Unless you do all your music work in some combination of Apple Logic (Pro/Express), Ableton Live, and/or Reason, it’s still a little premature to go buy that MacBook. Native Instruments, for example, recently updated their timetable for release. Fall sounds like the sweet spot for most musicians to upgrade, thanks to more shipping software with Intel support, and, based on our sources, a probably timeframe for a slightly updated Apple mobile line. (I won’t even try to predict when the desktop Intel Macs will appear.)
3rd Quarter 2006:
Guitar Rig, Guitar Combos, Traktor DJ Studio, Kontakt, Reaktor, Bandstand, Akoustik Piano
Late 3rd Quarter:
Absynth, Battery, FM7
4th Quarter 2006:
B4, Elektrik Piano, Pro-53
“Until End of 2006:”
Vokator, Spektral Delay
The ordering probably has to do with the underlying engine; Vokator and Spektral Delay, for instance, are older products. Or, it almost makes sense — aside from being grammatically odd, “Until End of 2006” seems like it would occur during fourth quarter, unless this is a subtle hint Vokator will slip to January.
Notably missing from this list is KORE, though I’m not sure why — I’ll try to find that out. And NI is behind schedule, having promised it would ship its first Universal Binary releases in Q2. Also, they suggest they may force you to buy a full upgrade of some of these products in order to get Intel-native support: “updates . . . will be made available for a small fee (€ 25/ $ 29 each update), or as part of the next version of this product.” You’ll also have to deal with sample libraries that rely on Native’s sample players individually, making this potentially a big pain for soundware users. (On the bright side, I would expect soundware makers to make those upgrades free, or at least inexpensive, since they can get the updated player from NI.)
The good news: if you have Komplete Care 2006, updates are free, and the Intel compatibility page seems to suggest NI will support the “dual core architecture,” which hopefully means more robust multithreading on both Mac and PC. (Windows users are likely to get more multithreading in their apps thanks to Apple’s aggressive embrace of Core Duo, as I’ve pointed out before.) Stay tuned for some hard details once we get them.
Intel Mac Compatibility Page, via Gearjunkies
i believe it when I see it. NI was later than promised with os9 to osx jaguar to panther and with their au validation scheme. I personally think that macintel will be a serious competitor for powermac in the first quarter of 2007. So many manufacturers that have to port teir au s ……
refx, NI arturia, linplug korg , camel, spectra , rob papen, ohm,
I think my mac pro will at first work side by side with the G5. The mac pro can do video and thge g5 can do audio. IU want them to share a 30 and 2 23 inch displays with the click of the mouse…..
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