The Logic Off Topic list

--- In logic-ot@y..., Dennis Gunn <dennisg@a...> wrote:

> >under Logic 5.3 next month, on the final cross-platform release.
... 
> >I guess its conceivable that emagic might have put in a bunch 
> >of mLAN- friendly features into 5.3 as a final finishing touch 
> >to logic-as-we-know-it, and to wind up the features that they 
> >had planned for v5.x before they move on and start on the next 
> >mac-only incarnations.
> 
> The next version of Logic is 5.2.  It's too early to guess what we 
> will see in 5.3.  I doubt emagic even know.

Yes, you are quite right, my mistake, I've gotten confused by all the 
5.1 releases and got my numbers out of sync. For "5.3" read "5.2".
Oops.



> The big obvious and puzzling mistake that they seem to have 
> made IMHO is not waiting until they had some big shiny mind blowing 
> alternative before they announced they would sell no more LAW.

Yep, announcing the takeover and the Windows shutdown together was a 
bit puzzling.
Even if they were completely determined to shut down the Windows 
line, I think it would have been more sensible to stress the 
forthcoming 5.2 release as a significant update, say that this was 
fully expected to be the final release of logic 5, and then to say 
that any future Logic 6 product would be redesigned to make use of 
the wonderful new OSX architecture and would therefore have to me Mac-
OS-specific.

If they'd presented it that way, it would have sounded a lot more 
reasonable.


[re: betamax] 
> That's the example everyone flogs.  Digi is the example of 
> successfully being stingy with compatibility etc.    There is no 
> single strategy for success except to stay abreast and excel and 
even 
> that does not always work.

True
 

> ... 
> ...  apple has obviously 
> recognized that while music makes up a small percentage of the PC 
> market it makes up a far larger more essential fraction of the 
Apple 
> market.   So instead of just leaving it to third parties they are 
> aggressively remodelling their company to go after that market. 
> Because they have the money to do it right and there is no doubt 
> going to be a period of rapid development that will force companies 
> on the PC to do the same.   For apple this may be life and death 
but 
> us users this can only be a "win win" situation.

Well, as long as Apple realise that they might lose support from 
third-party multimedia developers who are wary of building new Mac 
products that might turn out to be in direct competition with 
something that Apple then subsidise of give away with new machines.

I used to write niche Atari ST MIDI applications about [ten?] years 
ago, and when the time came to wind up the ST stuff and look at more 
lucrative markets, the single reason that I didn't then go into Mac 
software design was that Apple had recently announced their 
supposedly earth-shattering multimedia division, and I wasn't going 
to try to compete with Apple to sell music software for Apple 
machines. If your competition also own the hardware and the OS that 
you write for, you are at too much of a disadvantage.

Perhaps Apple genuinely don't need third-party developers, but there 
is then a danger of ending up with a great product that nobody uses 
because it isn't seen as being popular, amd is therefore not seen as 
having a safe future. I just hope that they appreciate that risk.


> >Maybe all of this will take shape in the next ~four weeks, or maybe
> >none of it will.
> 
> It won't.  

OK.

=Erk=