Arturia does that, and Korg did as well (making controller keyboards specific for emulating a synth, with the software running on a Mac or PC.
Downsides:
- if the software doesn’t get updated, you’re stuck running an old OS an old Mac that supports it.
- you can’t just turn on the synth and use it, you need to find a cable, connect it to the Mac, launch the software, etc
What I don't quite get is why manufacturers of midi controllers (Arturia, Novation, NI, etc.), with the exception of, possibly only Korg, don't release any of their digital instruments as mobile apps. After sitting the whole day in front of my computer, the last thing I want to do is to swap VS Code for Ableton or Kontakt and spend a few more hours in the glow of my monitors.
(I do get that if you are very serious about making music you need a proper computer set up. I am just a mere amateur hobbyist.)
This is why I bought a teenage engineering op-1. Yes it’s overpriced, yes there are definitely better little desktop synths but I can whip this one out and just go wild without having to look at a (real) screen.
Same reason I keep my Roland Fantom around - has everything built in to the device.
NI are probably more focused on DJ stuff at the mobile app level.
Arturia have tried a few different hardware-hosts over the years, but seem to be focusing on their Astrolab platform rather than supporting iOS (Android is a non-runner due to latency).
Novation's main offerings are about analog signal paths. Back in the early 00s they had a few weird integrations like the X-Station, but its the analog nature of the bass-station and subsequent *Brute line that maintained their USP and cachet. Things like the Circuit/Launchpad are obvious AIO attempts at taking the share from similar form-factor iPad sequencing and clip launching utilities.
Love the product, love that you don’t need a cloud account. Congrats! I’m in the same situation where I seem to improvise better when I haven’t hit the record button.
I think what you say is true, yet some base research takes time. If you have a “ship it” attitude, you might push teams towards taking smaller bets that they know are within reach? I don’t know how the transformer breakthroughs at Google/DeepMind happened, and it’s likely they were “shipping” things internally, but it seems clear that the people on those teams were working in a very different environment than what the author is describing.
If you look at all the defining products of Apple, they also took years from the “germ of an idea” until they could be launched, and though they might have “shipped” internally, they gained a lot by not having pressure to ship things piecemeal to customers.
Google Brain spent oodles of money developing that tech only to watch other people capitalize on the research and potentially make Google Search (one of the stickiest products I've ever seen) obsolete. Freeform, self-directed, open-ended research labs are certainly a great approach from a technology breakthrough PoV, if you have 2010s Google margins.
But it's not obvious to me that approach was even a net win for Google as a business. Did Google Brain invent the technology that killed Google? TBD I think.
I wonder what would be the alternative, though? Other companies/universities would eventually have made the same breakthroughs, and I don’t think the answer to the innovators dilemma is to do less ambitious innovation?
In the case of Google there’s a lot of internal reasons why they didn’t leverage this opportunity, but if they had done that they might have ended up making their main product even more sticky.
I'm usually hesitant to give advice since I'm never in someone elses shoes, but here's some thoughts:
A lot of community building comes down to trust, whether you are developing a commercial or open source platform. As a customer and integrator/consultant/developer, I want to know that the platform is going to be around and supported. The bigger my company the higher the risk is.
Open sourcing your software sends signals to your customers and partners. Some will see it as a last ditch effort to make it successful, with the flip side being that if it doesn't happen, you're won't be maintaining it anymore. Will that make them more or less likely to use your software/help build your community?
So in your messaging you should be very clear in what you want to achieve, and how you plan to build a successful business around an open source or open core model, and how the others companies fit into this. How will you respond if another company takes your code and does the exact same thing you're trying to monetize, only better? Etc.
You should also be careful about positive feedback. Most people like to be nice and supportive, and won't say negative things. The only way to know whether you'll have success there is to see actual commitment (in money or work spent) with your product.
Finally as others have said, you shouldn't expect automatic success/community by open sourcing the code. You might end up attracting the sort of customers / developers that have the least incentive to contribute or pay for additional services, unless you go find those yourself.
Apple was able to manage this with a much bigger market and a lot more apps (when transitioning to OS X), so while it would be hard, I think Palm could have been able to do that as well.
But as you say, the company structure, market position and a lot more worked against them (same thing with Nokia and Symbian).
Windows 11 changed the OOBE to have users sign in, though this can be bypassed fairly easily if you're tech-literate. Sometimes for installs I'll bypass, other times I'll log in with a Microsoft account, then create a local user, switch to that user, and then delete the computer account for the MS account.
My original comment was that macOS is no better. They require an account for downloading any app on the app store. The Microsoft store does not require one.
Granted, I have iCloud turned on (for syncing notes and calendar) but I have it turned off for everything else. I’ve never had it ask me to turn on any of the other iCloud features like iCloud backup or drive / desktop sync. (And I’d guess if it synced things without my knowledge it would show up in my iCloud storage usage?)
There’s 12 cameras and 3 screens to drive, how many lanes would you need for that through the cable? How chunky would the cable be after adding necessary shielding?
optical fiber ? it may cost a bit more than copper for the transceivers (is that still true nowadays?) but given the price of the hardware i doubt it's really an issue.
Why assume it's a greenfield project? I would think most open source software that comes out of companies have lived internally for a while before going public?
This. I’m willing to bet I talked to one of the people who use this internally at Apple a few years back when I interviewed there (before they decided to do away with remote hires). They didn’t mention it, but it fits the context.
I absolutely loved it and I’ve been extremely impatient to see its release. I used it to generate k8s manifests, Terraform, all infra config files. Very flexible and fun to use
Additionally I cant think of other such projects from Apple. They tend to build things that get used extensively till the end of their life is consumed.
I wish Apple would continue to open source much more. Especially old software much like Microsoft does. I would kind of enjoy a Linux Distro that can natively run old Apple software and tools.
Clang leaps to mind. Most of LLVM was developed under Apple's auspices, although the project predates Apple hiring Chris Latner. Swift is also open source, although in practice it's almost always used in a macOS context. Which I think is a shame, it's a great language for writing the sorts of servers for which people usually reach for Go.
That's not a complete list of programs Apple has open-sourced, although clearly open-source software isn't what they're best known for. But clang alone is a worthy contribution which deserves to be recognized.
Lots of processor types are programmable, not just GPUs. Apple is well known for making purpose built chips for their hardware. Main point is that they reuse the cores across different chips. A chip with 12 camera interfaces doesn’t sound like a general purpose GPU to me.
Just did some reading on image signal processors and then noticed that Apple calls out that the A series chips do ISP on-die rather than via a dedicated co-processor, so it seems like you’re right and a significant part of this chip is just to be a DSP of raw sensor input.
I guess the unknown is what exactly happens on this chip vs the M2. Clearly some computer vision is being done to do object/people recognition and to separate out objects in order to place the content in 3D space. And then there’s stuff like deciding when to allow the external environment to “break through” immersive content. And of course placing the content in the scene.
It seems like those would make the most sense on the R1, since it avoids contention with “userland” processes. But I don’t know if those tasks are more GPU tasks or DSP tasks. If more GPU, then I guess this thing is a SoC with a lot of die space dedicated to DSP.
Downsides: - if the software doesn’t get updated, you’re stuck running an old OS an old Mac that supports it. - you can’t just turn on the synth and use it, you need to find a cable, connect it to the Mac, launch the software, etc