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Will Computer-Based Recording Become a Blip?


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It wasn't that long ago that tape recording was it. Period. Now, tape recording is for the same kind of people who tinker with a 1956 Thunderbird car on weekends.

 

With Apple moving toward an even more closed system and a pursuit of services, and Windows wanting Azure to be like Amazon...well, I sure can't do a lot of recording on Apple Music or Amazon's servers.

 

I can see a few possible doomsday outcomes...

 

* People hack computers that weren't really designed for recording to do recording.

* Linux-based PCs become "the computer for the rest of us" by fulfilling needs not served by Apple and Microsoft.

* A company like Yamaha or Native Instruments creates a computer designed solely for music...maybe something like an embedded system, and it gets support from other manufacturers for peripherals and software.

 

But I think it's a possibility that the golden age of pro audio riding on the coattails of consumer-oriented computers may be in its twilight years.

 

 

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There is no doubt we will see many changes and the frequency of change will increase as time goes on.

 

I think tablets will become the cutting edge for recording, perhaps an interface that wirelessly connects?

 

For all the changes, some things have not changed much. Microphones and audio cables come to mind...

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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There is no doubt we will see many changes and the frequency of change will increase as time goes on.

 

I think tablets will become the cutting edge for recording, perhaps an interface that wirelessly connects?

 

My concern with that is by the time you've added another monitor, more external storage, and a hub for the things that won't run with a tablet, you'll end up with something like this.

 

I guess at some points tablets could be powerful enough, with enough RAM and expansion ports to be able to do things like video editing and complex music production. But since those aren't the needs of the average consumer, I wouldn't hold my breath. More likely we'll see more machines like the upcoming Mac Pro - high performance and big bucks.

 

For all the changes, some things have not changed much. Microphones and audio cables come to mind...

 

True, mechanical stuff doesn't change much. I haven't seen many addition to the periodic table lately :) Well, except for unobtainium.

 

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I can see a few possible doomsday outcomes...

 

* People hack computers that weren't really designed for recording to do recording.

Isn't that what we're doing now, and for about the last 25 years or so? Computers were never designed for recording. Apple made it a little easier than Microsoft, but you can't plug 20 mics into an Apple without adding some outboard equipment.

 

* Linux-based PCs become "the computer for the rest of us" by fulfilling needs not served by Apple and Microsoft.

"The rest of us" probably isn't going to get any bigger, but that's pretty much where Linux is today. I can run Mixbus on an Apple, a Microsoft, or on Linux, but I can't connect every audio interface to the Linux computer and get it to do all that it can do on the other platforms. Makers of multichannel audio interfaces just don't see enough business there to bother making a driver and support software that works the same as what they provide for the "us" platforms.

* A company like Yamaha or Native Instruments creates a computer designed solely for music...
Yamaha did that years ago.

 

But I think it's a possibility that the golden age of pro audio riding on the coattails of consumer-oriented computers may be in its twilight years.

That's really a great thing if it's true. But people don't like single-purpose devices. More people do field recording on there phones than on their Zoom, TASCAM, and Sony handhelds. And the dedicated hard disk recorders like the Mackie, Alesis, and a couple of others were short-lived because users could do so much more with their computers - or at least they thought so, and some do. I don't see a 200-track dedicated hardware recorder in my lifetime. Maybe you will - you're a few years younger than me, and have more influence on the industry as I do.

 

Good luck.

 

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My concern with that is by the time you've added another monitor, more external storage, and a hub for the things that won't run with a tablet, you'll end up with something like this.

 

I guess at some points tablets could be powerful enough, with enough RAM and expansion ports to be able to do things like video editing and complex music production. But since those are the needs of the average consumer, I wouldn't hold my breath. More likely we'll see more machines like the upcoming Mac Pro - high performance and big bucks.

 

I am just babbling at the moment but I've been following tech stocks for a many years. There are incredible things happening and we only hear a peep here and there. For example, Nvdia is working on a a robot that uses AI and "learns" how to perform a task by watching a human perform that task.

 

I wonder if we are really limited to binary computations? What if somebody figures out how to write code in Base 10 and can render complex computations with far fewer processes? Are we not well past the point that basic laptops, desktops and tablets should only need one or two integrated chips?

 

Maybe the "Smart House" of the future has one wirelessly connected CPU with umpty bajillion gigs of RAM that can be utilized in various ways as needed.

 

There is so much competition and so many incredibly smart people competing that I can't imagine things becoming more cumbersome.

A touch screen monitor projected on your white desk by an all in one computer lamp that collapses into a pocked sized goodie?

 

A cable free studio? A 3d mic that is configured by settings in your software and sounds like anything and everything?

None of these sorts of innovations seem out of reach to me. I really don't see recording being segregated from other processing, somebody will write the code and it's a done deal.

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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What about the future of cloud computing? We're going there in the industrial world with connected services, and I've seen trends in some VI's becoming cloud based. Do you think the entire DAW will ever become cloud based?

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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*A company like Yamaha or Native Instruments creates a computer designed solely for music...
Yamaha did that years ago.

 

True, but the CX5 was designed to compete with things like a Commodore-64. In a doomsday scenario, there wouldn't be "other" computers as we know them...if Yamaha wanted to sell Cubase, they'd say screw it, let's just make a computer. That's what pretty much what all companies are doing for instruments, with embedded systems.

 

Also remember that back in the days of CX5, it was far more difficult to assemble your own computer. Today, making a PC isn't much more difficult than it was to assemble a model airplane.:) Yamaha doing a computer would be similar to Sweetwater doing Creation Stations.

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There is so much competition and so many incredibly smart people competing that I can't imagine things becoming more cumbersome.

 

I hope you're right. But looking back...

 

Much competition + smart people = different standards = nothing gets traction.

 

The best example I can think of for that is how quad killed surround, and we have yet to see a dominant VR format. Okay, Oculus Quest looks super promising...cool!...oops, now Microsoft has the HoloLens but it's a lot more expensive...

 

In a way, having only Apple and Windows meant companies could do cross-platform stuff without too much of a stretch. Same with iPhone vs. Android. The different standards didn't get traction...

 

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What about the future of cloud computing? We're going there in the industrial world with connected services, and I've seen trends in some VI's becoming cloud based. Do you think the entire DAW will ever become cloud based?

 

It could, but that depends on several factors...like whether high-speed internet becomes pervasive, and universal.

 

But the thing that concerns me is that I believe in the importance of local storage. I would assume the odds are remote of iCloud or OneDrive becoming victims of ransomware...but again, thinking the unthinkable...what if one day, the Kings of Ransomware tell Amazon "$100 billion to get your servers back?" I don't know if that's possible or not, but this uber-dependence on "the cloud" scares me. Terrorism, X-class solar flares, hackers...in the real world, clouds rain and dissipate.

 

I want to write a short story about how after an X-class solar flare fries everything with a microprocessor or that connects to the grid, civilization basically loses its entire history because everything was stored in the cloud. After civilization recovers, which takes hundreds of years, they have no idea of the culture of the 2000s...until they find a well-preserved Best Buy in Minnesota, and they have to derive all their knowledge about our civilization from it. They conclude that we were really into genetic engineering, because a Disney company had produced smart mice and dogs. And Taylor Swift was some kind of goddess. :)

 

I'm not prone to paranoia, really. But it just seems a lot of "the cloud is gonna be perfect!" people remind of real estate people in 2007 who said "the real estate market will just keep going up and up! It'll never crash!" What happens when blockchain crooks have planted malware on every smart phone out there to mine cypto-currencies? What's happening right now with malware.spyware/ransomware is frightening.

 

But hey, I'm not going to worry. I have a nice vacation booked on the Titanic! It's a really cool ship, and it's totally unsinkable :)

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The big thing happening in recording is audio-over-IP preamps. Rupert Neve has Dante pre's. So does Grace Designs, Pyramix, Sonosax, DAD (Avid OEMs it), etc. This means that the audio goes directly onto the network from world-class preamps. From there it can go anywhere, even multiple destinations at once. This is essentially how live sound is done now... stage box with pre's goes digital to mix engine. Whether the recorder is a "computer", or something like RADAR, or dedicated hardware like a Sonosax seems to be less interesting. The big change is direct digitization and transport. Classical is switching to digital microphones that digitize right at the capsule. The dynamic range and resolution are outstanding.

 

I have a Sonosax SX-R4+. It has over 130db of dynamic range, and the best preamps I've heard. The recordings are superlative. Better than Rupert Neve 5024's into Focusrite Rednet converters. Run off its batteries, the Sonosax unit has only the noise floor of the microphones themselves. There's no overdub. But for pure audio recording - it isn't a computer, and the files are world-class.

 

Dream Theatre recorded their last album with a rack of Rupert Neve Dante Pre's. Once it is digital and easy to transport, almost anything will do - the delicate parts are the short analog stages.

 

The audio production workflow? That is something different than the recording. That still seems best handled by large screen workflows unless one is fortunate enough to afford expensive digital or analog mix surfaces.

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True, but the CX5 was designed to compete with things like a Commodore-64. In a doomsday scenario, there wouldn't be "other" computers as we know them...if Yamaha wanted to sell Cubase, they'd say screw it, let's just make a computer. That's what pretty much what all companies are doing for instruments, with embedded systems.

 

Also remember that back in the days of CX5, it was far more difficult to assemble your own computer. Today, making a PC isn't much more difficult than it was to assemble a model airplane.:) Yamaha doing a computer would be similar to Sweetwater doing Creation Stations.

 

I was thinking of the Yamaha computer that was a Windows laptop with built-in MIDI IN and OUT ports, but I can't remember the model.

 

After a VIC-20, I assembled my first PC from a kit of parts from my local computer store. They assembled and sold standard and custom configurations, and the kit was a couple of hundred bucks cheaper than one ready to go. With two floppy disks (back then a 10 MB hard drive cost about $500), 256k memory, and a Hercules monochrome graphics card, it cost me about $700. It was the most expensive computer I've ever bought. I think that would have been around 1984.

 

But the thing that concerns me is that I believe in the importance of local storage. I would assume the odds are remote of iCloud or OneDrive becoming victims of ransomware...but again, thinking the unthinkable...what if one day, the Kings of Ransomware tell Amazon "$100 billion to get your servers back?"

 

A more plausible scenario would be simply that the cloud company you chose for your data (and applications, if you dared) just decided one day that they didn't have any more money, turned off the power, and walked out the door. It could even happen to Google some day.

 

We have Chromebooks now, that mostly run applications out of the cloud. They seem to work pretty well for schools - they're cheap and it's a good way to control what software the students use (and can't, at least not in class). Is there a DAW for the Chromebook? There's a class of computers now called "thin client" that have just about enough memory to run a basic operating system and seem to be getting some traction as a gaming computer. I have one running Windows 98SE and the Audio Precision 1 software (no cloud involved with that). I bought it for $50 from an eBay dealer. But with this approach you might have to buy one computer to run Pro Tools and a different one to run Cubase.

 

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The big thing happening in recording is audio-over-IP preamps. Rupert Neve has Dante pre's. So does Grace Designs, Pyramix, Sonosax, DAD (Avid OEMs it), etc. This means that the audio goes directly onto the network from world-class preamps. From there it can go anywhere, even multiple destinations at once.

 

Dante and the other Audio over IP protocols is really just a different kind of wiring. The bonus you get with it is that when you have the system set up properly, you have a "virtual patch bay" and can send audio anywhere you want on your network. When it comes to a large facility, it can be a great cost-saver, but it requires a whole different way of support and operation.

 

I would expect that preamp makers like Neve, Sonosax, and Grace would put excellent A/D converters between their preamp and the Dante chip at the output of the box. Similarly, I would expect A/D converter makers like DAD and Merging Technologies to put excellent preamps ahead of their converters. And then there are companies like Focusrite and Prism who have been making both analog and digital hardware for a long time and make good stuff to which they can (and have) attach a Dante chip. But you can get a Behringer digital snake for your X32 mixer, too.

 

But, too, we're starting to see the "Portastudio on steroids" come back, too. The new TASCAM 24- and 16-channel mixer/recorder setups can do a perfectly competent multitrack music recording with no outboard computers - or you can use them with one if that's your choice, or you can "build your own instruments" from an outboard computer that isn't used as a DAW. And for a different kind of work, Zoom has a new mixer/recorder unit that's tailored to podcasting. And, being real hardware, they have a sensible and understandable user interface, good for the last generation, and a revaluation for the next generation.

 

But the crystal ball is very cloudy.

 

 

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A more plausible scenario would be simply that the cloud company you chose for your data (and applications, if you dared) just decided one day that they didn't have any more money, turned off the power, and walked out the door. It could even happen to Google some day.

 

Actually, it already did...Google+ shut down its consumer accounts last April. Tiny Pic (owned by Photobucket) shut down in September, citing declining online revenues. But I wouldn't discount the other scenarios, either.

 

There was a year when HC was hacked. It didn't really matter, because there was no information stored about people other than their email and password...no credit cards or anything. I was curious how common this was. I was shocked to find out that 400,000 sites had been hacked that year, including sites like the Department of Defense, the British government, pretty much all banks, etc. etc. There is clearly no defense against people who have skills. So far, there have only been a few incidents that came close to bringing down the internet, but they were uncomfortably close calls.

 

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I haven't seen many addition to the periodic table lately :) Well, except for unobtainium.

 

most excellent observation.

What about Adamantium and Vibranium? :idk:

 

I don't think this Doomsday Scenario will be the case. As Steve Jobs once said, we will always need trucks. While most people can do their daily driving in (relatively) easy to use cars or even commute by mass transit, we still need trucks to move around the big items. Music and video production, intense graphics, animation, etc. will still require more powerful (and probably different interfaced) hardware. I realize there have been points where the performance of the iOS devices are better than macOS devices, but I don't think Apple will let that go on forever. They know that they have a base of pro users in Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro. I can't foresee someone editing a real movie or audio production on an iPad, not without external monitor(s).

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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Wow. After writing that, I checked the news, and found this...

 

https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBWtiRD?m=en-us&ocid=News

 

Yeah, I don't keep stuff on the cloud.

I don't use my phone for any internet services and have shut off as much of Google as I can.

My phone could still be hacked, they would get my contact list, maybe access to my Tracfone account.

It's pay as you go so not much to steal.

 

I made a fake email account to make a fake Facebook account, I did not give them my phone number and never will.

 

I have my passwords on a USB thumb and always copy and paste them. If a "key tracker" has been installed it will see that I copied and pasted. Foof.

 

Local storage and unplugged when not in use, always.

 

I am not paranoid, no tin foil hat.

When I moved up to High Sierra, my Mac found a dozen Wi-Fi portals within striking distance. I have a friend who could have hacked at least one of them.

I use cable for internet access. Still hackable but much less common.

 

Welcome to the "real world!!!"

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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A more plausible scenario would be simply that the cloud company you chose for your data (and applications, if you dared) just decided one day that they didn't have any more money, turned off the power, and walked out the door. It could even happen to Google some day.

 

Actually, it already did...Google+ shut down its consumer accounts last April. Tiny Pic (owned by Photobucket) shut down in September, citing declining online revenues. But I wouldn't discount the other scenarios, either.

 

There was a year when HC was hacked. It didn't really matter, because there was no information stored about people other than their email and password...no credit cards or anything. I was curious how common this was. I was shocked to find out that 400,000 sites had been hacked that year, including sites like the Department of Defense, the British government, pretty much all banks, etc. etc. There is clearly no defense against people who have skills. So far, there have only been a few incidents that came close to bringing down the internet, but they were uncomfortably close calls.

 

 

A yaer ago in September Facebook publicly announced that 50 milion accounts were hacked. The stock went down, and then back up.

 

Seems like an easy way for an insider to purchase stock at a discount, that's one evil thought.

They haven't announced any similar hacks, it is difficult to believe that it doesn't happen constantly.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I don't think this Doomsday Scenario will be the case. As Steve Jobs once said, we will always need trucks. While most people can do their daily driving in (relatively) easy to use cars or even commute by mass transit, we still need trucks to move around the big items. Music and video production, intense graphics, animation, etc. will still require more powerful (and probably different interfaced) hardware.

 

Which is why I said "But I think it's a possibility that the golden age of pro audio riding on the coattails of consumer-oriented computers may be in its twilight years." Sure, maybe some people can spend $10K-$30K on a tricked-out Mac Pro, and for sure, Pixar can. But I can't, and probably most people with home studios can't, either.

 

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My alias is analoguediehard, and while I love old stuff I have practical limits. In my book, analog tape recorders are just not worth going back to. No one is building professional multitrack tape recorders and when the playback/record heads on used multitracks wear out, you're f***ed. Digital recorders have matured and are just too convenient.
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Note that I wasn't just talking cloud storage, but actual cloud computing. Your computer would just have to have a fast internet connection to transfer multiple tracks simultaneously, but with Fiber becoming more prevalent it is not far fetched. Your computer becomes a multichannel audio interface with a remote control panel interface. More like the old client-server scenario where they would have what was called a "thin client".

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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I can see Apple going this direction. They make a lot of "consumer be damned" decisions. Microsoft has always had to take the mindset of big business clients into consideration. Businesses don't like change or being forced into logistic decisions. Microsoft did try to push everyone to cloud based Office but got a lot of push back from the workforce and had to back off. The mobile employees who were the target of cloud storage and One Drive ended up having the most problems. I managed 600 network licenses and 300 Microsoft Office licenses. Value Added Partners tried to get me to convert to a cloud based Office 365 and I refused. Ironically two reps that tried to get me to convert later confessed that they changed back to regular Office after a few months. Before I retired I did change our medical record to cloud based, but I wrote a LOT of policies and procedures on what to do if the Internet goes down. You cannot turn away a sick person just because the internet is down and you cannot access their file.

 

The company that does our electronic medical record offered a product that would allow clinicians to go into homes with no internet access, enter data onto the laptop, and hold it on that computer until it could be synchronized with the cloud. This feature was a development of a larger, nationwide tech company and required expensive licenses. It never worked right and most companies trying this feature had to drop it. There were just too many issues with the algorithms that decide what bit of information is the latest and correct. The latest time stamp does not always have the newest or correct data. What if the clock on the notebook computer is off? What if more than one person is accessing the chart. A clinician visiting the patient at home may enter information at the same time that someone else is transcribing doctor notes or accounts receivable is correcting bad payer information. Even companies that are now trying to build this into IOS games are having problems. I had a game stored on two different iPads. An iPad Pro that is home use only, and an iPad mini that I travel with. It could not keep straight which is the newest data, what is on the cloud or what is on the iPad. I would get messages saying "We have found a more recent save version" and then it would automatically update my data and I would loose play time.

 

So why am I going on about this? Imagine you are working on a music project and decide to travel. As you move on and off of network coverage the automatic syncing routine causes you to loose a great song idea, or the work a collaborating partner did is lost when you return from your trip and your data overwrites the track he worked on. This is going to happen. Major players are going to throw a fit and it will get national attention. Then Microsoft or a partner will offer a solution that lets you go back to the old way of doing things.

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There is a revolution quietly evolving in manufacturing.

 

It could shift paradigms as it should make manufacturing complex devices more efficient and profitable.

 

There are three major factors, all progressing rapidly. Artificial Intelligence, robotics and 3d printing, all of these keep pushing boundaries.

In my mind, it is only a matter of time before laptops will be produced in factories that have just a handful of humans on staff - technicians primarily and possible a janitor.

 

Intial investment will be high, "keeping up with the Joneses" will be costly but labor costs will plummet.

 

At risk of being too political, the problem then will be how will consumers without jobs be able to afford to purchase commodities? There are solutions, I am not going there!

 

Since companies continue to introduce new products for recording constantly, I suspect the actual numbers taken as a whole are significant. Home recording has a fairly hefty consumer base.

If there is profit to be made, it will be made.

 

So I do not fear the future of consumer based recording, it will be interesting - there will be a learning curve - but it will not wither.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Note that I wasn't just talking cloud storage, but actual cloud computing. Your computer would just have to have a fast internet connection to transfer multiple tracks simultaneously, but with Fiber becoming more prevalent it is not far fetched. Your computer becomes a multichannel audio interface with a remote control panel interface. More like the old client-server scenario where they would have what was called a "thin client".

 

Yes, it's VERY likely things will go that way eventually, with the "mainframe in the sky" and us with dumb terminals instead of computers - if for no other reason than it appears both Microsoft and Apple want that. But the question is when. Fiber-optic penetration is projected to be 15% in US households for 2020. The last two years, penetration has increased by only 0.3% a year on average, and that's the same projected growth for 2020, so it's a slow climb. Here's some more info, current as of 2016:

 

https://www.statista.com/chart/4392/fiber-adoption-in-oecd-countries/

 

Canada, Germany, England, Italy, France, and Australia, which participate heavily in internet music sites, aren't in the top 10 so presumably they have total broadband subscriptions below 25%. So I don't know how long it will take for the world to hit, say, 75% fiber-optic subscriptions. And if AT&T is involved, it will probably be never :)

 

But with the mainframe/dumb terminal scenario, do we really want a handful of companies to control all the world's data? SmarterASP.net, with 440,000 customers, was hit with ransomware over the weekend and best guess is it will take two weeks before they restore everything (if they can). Backend databases were hit, not just the public-facing aspects. It's the third major hosting network to go down this year from ransomware. More and more, it seems the only protection is disconnected workstations.

 

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One reason that the spread of optical has slowed to nothing is the government"s push for landline providers to convert everyone to a wireless delivery system, voice and data. It took me 5 years to get an optical line at our office were we have our servers. The first three years I was told that it would never happen because the repercussions of violating the initiative were too big. Years ago SAMSHA forced medical providers to ask all clients if they are feeling pain and if they need medication for that pain. You don"t ask the question, you don"t get to bill services to Medicare or Medicaid. Experts now see this as the spark that ignited the boom in prescription addiction. Techs that know what is happening with the initiative to get rid of landlines for voice and data see the same type of disaster. Data transfer needs are booming and the available frequencies for wireless cannot handle the load. As a country we are falling further behind in data transfer infrastructure. Ironically this is a bit of a boom for TV cable providers. In my area people are going back to cable because they provide better internet service. At my house I am limited to a 10 MB line and get about 7. Cable offers 100 MB in the area. Too bad they will not run it to my house because they don't want to deal with the subdivision rules of putting everything underground. Right now they are getting enough new business that they can focus on the easy to access areas.

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Techs that know what is happening with the initiative to get rid of landlines for voice and data see the same type of disaster. Data transfer needs are booming and the available frequencies for wireless cannot handle the load. As a country we are falling further behind in data transfer infrastructure.

 

Sometimes I really, really hate been right. I've been talking for years about the frailty of the net - which was never designed with security in mind. People just don't realize that uploading a bazillion bytes of data to YouTube, blockchain, cypto-currency mining, and DOS attacks have consequences. It's like driving a car a car without brakes - as long as you're driving uphill, you're fine. All you need is one 15% grade to screw up your life.

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Can you talk about the fervent Mac fan base and how important it is to Apple's mystique and reputation?

Phil Schiller: I don't use words like that because I think people use those against our customers to make them sound a little crazy and religious. And that's not really the case when you meet them. We just have great customers who love the Mac.

 

College students' [use] is dominated by Macs. In the majority of creative fields -- writers, video editors, music creators and programmers -- I think that's an area that's super strong. We love that intersection of creativity and computing technology. That's something that's always been true to the core of what we love at Apple.

 

It's not about religion, it's not about fans. It's actually about the right product for incredibly creative productive groups of people with their computers.

[My emphasis]

clonk

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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The Mac has always had a bigger market share among "creatives" than the general public. My concern is that it will tilt toward the well-heeled ones. There's nothing wrong with that; it's a niche that needs to be served, and high performance with high margins make the users and companies happy. But I just don't know if an iMac is "the computer for the rest of us." It may end up that the lower tier of recording uses tablets, the middle tier Windows, and the upper tier Mac.

 

With either Mac or Windows, I just don't want to end up doing all my music on a dumb terminal. I have so many hard drives and optical drives hanging on my computer, it would be an effort to integrate that with a cloud/services based platform. But if that's where Microsoft wants me to go, and the only option is to spend $5K-$15K on a Mac Pro, well...

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Then there's this - Phil Schiller talking about the fabulous new Mac Pro. In 2013. Go to 3:28...this is the presentation where he said "Can't innovate any more, my ass." We all know how this story ended up - boxed into a corner that ultimately drove some (many?) people to Windows.

 

 

I'm sure the guy's sincere, and really believes what he's saying. And I think it's safe to assume they've learned from the mistakes of the previous generation. But it just goes to show that Apple's no different from any other company (hey Microsoft, remember Bob? Zune? Vista?) where the reality doesn't always match the hype. As to the Mac Pro, maybe this time it will. I came very close to plunking down my bucks on the 2013 Mac Pro based on the hype, but I'm really glad I didn't.

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Then there's this - Phil Schiller talking about the fabulous new Mac Pro. In 2013. Go to 3:28...this is the presentation where he said "Can't innovate any more, my ass." We all know how this story ended up - boxed into a corner that ultimately drove some (many?) people to Windows.

 

 

I'm sure the guy's sincere, and really believes what he's saying. And I think it's safe to assume they've learned from the mistakes of the previous generation. But it just goes to show that Apple's no different from any other company (hey Microsoft, remember Bob? Zune? Vista?) where the reality doesn't always match the hype. As to the Mac Pro, maybe this time it will. I came very close to plunking down my bucks on the 2013 Mac Pro based on the hype, but I'm really glad I didn't.

 

Perhaps home built computers running Linux are the next phase?

 

 

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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