Whether you care about the iPhone or not, the Summer of iPhone Development reveals a lot about where mobile computing, and mobile music creation, might be headed. That includes Apple’s challenges as well as its accomplishments.

Despite the hype around Apple’s platform, the iPhone and iPod Touch have some strengths and weaknesses, just as any platform does. The strengths you probably know well by now: slick UIs, rich, mobile-optimized developer tools, and a device people love. That has given us some interesting, genuinely-useful music tools amidst the toys and novelties, demonstrating how even a niche can benefit from development capabilities. But the tight development and distribution restrictions, imposed by Apple and their exclusive US service provider AT&T, have compounded some of the negatives of the device. The result is a platform that has some developers raving and some ranting (sometimes simultaneously).

The big news for digital musicians, specifically, is that restrictions created by Apple may keep some music apps from shipping, or for supporting Apple’s official, exclusive SDK and store.

Case in point: the tasty-looking MIDI controller you see above hasn’t made it into the store - and it’s not alone. If the developer were able to distribute it, you’d have it right now. With Apple controlling the store, you might have it tomorrow, or next month, or never - the frustrating thing being, the developer doesn’t even know. And poor communication in regards to the store is just one challenge that’s turning some developers off from Apple’s device.

Digital music creation was built on the openness of the Windows, Mac, Linux, and even Palm and Windows Mobile platforms. That means the situation with Apple’s locked-down development channels is one to watch closely. It also could mean the jailbroken, hacked iPhone platform is here to stay — and that competing platforms could gain some ammunition from Apple’s relatively closed nature.

Not All Developers Are Happy

It goes without saying that some of Apple’s moves have made some developers very happy indeed. The iPhone/iPod Touch is a platform that strikes a unique balance between desktop-class functionality and what’s needed on a mobile device. Developers have complained that platforms like PalmOS or Java ME are overly stripped-down for mobiles, whereas Windows Mobile isn’t optimized enough and is too much like the desktop OS. Apple has done a lot to balance those concerns and wrap it into a beautifully-designed UI and hardware. (To see just how much they’ve done, look no further than AppleInsider’s iPhone 2.0 critique. Even as they complain about the iPhone’s flaws, they note the ways in which competing devices are worse.)

But that doesn’t mean all of Apple’s developers are happy campers. Here’s a quick round-up of some of the complaints:

In case you missed it in comments, amidst the news of a major pro sampling product being discontinued, reader Darren Landrum is interested in offering a free/GPL open source framework for samplers:

The LinuxSampler project offers GigaSampler 3 compatibility for Linux and Windows, so it’s already an open alternative for dealing with your orphaned Giga sampler files. (Naturally, you could also look to a number of Giga-compatibility samplers on the market.)

But the open source community has long been under fire — often rightly so — for simply copying proprietary software rather than doing something new and innovative. I enjoy "new and powerful," so that sounds like a great idea, and that’s what Darren is proposing. He writes:

What I want to do is build a code framework (not to be confused with a library) that will contain classes for handling streaming sample playback, resampling, and all that fun stuff, as well as directed graph building for DSP. From here, the framework can be used to build monolithic applications for sampling and synthesis, as well as a Reaktor-like application, if we do it right.

Yes, it would be better to split things out into libraries, but that takes a lot more work, and I’m tired of things not happening. The sooner we can get some code working, the better.

I should also mention that there are existing open source libraries we can and will leverage, like libsndfile, libsamplerate, libfftw3, and the Rubber Band library, so we won’t be starting completely from scratch.

We are saddened to learn that Juan Antonio Argüelles, “Argu(ru)”, died Sunday night in a car accident. He was respected as one of the most talented plug-in developers anywhere, as the creator of plug-in house discoDSP, and later a developer of plug-ins for Image-Line. He had a deep role in the creation of FL Studio 7, the sampler DirectWave, and Deckadance.

Some of you probably know more of the details of his work for both discoDSP and Image-Line. If you’d like to share anything about him as a person, or his tools, please do. The tools that developers create are a special thing to all of us in our music and in our creative lives; part of the joy of using software someone else creates is getting to know something of their personality. So, from all the users of his tools and the digital music community, you will truly be missed, Arguru.

Both KVR and our friends at the Spanish-language Hispasonic have running threads of condolences.

Rest in Peace, Arguru [KVR Audio Forum thread]

Fallece Juan Antonio Argüelles, “Arguru” [Hispasonic]

Our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues, and to his fiancee.

Some of our game-minded readers may be spending the week in San Francisco, at the Game Developers Conference. Reader and interactive media developer Brad Fuller writes to let us know he’s drafted a series of HTML documents that highlight all of the audio-related sessions for this year’s conference. If you’re lucky enough to be in attendance, hit some of these sessions, take some good notes, and send us a report when you return!

Adobe seems to have baffled the Mac community by announcing that its upcoming audio utility Soundbooth, profiled here earlier this week, would run on Intel Macs but not PowerPC Macs. MacInTouch immediately cried foul, and suddenly the Mac world, having spent the past year yelling at Adobe for not releasing Intel-native code, has begun yelling at Adobe for releasing code only for Intel.

The first response came over the weekend from Adobe’s John Nack on his personal blog, waxing largely philosophical about why it made sense to support the newer Intel Macs instead of the PowerPC platform Apple themselves had abandoned. Now, I’ll be the first to concede Mac users can be hotheaded, but I think the better response would be to cut straight to the technical reasons why Adobe’s developers made this choice. Mac users assume, because they’ve been told so repeatedly by Apple, that creating universal applications is a “checkbox-clicking affair.” You can see a comment to that effect in the extensive discussion Mr. Nack triggered on his site.

Adobe audio product manager Hart Shafer chimes in today with the simpler technical answer:

Another one bites the dust? I’ve just been tipped off that Hartmann Music, the makers of the unusual but innovative synth, have closed shop. There’s a statement in their German news, but it hasn’t yet been translated to English. (See further discussion in a thread on KVR.)

More on this as it happens; German speakers care to translate the German? (Babelfish, as employed in the KVR thread, is useless. My German is better — and that ain’t good.)

Mystery solved: Cakewalk introduced the Dimension Pro synth for Mac and Windows simultaneously the week of AES.

A post on KVR Audio which appears to be from the Cakewalk beta team suggests that Cakewalk is looking for Mac OS X beta testers:

Cakewalk is looking for OSX Beta Testers [KVR Message Topic]

Cakewalk (aka 12 Tone Systems) is a long-time leading PC/Windows developer, since their founding in the late 1980s. Their early products were DOS-based, but all their flagship, in-house development has been PC-only. Products like Metro have occasionally brought them to the Mac (thanks to that commenter, yes, a fine product I remember well — er, aside from I forgot it), and, briefly, the cross-platform Overture notation software originally developed by Opcode. But they’ve never launched a major product for the Mac.

So, what’s happening on the Mac? If I knew, I’d be under NDA. Unfortunately, the only information I can share would therefore either have to be speculation — or wrong. And, wishful thinking aside, you probably won’t be running Project5 v2 on the Mac any time soon. More likely, as another reader points out, is the Z3TA+ waveshaping synth (pictured), inexplicably pronounced “zay-tah.” Cakewalk got distribution rights from rgc:audio, whose other great plugins have started showing up in products like SONAR. (And, having tried it on Windows, it’s good stuff.)

Huge news? Okay, maybe not. Big news? I still think so, especially if the Mac gets more terrific plugins. And while Cakewalk may not be plotting a Mac move, that doesn’t change the fact that they could. In fact, I’m one of those who thinks they should, if development costs aren’t too high. SONAR would be redundant on a platform that already has DP, Logic, Pro Tools, Live, and other DAWs, but Project5 v2 could be a logical jump. I think the reasons they’re not on the Mac could be more religious than economical — and that could keep them PC loyal for a long time to come. But that’s okay by me. I have to have some reason to keep the PC around.

By the way, on the subject of Metro, that sequencer is still alive:

Metro [Sagan Technology]

. . . Opcode notwithstanding, sometimes discontinued software gets a second lease on life. Now my memory is that Metro was originally not a Cakewalk product, that it’s something they bought (like Overture). Can anyone set me straight?

Apple’s announcement about Intel has left a lot of confusion and misinformation in its wake, and unfortunately, I’m not a developer. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’d like to clarify several points, based on reader feedback:

XCode versus other tools isn’t the major issue: (For non-developer readers, XCode is the Apple development tool, as opposed to third-party products like Metrowerks, which ironically rose to prominence during the transition from the older Motorola 68k processor to the current PowerPC architecture.) Several readers who are developers have written in to point out I overstated the difficulty of porting for non-XCode users. This comes down to a definition of “port.” Several outlets reported yesterday that non-XCode developers had additional work ahead of them. Developers will have to switch to XCode, but as Kurt points out:

The code won’t have to change significantly, if *at all* — it’s not a “complete re-port” by any means. It’s a bit of a change to switch from CodeWarrior to XCode, but definitely something that can be accomplished in a few days. It simply is not as big of a deal as you think it is.”

Most developers are upbeat: Yes, the transition is going to require additional work. But while initial reactions on the floor were shock and anger from some, by the end of the day most developers we’ve talked to were largely positive. It’s a good thing that Apple’s abandoning a chip supplier that let it — and its user base — down.

It’s NeXT all over again: As CDM’s own Lee Sherman, veteran NeXT journalist, points out, part of the reason this news isn’t surprising at all is that it’s a return to the state of development on the NeXT operating system. Recompile for NeXT, and your fat binaries could run on Motorola, Intel, SPARC, and HP-RISC, says Lee. (Incidentally, a lot less of a pain than Linux!)

What we’re still clarifying: There are some remaining questions, as you’d expect about a huge announcement that’s only hours old. One revelation: you probably won’t be able to run music software that hasn’t been recompiled. (See CDM’s comment thread for one reader report.) This would mean, if true, that Rosetta won’t support audio interfaces. You’ll need updated software for Mac-intel.

So, at this point — largely, it’s waiting. If there’s more breaking news, you’ll read it here. In the meantime, back to our regularly scheduled programming! (phew)

One major music developer is thrilled about Apple’s move to Intel: Ableton, developer of the wildly-popular Live software.

Robert Henke, Ableton’s software “conceptualist,” long-time Max/MSP developer, and electronic musician (member of Monolake) had this to say on Ableton’s forum:

“Hmm, Apple is going to use intel chips in the future. Good bye Altivec. You should praise us for not waisting resources into a technology which we tested and did not get a significant boost and which would have had the huge problem of maintaining two code bases.” [sic]

You heard that right: Ableton users had pressed the company to enhance their code for Velocity Engine, but Ableton found it didn’t help performance. While I’ve found Live runs brilliantly on my dual-2.7GHz G5 (big surprise), its CPU-intensive time-stretching and effects can bog down a 1GHz PowerBook G4. Comparable PC mobiles tend to run much better dollar-for-dollar; an entry-level Live laptop PC is significantly cheaper than a Mac if you compare performance specs. (Boy, it feels good to say that, now that Apple is finally admitting as much.)

Live is a glimpse of the future of digital music: real-time, improvisatory, with involved DSPs. And that’s what this is about. There’s simple reasoning here: current G4s and future PPCs are too slow. Have you played with Apple’s latest and greatest? Logic, Soundtrack, Motion, Final Cut, even GarageBand — all CPU-intensive. Apple and the many Mac music developers deserve an engine that will run tomorrow’s music applications. So far, the music developers are saying that engine will come from Intel. So, when you next hear pundits saying Apple’s move is a cynical business decision, I’m happy to say, it’s not. This is all about getting the right CPU on the Mac platform. And, heck, if it came from the Pepsi-Cola company, I’d want it.

In other Macintel news:

What about Windows? Developer contacts tell CDM that they think in fact you’ll be able to run Windows apps alongside Mac apps, a la Xwindows. Just don’t expect a dual-boot machine; that would require Apple’s involvement (and they won’t go there.) And, of course, you’ll lose the advantages of the Mac UI that are the reason you use the thing in the first place. (Now, will we see Audio Units for Windows? Hmm . . .) But for intrepid users, you can bet you’ll see this happen. Project5 on Mac, anyone?

All about Xcode: One anonymous developer source also indicates Mac developers will probably have to move to Xcode. This could be very bad news indeed for small music developers. Stay tuned for details. Slashdot agrees (but you’re musicians, so spare yourself the 7,000,000 comments likely over there).

Rhapsody on Pentium: Think this is news? Check this screenshot of Rhapsody on Pentium in the early Apple-NeXT days.

So, for developers, lots of questions. For the rest of us, we just plug on . . . and Mac users will probably want to delay purchases for a while, honestly. (Unless you’re thinking about a G5 machne. They’re great. Go for it.)