Apple made a controversial announcement at the World Wide Developers’ Conference, which went something like this: “We’ve got a new, innovative way of giving you developer access to our phone: we’re not.” (I’m paraphrasing; see the full quote below.) In less than 24 hours, this has devolved into an online debate between defensive “traditional” developers and Web developers, Apple critics and apologists. Many have tried to turn it into a debate over what whether or not web apps are applications. That’s silly. Of course web applications are apps. Here’s the real problem in a nutshell:

1. Apple is ignoring what makes non-Web apps valuable. That’s their choice — it’s their phone — and we could forgive them and maybe even agree with them, except –

2. They’re then trying to distort reality around them so that things they’re saying that happen to be wrong wind up being right. Lots of companies do that, but this being Apple, some people are actually listening, and I hope they’ll stop.

I’m going to say this the long way around, because I type fast and think in sprawling, high-word-count ways. Our friends at Rogue Amoeba, one of our favorite audio developers for the Mac (notice how multimedia keeps coming up), put this more succinctly:

Web Apps Are Not Applications

We know that making SDKs is not easy, and so it boggles the mind that you were able to create a complete iPhone SDK so quickly! So much access, provided so seamlessly - it is really quite amazing.

With this new SDK, we can create something neither of us could possibly have done alone, and make the iPhone platform the mobile platform to develop for.

Anxiously awaiting his copy of the iPhone SDK,
Sarcastic Developer

Web apps are wonderful. I spend huge amounts of time in them. But as musicians, you know why web apps alone aren’t enough. Hardware access and multimedia capabilities are vitally important for some (but not all) tasks. Take them away, and your expensive computers become instantly less useful. This matters to some more than others, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. In fact, try this experiment: take your Mac. Remove all audio and MIDI device support, allowing only iPhone and the OS to make sound. Now you can’t even record a voice memo or phone call — no mic input. Next, reinstall your browser, removing Java and Flash. (Good: I can read Penny Arcade and CDM — well, most of CDM. Bad: I can’t watch Homestar Runner. Or YouTube. Or use embedded Flickr apps. Or use entire websites. Uh-oh.)

A phone is not a Mac, and that’s a good thing. But to assume these two things equate just doesn’t make sense. Design is about compromises, and that’s a good thing. But now design is about making compromises, then changing the reality around you so that they’re not compromises any more?

Here’s a short list of other things an iPhone web app can’t do that (with the notable exception of multi-touch) the vast majority of phones can — yes, including that crappy low-end Nokia you got free with service. Really. Look up the developer site for your phone, and check it out.

In a little while, Steve Jobs will be keynoting Apple’s developer conference. I doubt that anyone will be thinking about audio drivers. So in the remaining moments to do that, let’s go — because 10.5 looks like it’s yet another release from Apple that takes music production seriously.

Most of us didn’t expect any major improvements in Apple’s Core Audio in 10.5 — nor need them, as Core Audio is rock-solid for most of what we need to do, in terms of performance and reliability. That’s not to give Apple a free pass; there have been some compatibility issues with point releases (10.4.9 comes to mind), bumps in the AU plug-in format’s evolution, and so on. But at the end of the day, the Mac is an OS that works for music production, more seamlessly and easily than anything else out there. Yet Apple is in fact making some improvements to its audio driver system even in 10.5:

164 Professional Audio Input and Output with Leopard Mac OS X Essentials Presentation
Discover Leopard’s support for the recently-approved USB Audio Device 2.0 class specification and how to write spec-compliant descriptors for your high-speed USB audio device. Find out how to unleash the power of FireWire peer-to-peer networking using Leopard’s all-new FireWire audio drivers and enhanced Audio/Video Control (AV/C) media services. Learn how to implement user interfaces and vendor-specific AV/C commands to control your audio device.

So, wow, in other words … in a release that’s largely focused on Core Animation and the visual side of the operating system, Apple has added new FireWire support, networking over FireWire, and driver-free USB 2.0 support. (Right now, you can plug-and-play class-compliant USB 1.1 audio devices, but not USB 2.0. Erm … or whatever those two USB specs are really supposed to be called; that’s another discussion.)

Live from the WWDC keynote with CDM’s own Lee Sherman, Apple has the latest on their new operating system release:

1. OS X is 64-bit, top to bottom: Here’s a real demonstration of the difference between Apple and Microsoft. Windows XP x64 has been a mess; virtually no one has adopted it (despite some advocacy on the part of music developer Cakewalk), and a lot of software isn’t compatible (like, notably, any music software that relies on PACE, as well as many drivers). Now Apple will make OS X 10.5 entirely 64-bit, with seamless compatibility for 32-bit apps. Hopefully that includes Core Audio; we’ll be asking more about the details on this.
2. Automatic backup: Time Machine provides automated backup of everything you do, answering a real need as Apple has found only 26% of users polled are backing up. (I’m guessing 75% of them were lying, too.) Restore everything or some things, locally on a hard drive or on a server. It even works with applications like iPhoto. It’ll be interesting to learn more details on this; this is a feature I’ve wanted Apple to add for years.
3. Time Lord: [Demonstrating the new Time Machine UI] “Time is a dimension that recedes into your desktop,” says Lee, a la Expose. A timeline on the right side flips through earlier iterations of a folder in Finder. This is a key point, because one of the oft-overlooked needs for backup is undoing human/user error, not just recovering from a drive failure. Everything works right within the Finder. “Best backup UI ever,” says Lee.
4. New Software Bundle: Leopard will now come right out of the box with Boot Camp (for Intel Macs booting Windows), Front Row (the multimedia app), and the fun photo app Photo Booth, plus, a new app –

Lee Sherman is live at the WWDC keynote. Phil Schiller has good news regarding the new Mac Pro tower, singling out pro audio applications to demonstrate the new machine’s speed:

1. Intel Xeon Woodcrest-based: Core 2 dual core CPUs up to 3GHz (that’s Core 2, not Core Duo, meaning the latest version of Intel’s Core architecture — and probably exactly what Apple was waiting for to go to Intel in towers); 64-bit, 4 MB shared L2 cache
2. Good “performance per watt” (that’s not just Apple blowing smoke this time; PC press have confirmed that about Core 2)
3. Quadruple your pleasure: Two dual-core CPUs, 2.1x faster than the existing top of the line G5 quad
4. Faster audio performance: Logic Pro is 1.8x faster than the G5 quad; Soundtrack Pro 1.6x faster. (These are the first we’ve heard of Soundtrack benchmarks, but we verified the basic claims of the Logic benchmarks on the Intel laptops at Macworld)
5. More storage: Finally, Apple is addressing the gripes about the G5 design: 4 hard drive bays for up to 2 TB of storage, a second optical drive, more front panel I/O and slots, but all fit in the same enclosure; thanks to the fact that there’s less need for cooling, there’s more space for expansion


6. US$2499 buys you a single, standard configuration: dual 2.66 XEON, 1GB RAM (underconfigured there, but okay), and 250GB HD, plus SuperDrive
7. “Highly Configurable”: You can configure options from there; NVIDIA Quadro graphics are available as an option

And so, Apple has “completed the Intel transition.” I have to say, it really sounds as though Apple has delivered here. I had hoped Apple would either go with a smaller case or deliver more storage options. The latter of these options is really ideal, given the pro market. The big question will be performance, as compared to the previous Power Mac G5s. The G5s perform so well, ironically, that unlike the laptops there may be less incentive to upgrade immediately if you have a late-model G5. But with Intel’s roadmap as healthy as it is, the long haul looks very good indeed, and if you’ve got an older tower that you’ve been waiting to upgrade, you may finally have a reason to spring. We’ll bring you more details on these machines as we get them. Now, since the case is the same, I hope we see more options for toting these giant towers on the road.

Now that Apple has delivered pro towers, you can also expect Digidesign will be making the TDM version of Pro Tools Intel-native very soon, too, so stay tuned for more on that.

Mac Pro [Apple.com]