS for at least two name versions. The last one I thought was pretty good was Mountain Lion. Mavericks and Yosemite have broken too many things, and rather than fix them in the next version, Apple just leaves them dangling, broken and/or misunderstood. I could not believe that they broke some operations of the Magic Trackpad. That was the finest input device ever created, and they compromised it.

I agree about iTunes. It was never a great app, at least not its interface, but this new version really stinks. How hard would it be to have it monitor a half dozen or so TV series and tell you when new episodes are available? I just think it MUST do that, somewhere, but I haven't found the way. I guess I could read the manua... whoa... no manual! Has anyone tried to transfer videos from an iPhone to their Mac? It's supposed to be as easy as pie, but it apparently requires uploading to iCloud, then downloading to the Mac via your "Photostream." But I have trouble getting videos to upload to that Photostream. The stills will go, but not the video. Just transferring video from one to the other requires plugging it in via the USB port. Oh, they talk about AirDrop, but I have the latest OS on both machines, and AirDrop simply doesn't exist between them. I can Airdrop from iPhone to iPad, but not to the Mac. You go to the AirDrop window in the Finder, but... nothing's there. If I had made a list of every small frustration like that, it would fill pages in a yellow-pad. And I still grieve over the loss of readable fonts in the iOS devices, as well as shadows and 3D embellishments on the graphics. I can barely make out these "thin" fonts, and even the alternate fonts are really no better.

I wish Apple would spin off their Macintosh division, including OS X, into an independent subsidiary. It needs to be a small company that just focuses on Macs and Mac software. Let Apple go off and design sparkly shoes and belts and handbags that do unique things that make people go "wow, I wish *I* had an Apple iPurse that talks to me and hugs me when I feed it money." We need a computer company that is interested in computers. By "computer," I'm talking about that old-fashioned unit sitting on or below your desk, in front of whose monitor we sit and do actual creative work.

Shooshie

[stubbsonic]

I think these are all valid concerns.

It's hard to refer to "Apple" as a monolith. I'm sure there are many parties within that empire who have the same priorities as us. They'd like to have a solid platform for creative work-- Mac had the edge in audio work for the longest time (not sure if that is so, anymore).

But we also see a trend of Apple trying to bring iOS and Mac OS together. On the plus side, more user-friendly-- in a mass-appeal sense. Or, perhaps more precisely- more shallow learning curve. On the minus side-- mass amputation of features and configurability.

The other danger is that if the core structures that are required for profession work are forsaken and neglected, developers will have to do so much (expensive) jumping through hoops to make software work correctly.

I'm glad you are going to communicate about this in an official way.

Sign me on.

[bayswater]

I have no doubt everything Nightwatch says is true, and I wish it could be fixed. But as Shooshie says, why would Apple care? How would improving CoreAudio and AUs benefit Apple shareholders? At best, the sales of desktop Macs to a very small number of audio professionals, might decline a bit slower.

What has happened that Apple would notice? Have the SDK issues resulted in a significant decline in 3rd party suppliers or OS X compatible audio software? Are the performance problems widespread, or isolated to a few instances like VEPro?

If there is a way to pose the issue in terms that Apple cares about, it might go somewhere. But Apple bet the farm on iOS. It's a company that stays on strategy, focusses on growth markets, abandons old strategies, and never looks back. Right now, they have a watch to get out the door by Valentine's day.

[mikehalloran]

Let's see... CoreAudio, Safari, iTunes, AU and the Constitution... Am I missing anything? What about the dumbing down of FCP and Pages?

"Lord, I was born a rambling man..."

I have a hard time taking such generalized rants seriously. "The sky is falling" has been going on since Steve left the company the first time... or was it when they dropped the floppy... or the introduction of OS X... or abandoned SCSI... or... or... or...

Yet we soldier on somehow.

[Michael Canavan]

I've wondered about Apple's commitment to the AU format as well, but the last World Wide Developers Conference had some announcements about Core Audio, Audio Units and iOS audio.
They are making minor improvements to the AU spec, mostly in how we interact with AU plug ins, but it's still improvements, system based tagging and Core Audio based AU management in terms of the AU Test etc. Here's the notes:
http://asciiwwdc.com/2014/sessions/501

One thing that people are forgetting is that Apple isn't staying the same size company because iOS devices are selling like crazy, they're becoming bigger. Sales aren't plummeting for iMacs, Mac Pros, Macbook Pros etc. and all those devices are easily capable of hosting DP and writing entire records on. Apple putting R&D into iOS doesn't mean that OSX is being ignored, the OS has been upgraded on a regular basis and they're able to give it away for free.

I personally would like to see Apple at least match VST3 with the AU spec. Things like better MIDI in/out, and CPU handling like VST3 etc. so yeah considering they recently updated the AU spec I don't think AU has been abandoned in favor of iOS innovations, but nudging them about what we as end users would like to see happen is a great idea.

I think the glacial adoption of VST3 is a great reason for AU to be pushed as the platform on OSX and I would hope that Apple would agree. Mostly the problem is simple really, Steinberg who develop the VST plug in environment specifically develop it for Cubase, and give only vague specs for hosting VSTs, whereas the specs for developing VST plug ins aren't too bad. The problem becomes that troubleshooting problems with other hosts besides Cubase becomes an issue that no plug in developer wants to tackle so adoption of new VST standards grinds to almost a halt like you see with VST3.

With AU the problem is platform specific development, Windows doesn't do AU, so developers are forced to write two sets of GUI codes for the same plug in. As a result it's very possible that Apple is simply waiting for universal adoption of VST3 before tweaking the AU spec to match.

It's the downside of a free market, that standards are arbitrarily developed in what seems like a vacuum, but again, I think it's a positive sign that Apple is tweaking the AU spec this year a bit.

[James Steele]

When I saw the keynote for the new  Watch, I actually started to feel nausea. All the pretty people bicycling their  Watches on the winding roads of Marin County and limousining their  Watches to the fine wineries of Napa Valley, ad nauseum, made a stunning statement about the directions Apple has turned. Those directions are no longer about helping people do jobs, but about enabling mass narcissism at shockingly profitable prices. Does the narcissist want to spend time sussing out voice leadings in a choral Mass, or wrangling rock-n-rollers to play in time, in tune, and straight for long enough to produce an album? No, the narcissist puts on the  Watch, hops in bed with narcissistic hookup partner, also wearing  Watch (so they can send each other their precious heartbeats, oh my!), then pulls on Gucci bicycle shorts and goes out to sweat where the most people can see him/her with  Watch.

Well, said. Honestly, one thing I have come away with from that, that concerned me was wondering if Apple is insulated in some way it it's own little Silicon Valley Starbucks-fueled yuppie bubble? It seems that, more than ever, they've become an elitist brand and I find myself now feeling more and more kinship with the working guy who's building a Windows-clone from store-bought parts in his garage. It seems Apple's messaging has completely lost touch with middle America. It's as if the entire country outside the confines of a shallow, materialistic elitist class just doesn't seem to exist to them any more. It's disturbing to me.

[Gravity Jim]

When I'm making music, I never think for one second about the software unless it fouls up. I certainly never think about what Apple might be doing down the road. I'm just thinking about melody and rhythm and harmony. So where's the frustration? Does this affect anybody in any way, today, right now, in the moment? How can you work as an artist if you're worrying about gearhead minutiae? And virtually all speculation is gonna be wrong, so why get out the dowsing rods? I seriously don't even understand a discussion like this this.

[bayswater]

Well, the solution may not be that easy to understand, but the problem is. Some software used to make music by some people is not working properly and the cause might be Apple's apparent lack of interest in maintaining AUs and CoreAudio.

[Shooshie]

When I'm making music, I never think for one second about the software unless it fouls up. I certainly never think about what Apple might be doing down the road. I'm just thinking about melody and rhythm and harmony. So where's the frustration? Does this affect anybody in any way, today, right now, in the moment? How can you work as an artist if you're worrying about gearhead minutiae? And virtually all speculation is gonna be wrong, so why get out the dowsing rods? I seriously don't even understand a discussion like this this.

I use a Magic Trackpad. Every time I try to move a fader with the scrolling gesture, I'm reminded of the roots of this conversation. It just doesn't work right. There are several other apps that also do not scroll right with the Trackpad. This is after a couple years of use that always felt like the best I/O device ever, in all apps.

So... yes. It affects me every time I work. The deeper concerns, such as Apple's new self-conscious role as a luxury vendor, not at all. But having seen the keynote, I can't help but think about it from time to time and wonder what this means for the rest of us.

Shooshie

[cuttime]

Well, there's this mainstream point of view:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/techn ... c=rss&_r=0