Apple Notes 103

Another WWDC, another MacOS and iOS… With each new update to our OS comes the inevitable pain of software incompatibilities and buggy behaviour. So, what’s in it for us DAW users?

OSX YOSEMITE

Where does Apple go from version 10.9? 10.10 of course! And with the new version comes some graphic changes, further integration with iOS, updated built-in apps and a few more features mentioned below that DAW users might find useful. There’s no difference in the minimum required spec between Mavericks and Yosemite, meaning any computer from mid-2007 onwards should work; but we’ll have to wait and see how that affects real-life performance. The expected release date is sometime in spring, but if you are keen, there is a public beta program running already. It doesn’t require any subscription fee, but is limited to the first million sign-ups.

5GB MAIL ATTACHMENTS

The bane of anyone administrating audio projects with labels, artists, studios, post facilities and other parties is juggling numerous email correspondence and large audio files at the same time. A nifty feature of Yosemite will allow you to send files of up to 5GB within Mail as if it was a regular mail attachment. If the receiver uses Apple Mail, it will appear just like an attachment, and if they are using another mail service or application, they’ll simply receive a link to download. In the background this is handled through iCloud, so the sender (though not receiver) will have to be logged into their iCloud account.

ICLOUD DRIVE

Rewind a few years, and our Mobileme accounts allowed us to save a file ‘in the cloud’ to sync with other computers. This feature has finally made it back into iCloud. Whilst we’ve been able to sync Pages, Numbers and other Apple-made application documents for a while, the files haven’t been accessible like they soon will be in Finder. iCloud Drive will appear just like any other folder in the Finder, allowing us to drag and drop, delete and make subfolders with ease, whilst keeping the latest versions of files in sync across all devices. Beyond this, the feature extends to iOS as well — so I’m looking forward to syncing my mixes to iCloud on my workstation, and then soon after playing them back on the iPhone in the car, the iPad on the couch or the laptop in another studio. The files will also be downloadable to any Mac or PC via logging in at iCloud.com. Yes, these are features that Dropbox has had for many years, but as someone who works on many different computers in a variety of studios, I’m hoping this built-in OS X feature will improve my day-to-day workflow when it’s available.

UNDER THE BONNET

With Yosemite comes CloudKit, which will allow developers to add iCloud-connectivity to their applications, as well as ‘Shared Frameworks between iOS and OS X’, which will allow developers to share code between the two platforms. It will be interesting to watch how these may be integrated into ProTools, Ableton, Logic and the other DAWs. I’ll say it again — when will we have Ableton for iPad? Or iPad integration with ’Tools, featuring advanced controller integration and streamlined editing features?

iOS 8

A new iOS wouldn’t normally be too relevant to this column, but this time there’s iCloud Drive (as mentioned above) and Airdrop. Whilst Airdrop has been an extremely useful feature in OS X since Lion, and was recently introduced with iOS7, it hasn’t been interoperable between the two systems — until Yosemite and iOS 8 comes along. Seeing as we all have 32 or 64GB drives in our pockets nowadays, it just seems convenient to use this for our favourite samples, reference tracks, or for moving DAW projects around. iOS 8 will run on iPhone 4S or higher and iPad 2 or higher, and appears it will be available around the same time as Yosemite.

LIGHTNING HEADPHONES

Amongst all the noise of Apple’s $3b acquisition of Beats, at WWDC Apple slipped in a new spec for headphone manufacturers, which will allow their hardware to attach to the lightning connector on iPads and iPhones. Could this be the end of the 3.5mm connector? I doubt it, but Lightning headphones will allow for a stereo 48k digital audio stream plus power, to be sent digitally ‘down the line’. I’m expecting some innovation in headphone design to follow as a result. Perhaps we will see lightning ports on new macs as well?

Whichever way it goes, I’m still holding on to a hope that Apple cares just a little bit about driving music consumers to appreciating higher audio quality. Mastered For iTunes, a $3b purchase of an audio hardware company, and new headphone standards… Is it starting to line up, or is it just wishful thinking?