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I'm one of the commenters on the original thread, and I'm surprised that people here aren't discussing the other elephant in the room : pro audio software devel

by renaudg 10y ago

I'm one of the commenters on the original thread, and I'm surprised that people here aren't discussing the other elephant in the room : pro audio software developers being exceptionally reluctant to take advantage of Apple's Developer Preview program, much more so than your average dev. My original comment below : "...this reveals a deeper, more cultural problem at Apple. The inability to ship OS builds to developers in time for them to adapt..." I'm a developer and sorry but... no. The first developer preview of Sierra has been available since June 13th. That's 3 full months, and indeed you must have noticed most developers of non-audio apps have spent the summer shipping updates. Yet somehow in the audio world, all hell breaks loose come September each year, it seems plug-in developers only start looking at the new OS the same day as their customers, and they scramble to make panicked "DO NOT UPGRADE YET !" statements. Not being ready on day 1 is unfortunate, not having started working on it is simply unprofessional, sorry. But the worst part is that they manage to get away with it, because most of their customers (musicians are notoriously conservative with their computers) nod in approval and go "yeah yeah don't worry, I'm still on MacOS-from-8-years-ago anyway. F* Apple always breaking stuff" (just look at the forums if you don't believe me) It simply doesn't have to be this way in most cases, and this is the real issue you should be talking about IMHO.

willtim 10y ago
To be fair to them, a developer preview is not the final shipping product, so it would not offer any guarantees anyway. It's better for them to test once the final code ships and educate their customers not to instantly upgrade just because Apple recommends it.
- mortenjorck 10y ago
  In edge cases, yes, certain would-be compatibility issues on Apple's side will get worked out before release. But that's part of why beta programs exist in the first place - vendors are supposed to test their products with the beta OS, and file bugs as they encounter them! You make it sound as if Apple is re-architecting the audio system with each beta update. But all that happens long before an OS hits beta: Apple's betas are by and large feature-frozen. There's simply no excuse for a major vendor like Steinberg or Native Instruments to delay testing until there are literally computers already shipping that will not reliably run their software.
  - willtim 10y ago
    Yes I was trolling a bit. But I believe this is how they would probably justify it. Perhaps if Apple offered a beta window larger than 3 months they might cooperate.
viktorbenei 10y ago
Well, if they would provide an easy way to run a virtualized MacOS, something what Microsoft does with their vagrant machines (Windows with different Internet Explorer versions) would go a long way. https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v... Quick, simple and easy to run and test with.

by renaudg 10y ago

willtim 10y ago

To be fair to them, a developer preview is not the final shipping product, so it would not offer any guarantees anyway. It's better for them to test once the final code ships and educate their customers not to instantly upgrade just because Apple recommends it.

mortenjorck 10y ago
In edge cases, yes, certain would-be compatibility issues on Apple's side will get worked out before release. But that's part of why beta programs exist in the first place - vendors are supposed to test their products with the beta OS, and file bugs as they encounter them! You make it sound as if Apple is re-architecting the audio system with each beta update. But all that happens long before an OS hits beta: Apple's betas are by and large feature-frozen. There's simply no excuse for a major vendor like Steinberg or Native Instruments to delay testing until there are literally computers already shipping that will not reliably run their software.
- willtim 10y ago
  Yes I was trolling a bit. But I believe this is how they would probably justify it. Perhaps if Apple offered a beta window larger than 3 months they might cooperate.

viktorbenei 10y ago

Well, if they would provide an easy way to run a virtualized MacOS, something what Microsoft does with their vagrant machines (Windows with different Internet Explorer versions) would go a long way. https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v... Quick, simple and easy to run and test with.