--- 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