Let’s talk about “decimation.” Photo (CC-BY) Dale Gillard; explanation of the reason we’re using Roman soldiers here… in the article.
Apple tends to avoid commenting outside its famously-watertight public relations apparatus, but executives sometimes get personal. That appears to be the case for Xander Soren, Director of Product Marketing (and a key player in their pro audio apps). Xander has been in my experience an outspoken and articulate individual. Here, he dispels notions that Apple is backing off of Logic development:
Nicholas, thanks for your email. As the lead for our music creation apps, I always want to hear what our users are thinking. I want to assure you the team is still in place and hard at work on the next version of Logic Pro.
-xander
Apple ‘Hard at Work’ on Next Version of Logic Pro [MacRumors]
Yes, leave it to the site with “rumors” in its title to go with evidence, while other major tech outlets go crazy over the rumor. Synthtopia did an excellent – and amusing – round-up of those reports, as well as a well-thought-out argument against the rumors:
Did The Mayans Really Predict The Demise Of Apple’s Logic Pro?
Jim Dalrymple also discounted the rumor on The Loop.
Ironically, you could find some truth to this rumor if you want to get pedantic about the English language.
“Decimated” comes from a Latin origin meaning removal of a “tenth,” referring to not the complete destruction of your personnel, but some portion of, presumably, dead weight. (See any dictionary, or this Wikipedia entry.) I have also heard reports of some personnel changes related to Apple audio, though nothing suggesting any fundamental changes. That may mean that, yes, Apple reorganized and people over-interpreted the results. If they took one person off a ten-person team, they might have even “decimated” someone.
I’m also, frankly, sick of the Final Cut Pro comparisons. Final Cut Pro in its previous version relied on deprecated QuickTime frameworks, lacked a modern code base, lacked 64-bit support – the list goes on. So, Apple never “dropped” features from Final Cut Pro X, as Ars Technica writes, reporting on the Logic rumors. Apple decided to do a ground-up rewrite of their flagship video editor. They’ve gradually re-implemented lost features, and in at least some cases created better, more usable, faster-performing functionality. You may still not like the result, but that’s your prerogative – it’s a new app. It’s just unreasonable to suggest Apple was somehow trying to spite the people who buy the tool.
Logic, by contrast, is already modernized and ready for the OS. Apple has lagged between releases, no question. But let’s judge the results whenever a new release arrives. And, for now, you should make your choice of DAW based on what’s available today. If Logic is the most productive tool, then by all means, carry on. “What’s available today” is a whole heck of a lot of choices, from Reaper to Ableton Live to Cubase. If Logic isn’t competing, then move on.
Speaking of companies that began in Germany founded by guys named Gerhard who make major music production tools that had been in a lag in their product release cadence since around 2009 (phew), Ableton (Gerhard Behles) answered users with Ableton Live 9 this fall. So, now we wait for Apple’s pro audio team (Dr. Gerhard Lengeling) to let us know what they’ve been doing. And users I think deserve to be skeptical about that until they see something. It just means you should also be skeptical about these sorts of rumors unless you have some solid evidence.
To bring it back to Romans, I suppose this clip suits the situation. What has Apple ever done for us?
Moving on… for now…