Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Audio, Hardware, Bad Apple
More Audio Driver Drama: Blame Apple, Says Peter Kirn
A few days ago I posted about the problems that the 10.5.2 update was causing with audio recording hardware and software from various manufacturers. Today, in a follow-up post to his original roundup of the issues at hand, Peter Kirn weighs in on Apple's accountability.Kirn's position is that Apple is responsible because all the evidence suggests that the problems lie with the 10.5.2 update, not any one vendor's drivers. "Problems haven't affected everyone," says Kirn, "but they have been widespread enough that we have a right to be disappointed. As a user, I think I have the right to be disappointed. As a writer, it's my obligation to point it out. And I hope they do better in the future."
Of course, as Peter points out, rumor is that 10.5.3 is right around the corner, so hopefully these problems will disappear and Trent Reznor can get back to making music instead of standing in for angry Mac-using music geeks in my music-related posts.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Peter Kirn said 1:44PM on 5-27-2008
Yowsa. Okay, before Apple throws produce at me or a mob with torches shows up, I should clarify: I was responding to people who saw their audio interfaces stop working with a specific OS update, yet *still* managed to blame the folks who made their audio box rather than Apple. These things can happen in OS updates. It's not the end of the world -- though I do wish it happened, generally, less often. (I expect the teams working on developing the OS don't disagree!)
I was also confused when people reacted angrily to my even raising the problem of these bugs, just because they weren't *personally* experiencing the issue. If 5-10% of people (hypothetically) experience an issue with one OS version, and 0% have issues with, say, a previous version, then the previous version remains preferable for critical audio work until the issue gets fixed. :)
Also, it's been a series of difficult transitions for this whole market. First, we had the Intel switch -- good for audio (boy, do we love our MacBooks and MacBook Pros over the PowerBook when it comes to performance), but requiring a costly transition. Then came Vista and Leopard, which, by contrast, didn't really provide any significant advantage for the music market specifically (that wasn't their focus), but did require more costly upgrades and support for the device vendors -- and left users angry (understandably) when their new boxes didn't work the way they expected. So there's no question that the music market in general would like to move forward and get stuff working better than it has been on Windows and Mac alike over the last 12 months.
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Dale said 2:32PM on 5-27-2008
While I definitely understand the position that it's more than likely the update and not the drivers causing the issue, builds of new operating systems and their point versions are seeded to the development community ahead of their release.
Surely it's prudent for hardware manufacturers to at least check their more popular devices on these new software versions to ensure compatibility?
That was my issue with M-Audio - Vista and Leopard were both readily available to hardware and software companies ahead of time. That my devices were not supported under either until long after release was shocking on their part.
adisor19 said 2:19PM on 5-27-2008
"I was also confused when people reacted angrily to my even raising the problem of these bugs, just because they weren't *personally* experiencing the issue. If 5-10% of people (hypothetically) experience an issue with one OS version, and 0% have issues with, say, a previous version, then the previous version remains preferable for critical audio work until the issue gets fixed. :)"
Funny you mention that. I got the same response when i reported problems with the new process scheduler in Leopard. Basically, processes that are meant to run "nice" DO NOT ACTUALLY RUN AS NICE. Yet Apple claims that's nothing's wrong even though LOTS of pple have reported the bug and it's been posted on forums everywhere.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6662466
I find disturbing Apple's attitude when it comes to even TRYING to reproduce the problems we report.. They just flat out dismissed my bug report with no effort on their part. I find it down right insulting :(
Adi
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Flipstar said 2:19PM on 5-27-2008
Digidesign has been taking a ton of slack for the delays to Pro Tools LE's Leopard compatibility. I think it's about time for Apple to step up their work with these companies.
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Peter Kirn said 2:59PM on 5-27-2008
I do know developers are in touch with Apple regarding this issue. I don't know what the official response is from Apple, because Apple generally doesn't comment on these kind of issues publicly.
But yes, if Apple has in fact caused this problem with a change to the kernel, there's not a heck of a lot a developer can do about it other than wait. In fact, I think part of the reason some developers on both Windows and Mac OS aren't faster with supporting new OSes is they've been so consistently burned on reliability of new releases. I don't endorse that practice, but you can see how a feedback loop gets going. Anyway, what do you do if there are kernel performance bugs?
And as for seeding developer releases, I'm not convinced Apple's timetable for seeding is providing anywhere close to the amount of time to ensure quality from their third-party developers. Again, that information isn't public. But I think you could at least safely say that there's room for improvement -- if there weren't, we wouldn't be having any problems at all. Maybe we can't get a perfect record, but maybe we could be doing better.
For the record, 10.4 had audio issues when first released with driver compatibility, etc., so I don't want to imply this is a new problem. For the music market, it's a given that people will have to wait to upgrade -- but that means developers are even less motivated to solve problems when the OS ships, and it creates similarly lowered expectations for Apple. I don't think there's an easy fix for that, but as a musician, it's nothing if not disappointing.
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Data said 4:05PM on 5-27-2008
Where can ifind those Trent Reznor threads ? I would love to read those.
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G said 4:57AM on 5-28-2008
I hope something like this gets up in Apple's face, if only to make them aware that it is a priority for many people to have in OS X the best audio subsystem. Period. The worry I have is that Apple has rarely ever improved Core Audio since OS X was born. Sure, they add more features. And sure, one of the later versions of 10.4 claimed to improve Firewire audio interfaces, but the Core Audio 'native' interface I was trying out at the time didn't change one bit. Recording tests showed a random offset position after the track was in Logic. Fucking random! I've since learned to go with an experienced audio hardware dev which writes their own drivers (and they are still rock solid in 10.5.2). But it's as if the audio team inside Apple has absolutely no clout or say-so whatsoever and constantly gets steamrolled by other priorities. This has to stop.
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NotBob said 9:52PM on 5-30-2008
So this is kinda the opposite of the Creative Labs X-Fi issues on Vista? Creative Labs has yet to fix their drivers. It is the only problem I have ever had with the bloated OS known as Vista. It does not seem like Creative Labs will ever fix it.
On a side note... are Apple users really dependent on Apple to release working drivers for video cards? The only reason I ask is because in the Windows world the decent drivers for high end video cards always come from 3rd parties. The drivers from the manufacturers and the drivers that MS allows you to download are always crap...
I only ask because I am honestly thinking of switching to an Apple for my next computer. While I am really missing the 3G and some of the control I had with my Windows Mobile phone from 1.5 years ago, I would never give up my iPhone...
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