I’ve been a Mac user since the 80’s. My first Mac was a Mac Plus with an external 800k floppy drive. My interest in computers led to me doing some corporate programming work, and one of the first things I asked the company I was working for to do was to buy me a HP PC, so I could make Mac and Windows versions of the software.
I programmed educational software and taught teachers and students how to use computers, and then I moved onto server administration and then web development/design. I’ve also done client support for both Mac and Windows. I’m currently the main web developer for one of the biggest school districts in the country, and I manage our websites on a virtual Windows Server farm.
So I know the Mac and I know Windows.
The Mac was always the BMW to the Windows Ford. The BMW was better, but the price difference was massive, which is why Windows dominated the market. Apple was 90 days from bankruptcy when Steve Jobs came back to the company he founded and brought about the biggest business comeback in American history. And he did it with the iPhone.
When Steve Jobs died, Tim Cook took over Apple and proceeded to make it even bigger. But slowly, over time, Apple has started slipping back into some of the old bad habits from before Jobs came back. I like my iPhone, but the music app and the podcast app are both subpar. The iPhone kicked the ass of every mobile phone on the market when it came out, but Google (Android) quickly caught up and in some ways has now surpassed it. Apple’s edge was always that it wanted to make the best product – think of things other people didn’t, get rid of featured that no one used, make life simple. The iOS has bloated to the point where it’s no longer the easy stupid simple tool it used to be.
But this is a MUSIC website, so let’s talk music. iTunes on the Mac is a subpar piece of shit. Every Mac user knows it. On the iPhone, Apple’s decision to drop the decades-long industry standard headphone jack was crazy, crazy stupid. It’s something they would’ve done before Jobs came back. For Mac laptop users, the decisions to remove the mag-lock power adaptor and remove extra ports was beyond terrible and stupid. These are really bad moves.
BUT. But the Mac OS is still a very solid, clean, stable operating system that was designed with publishing, audio, and video in mind, not as an add-on like Windows. The old stereotypes are still mostly true:
- Mac: Best for publishing, audio, and video work
- Windows: Best for servers, gaming, and inexpensive hardware
For both of the people who are now wondering why I’m not talking about Linux, I feel your pain. I like Linux a lot. I have a Linux box upstairs right now, set up to play retro games. If I had to, I could make an album using Linux and a 10 year old computer. But for audio work, it’s not in the same league as Mac or Windows.
Ahem. Anyway, in my opinion, Logic Pro X is the best DAW on the market, period, for everything except electronic music. And Logic Pro X is Mac only. Pro Tools is the industry standard for recording studios, but the world has moved on from recording studios. There’s a whole lot of music being made using Logic. Additionally, GarageBand, free with a Mac, is an outstanding, easy to use, almost as powerful as Logic alternative.
So here’s my suggestion to Apple: make a music production Mac. A Mac designed specifically for a home recording studio. It should have a low noise fan, tons of USB and Thunderbolt ports, tons of RAM slots, an upgradeable CPU structure, and easy access to the machine’s internals. And it should be priced comparable to what a similar unit from Dell would cost. OK, maybe don’t worry about the CPU being upgradeable. Just give me 16GB RAM from the start and the ability to upgrade to 32GB, give me a 1TB solid state drive with the ability to add a second one, give me a good video card, and give me a reasonable price. That computer would literally fly off the shelves.
Apple won’t do any of that. Why? Because they’re a phone company now. But the iOS market share is slipping away, year after year. The advantage Jobs created is gone. Heck, the Apple watch is getting its lunch eaten by Fitbit. Apple has one single big issue – they don’t listen to their customers. The only thing that keeps my home studio computer on a Mac is Logic Pro X. The killer app for music. But people are making Hackintosh computers to run Logic these days, because they can build what they actually NEED for half of what Apple would charge.
My poor little MacBook Air can get overwhelmed by Logic, though. I could really benefit from a Mac tower computer with tons of ports. You know, the one Apple no longer makes.
Despite all of this, the Mac is still the best choice for a home recording studio. As I’ve said before, Logic comes with everything you need – with almost anything else, you’ll be spending a lot of money on extras.
Hmm. You know… actually… maybe the Hackintosh people are onto something. Maybe that’s the route I need to go. But I’m a computer nerd. What about everyone else?
