Apple’s relationship with pro music needs some mending

Full read on link below
http://cdm.link/2016/09/apples-rela...utm_medium=synthtopia&utm_campaign=synthtopia​

 

Im not going to say they are falling apart but they sure don't know how to make a decision anymore. I think Tim Cook is focused on his political agenda , i know he's technically inept but I sense a war going on inside of Apple and Jony Ive has become a tool of his own making. Where the fuck are the new mac book pro's ? Yeah I know they probably will release them next week but funny they missed an entire chip cycle putting them relatively obsolete by next year as kaby lake become available in Dec. I wouldn't buy that now for anything. I also think Apple is putting their finger in the wind now to see which way things blow instead of leading.

Apple's biggest two mistakes I can recall are having that weapons grade cunt Jimmy Iovine involved with ANYTHING Apple. He TOTALLY cheapens them. Luckily they got him to shut the fuck up for a while but they should get him out of there. Dr Dre meanwhile has proven to be an incredible asset for Apple as he's a very smart guy, not to mention has an engineering degree, worked in studio, knows how to produce music and how labels run. Jimmy Iovine road along and used his position to FUCK many of his artists. He's a scum bag period.


The second of the two big mistakes was hiring Angela Ahrendts , who has ZERO clue what she is doing. Can anyone say the Apple Stores are better off with her as their VP? The idiot knows fuck all about anything technical not to mention she's further convoluted the description of Genius's in the store.

Read this dumb shit

http://www.retailtouchpoints.com/fe...enovate-rebrand-and-rename-employee-positions


My take on Apple Store Employees truth be told

Dumb
Dumber
Dumbest


Apple Music ios10 is the same crap it was last time. Yes the service works, the price isn't terrible BUT they do a horrible job focusing on Artists and Connect is a fucking joke. Absolutely NO ONE uses it as a primary posting point for anything. Furthermore I don't believe Apple's charts are true numbers. Let's just say I know their not, they are for sale to some degree. The WWDC presentation of the 'new apple' music was laughable and embarrassing. The Apple music execs are living their musical dreams through Apple music because NONE of them could hack it as an artist. Ego, Fame , and how many blow jobs can i get for my instagram rule the day. Thanks for making the 'font' bigger as a feature in IOS10... good thinking

Beats 1 - completely fucking sucks - Zane Lowe SUCKS he's all over the place and never good , Pete Tong would of been the best choice their but in a lot of ways I'm glad he wasn't asked or if he was didn't take it. Smart ! They give Deadmau5 a show, there's a few decent hosts but I don't honestly listen anymore. I forgo my Apple Music Membership when listening offline meant total destruction of my iTunes library - no thanks.

Summed up Apple Music ins't at all about Music which is very evident.


So to answer the question is Apple Falling Apart? Yes , but not today. It really pains me to say this because I have been an Apple Fan boy for life but when you have shit heads infiltrating a successful company now led by a community activist Tim Cook, the outlook aint great. Apple has become a haven for failed corporate execs from cisco and other places where they've been laid off. Yes successful but those of us who've bought year after year , product after product sight unseen are now taking a second look at other technology and other companies. It really really hurts to say I would totally look at a killer laptop from microsoft right now if they got serious on pro product. Apple has failed us in that department. Anyone that had a mac book pro retina how's the usb been treating you ... enough said.

 

Great article. Frighteningly (as a Mac owner), I've been reading and hearing this sentiment a lot lately. Guess it's time to consider a different platform ...

 

The article's mentioning the yearly OS updates (10.x) is a big problem – increasingly, for the sake of "compatibility" (keeping up) with iOS development and Apple's vainglorious showboating, which is its main marketing gimmick anymore. Apple started abandoning its pro-media constituency with the introduction of "iMovie Pro" Final Cut X – which created a greater market for Adobe Premiere and the newer video-edition applications.

I and other users of this forum have long been suggesting that Apple develop an OS for media creation (audio, video, and now VR), to keep things stabler for third-party developers and more consistent for users. Additionally, proprietary hardware features should be kept in check, likewise for the sake of compatibility, stability and consistency. I'm still waiting (because it feels like an inevitability) for some developer to modify a Mac OS for more universal compatibility and longevity - just as there is a market for hardware developers crankin'-out laptops designed to run OSX at a fraction of the price of a new Macbook Pro.

Apple and other tech companies should stay out of, or stop trying to be, the music business. iTunes' taking 40% for the sale of a download? Why? Because Apple has to pay Munchkins union-scale wages to push those M4As around the warehouse? And other techie "platforms," such as Google Play and Amazon take "only" 30%, which is supposed to be agreeable because it's "less than what iTunes takes." Techies have dictated too much to musicians as to how musicians' activities are to be conducted - let alone trying to own and manipulate the market for "music" as a cultural commodity. And the "curated" promotion of certain artists - unfair, or what? The Internet was supposed to have freed musicians from commercial gatekeeping – but instead, it has amounted to, "Meet the new boss - same as the old boss."

 

As someone still on version 10.6.8 (best OS I have ever used) I am seriously dreading getting a new Mac.

I used to be seriously into Audio Tech about 8 years ago. Pure-Data, Supercolider, Max/MSP, Open Sound Control and all that jazz.

It was liberating. For the first time it felt as though Apple had a more open OS than Windows. Especially when if I really needed Windows then I could just partition a drive and run it!

My Mac is 8 years old and I dare say not even 25% of processing power as the average forum user. Still works like a charm although FF are no longer developing for my OS. Which was gutting.

I second this sentiment. The real worry is that for all that Mac has got worse, Windows has equally got worse... So unless you're thinking Linux then the market is pretty bare.

Whilst I agree with sentiment. Microsoft have more invested in XBOX hardware (Ironic that Apple only moved from Motorola chips to Intel because Microsoft bought all the stock to use in original XBOX) than actually developing own PCs/Laptops which from an engineering perspective I am willing to pay the premium.

Personally I think the entire technology market is moving to quickly for consumers in search of profits. My 8 yr old Macbook would be fine for more years if websites didn't need to have video advertisements running all over the shop.

Regarding Audio manufacturers. They must take some of the blame for not updating their software. They don't see why they should as you only bought it once. I own a Focusrite Liquidmix and I'm pretty sure development discontinued so that they could use the technology for other hardware products and basically resell the same product to the same users as a new premium priced product. Ultimately Digital Signal Processing shouldn't be hard to port across OS or devices.

I disagree with this, Steve Jobs worked really hard to get the labels to sell for as cheap as possible and it was a game of chicken. If anything the modern music industry most successful artists are just corporate techies. You can't blame Apple for that. Entirely the labels fault for streamlining the marketing to lowest common denominator and Xfactor.

Worth reading these two articles, worryingly the same trend is starting to happen in other industries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34268474
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise:_The_Political_Economy_of_Music

 

1. Firing Steve Jobs in 1985
2. His passing in 2011

 

@DoubleSharp Good points man ! Very Good Points !

 

As much as I admire Jobs, I can't agree with you completely. He was still in control of the company when the decision was made to abandon Final Cut Pro 7 in favor of FCPX - at best a platform for wedding videos. Ditto for the watering down of OSX from its glory days as a rock-solid OS (I agree with Peter Kim that Snow Leopard was its apex), and the slowly increasing control that signaled a diminishing trust in user competence. His influence may have been on the wane, but he was at the boardroom table. The reality is that the descent of Apple into mediocrity began much earlier, when they first found success on a grand scale with the original iPod. When they tasted the numbers of mass consumer sales - something they never had previously, in their preferred niche status - the seeds were sown for the ascent of the suburban soccer mom as the embodiment of their target market. On a purely business level, it's a move that's hard to argue with. Let's face it, professional musicians, designers, filmmakers, architects - the backbone of the "niche" market of old - we just don't have the numbers to matter when you're operating on that scale, and R&D for a professional market is much more involved - and more expensive - than for rank consumers. But my trust in the company will never be the same. I continue to work in Logic, which, in fairness, continues to shine, but I will always have another DAW on hand, and I suspect many others feel the same. We never know when Apple will look at the numbers again and decide to pull the plug, FCP-style, and reassign those engineers to the latest messaging app.

 

Last edited: Oct 3, 2016

I was an Apple Genius for 4 years. I quit 3 years ago. This quote just about sums it up. The old guard super techies that work in the Apples stores are now far and few between. Most were run off by Cook and company.
Just my 2 cents.

 

@fritzm sorry to hear that man , i know a few also . when the stores were first opened holy shit those guys were the top of the top. I'm sorry that smart people like yourself saw the writing on the wall and bounced. It hurts me to diss apple but the truth is the truth. The only reason corporate guys aren't leaving faster is because of stock limitations. True Story...

 

This novel concept was introduced to me in the last few years by a really good friend in regards to how corporate tech-giants played into becoming the new bosses. The more I have gotten to think on it though, the new bosses are possibly far more sinister than the old bosses.

For example, one of the greatest literary examples of a fictional but none the less still cruel and callous hearted villainous boss, Ebeneezer Scrooge, was still capable of a life-altering epiphany that caused him to err his ways and how he treats his employees. EVEN HE, no matter how terrible he seems at the very beginning of the story is still capable of the very basic emotions at the core of humanity, empathy. I'd beg to say, that even the most inhuman capitalist scum who came into power during the last 200 years or so no matter how immovable they eventually become had the ability to be reasoned with. They possessed a soul, a conscience and whether or not the chose to listen to it, still must've had to deal with their guilt and deal with the repercussions of their actions in one way or another.

The new boss however does not posses any of those things. At this point the new boss is a complexly coded mathematical algorithm that is only capable of discerning between the profit-motive incentives and absolutely nothing else. No emotion, soul, empathy or even humanity really left only numbers. In this way as the control of the new bosses proliferates and the system of old bosses crumbles because the economy necessitates itself to become increasingly less caring and more efficiently calculated, the reality of the present future is possibly even more dystopian than may have been previously imagined =/

 

Last edited: Sep 29, 2016

I think they need to keep OS X -- er, macOS -- as a professional platform/operating system and iOS as their consumer platform. As it is, the new Mac Pros are basically oversized, over-powered iPhones, and their remaining laptop line has likewise turned into slightly-faster iPads with built-in keyboards. They're taking Jobs' "end-to-end" philosophy to a ridiculous extreme and creating systems that have absolutely no margin for customization inside the box and software that seems to be geared towards "in-app purchases". I remember when you could get on iTunes and stream hundreds of internet radio stations and podcasts for free. You have to pay per channel now. You can't even get on iTunes and listen to your own downloaded music without an Internet connection now. Coming up in Sierra: Siri .. and the ability to go from Apple Watch to iPhone to iPad to your computer seamlessly. The graphics issues, which have been going on for several OS's now, haven't been fixed (shameful for a platform whose main selling point used to be "better than PC"), although Sierra allegedly has taken care of some of (possibly all of) the audio glitches plaguing OS -- dammit, macOS -- since Mavericks.

I graduated from 10.6.8 to Lion on my old 2008 black MacBook about a year ago, and it was the last OS I could run on that thing. The whole "forced obsolescence" issue caused me to ditch my perfectly-capable machine (it boiled down to a 32-bit GPU Apple decided it was no longer going to support as of Mountain Lion; otherwise, it was the last black MacBook model ever made and had a 64-bit Nehalem processor) and buy a more-recent MacBook Pro last February. I immediately upgraded to El Capitan and discovered about half my software was suddenly obsolete. So I wiped my drive and did a clean install of Lion, throwing away the software I knew I could no longer use and substituting others. After seven months of rebuilding, I finally re-upgraded to El Capitan (just in time for Sierra!). So far, and mainly because I'd known what to expect from the last time, El Capitan seems to be working okay. I'm assuming 10.11.6 is going to be the last update for El Capitan, so it's a lot less buggier than it was when I installed it in February. For the most part, all my audio software seems to be running okay. I have noticed issues with Arturia since version 4; some of their VIs run extremely glitchy (in particular, the newer ones, like Matrix and Synclavier). I use DP 9 and Pro Tools 12.6, and so far, neither of those are giving me problems.

The idea of unifying the consumer versions of computers and the professional versions is probably more the consumer's fault. I don't know a lot of people who actually use computers anymore. They mostly use phones or tablets. Computer and software manufacturers probably feel like they have to make things more phone- and tablet-like in order to keep interest. Unfortunately, in Apple's case, they started out as a manufacturer that catered to creative professionals. Now, as that ends, everybody who bought into that is either feeling abandoned or scrambling to find a viable alternative.

I myself am considering several alternatives -- either an older Mac Pro tower, which, with its lack of USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 connectors, will soon be obsolete, or an iZ Technology RADAR rig, which is still dependent on Windoze and pretty much limits you to audio.

 

It's a retail job. What did you expect?

Finding intelligent people who are capable and clear communicators, who are willing to listen intently, and can efficiently solve problems, and who are also willing to work in a retail store making at best $20/hour, is no easy task. They're the unicorns of retail, a retail manager's wet dream; they just don't exist, unless you are lucky to find someone who is both intelligent and also a fuckup/underachiever. The ones who haven't ruined their lives by squandering their intelligence using are working a meaningful jobs that doesn't involve subjecting themselves to a constant stream of inane stupidity that ultimately forces them to downplay their own intelligence so that they can just get through the day.

 

Except the old bosses didn't give a shit about their employees, either. In fact, they cared so very little and did so very many horrible things to their employees, that many industrialized countries began to implement workers' rights laws to prevent them from acting like complete monsters.

People are people, and as individuals, we haven't changed all that much over the last many thousands of years. Where we have changed, however, is our efficiency at disseminating knowledge and understanding through technology. First the chisel and rock, then the papyrus and quill, then the printing press, and onward toward a system that is essentially instantaneous. It's because information is so much easier to share that our collective consciousness has steadily improved with time. What was once considered tolerable in every day life is now unfathomably horrifying on the rare occasion is happens.

None of this is to say that the CEOs and Chairmen and employers that you described don't exist. They do, but it's they who are the dying breed. The world often seems bleak, but in reality, we're heading in the right direction, slowly but surely. And that's because every subsequent generation born into this world is, on the whole, more advanced than their parental predecessors. As Bob Dylan once said, "The times they are a-changin." Oh, and, "don't think twice it's alright."

 

Just look at Google, whom as overlords of big data love their cold, unfeeling algorithms and the deep-learning artificial intelligences that automate much of their every growing empire of numbers, also treat their employees with a great amount of respect, benefits that support the welfare of their lives outside of work, the freedom to think freely (sounds redundant, but isn't), and who hire their employees not just by achievement or level of success or test scores, but by looking beyond the numbers and taking an empathetic look at who the person is as in individual. Nor do they write run-on sentences.

They are near unique in this sense, but there are many examples of other companies, tech and otherwise, that have fundamentally changed their culture so that it puts an emphasis on healthy and happy employees. That's because, contrary to a once popularly held belief, happy and healthy employees are less likely to become complacent and lazy, instead choosing to work hard for their employers because their is a bond that goes beyond the bi-weekly paycheck and directives and reprimands.

 

we are stepping into dark ages, macOS on one side, Windows 10 on another, both being worse than their "grandpas",
saddest thing is Apple is killing themselves by not officially stepping into hackintosh games long time ago already - they would have had way more customers and could have earned much more money from *software* and software partners (which is what Microsoft finally noticed and will attempt with UWP Store), yet they fail to even provide high-end pro(sumer) desktop since MacPro5,1 !!

 

You're whole post is very true!
Apple has no real leader anymore nor does it lead the market anymore. Just following market demands.
The time of Jobs' second season as Apple's CEO they delivered. They lead the market by innovations and making markets where wasn't one before (e.g. iPod, Tablets).
The last day's I'm reading a book about why great firms fail after some time of huge progress. Title is "The innovator's dilemma - why great firms fail"
Apple, the second time (!), begins to fail, because it doesn't lead anymore. The billions on the bank don't really matter (think about Nokia).

 

That's a most interesting counterpoint, my experiences have kind of pointed otherwise. Either way I really do hope you're right =)

 

I agree with you, it was very bad for Apple to lose Steve Jobs in 2011.
But in 1985 he just behaved like a spoiled Child and would have destroyed Apple completely. After he made business experiences by his own (NeXT, Pixar), he was a lot wiser and able to turn Apple around.

For me, the second big mistake (Steve Jobs's decision) was making Tim Cook CEO - The man with the aura of a bookkeeper and lacking any visions. Just bringing to boil the same products over and over again. Jony Ive in my opinion would have been a smarter choice.