Apple Silicon "Native version"

This is not the same as every year. The M1 has had almost a year to prove its value and build up desire for the next big wave. This is more of a once every decade event.

 

M1 is just another CPU, nothing very special. APU from AMD is more powerfull. And AMD makes even more powerful CPUs, than APU...

One may have PC computer of the size of book with CPU stronger than M1, 64 GB of RAM, 1 TB SSD disc for under 1 000 EUR. But, yes. It is ugly black box.

 

I’m not so sure about that statement but only time will tell. Which is clear like water is Apple ditching x86 sooner than later and non-native software being discontinnued. Also an excellent excuse to turn everything into subscription… Did you see Roland Cloud? Do you know about brand called iZotope?

Food for thought and hopefully time will prove me wrong…

 

Have a look at benchmarks M1 vs. AMD Ryzen 7 5700G (8C/16T). And AMD has stronger CPUs. I have choosen APU, which is "notebook like" CPU with reasonable power limit to be fair M1 competitor, not stronger AMD processors like Ryzen 9 5950X (16C/32T).

I guess the both platforms ARM and x86 will live together. No-one is going to rewrite thousands of x86 applications. And x86 processors are already internally RISC anyway.... And thanks to AMD and its Zen architecture, the development has speeded up in past years.

iZotope sells also non-subscription licencies. But you are right, the world goes toward to subscription. But it may take many years... I guess older users will be against, younger more and more for.
I personaly prefer non-subscription. And I will never ever go subscription. I have programs and plugins to play with for decades. If all would go subscription right now, no real problem. I have all I need, and even more....

 

It’s not a question of bruteforce…
https://debugger.medium.com/why-is-apples-m1-chip-so-fast-3262b158cba2

About porting app, there isn’t a need for thousads but what about standards? Apple is the standard for creative world so let’s take a look what’s going on…
https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/kb/apple-silicon-m1-chip.html

https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/live-111-apple-silicon-support-now-in-public-beta/

Even Protools is offering Rosetta compatibilty ATM… (and probably still figuring what to do like NI and Serato…)
https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/readme/Pro-Tools-2021-6-Release-Notes

So the point is “who’s gonna jump on new Silicon and who’s gonna get out…?” since code for different architectures isn’t trivial and being Apple chips not only “another ARM” (as someone pointed at other place’s discussion) due Apple develops its OS as “glove”… will developers keep supporting all plataforms?
I remember people saying back in the day “iPad are just another tablet” (or big phone). It’s clear wasn’t and how market gone, right? Also think M1 chip grows over iPad pro chip and then you have thousands of apps already coded and some of them downloaded million times…
https://cdm.link/newswires/launchpad-for-ios-gets-a-huge-refresh-new-design-and-better-pro-features/ (near 8 millions downloads)

There are certain features unique to the Apple Silicon such BionicAI which apps like Djay Pro build their separation stems technology (NeuralAI Mix)… but you can say “VirtualDj does it on desktop/laptop too due spleeter library rear these is the same”… yes but think again… the first does it at iPhone without fan… not a bruteforce thing, remember.

Where’s the general computer market going?
https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/mobile-desktop-internet-usage-statistics

https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet

That’s why subscription model is growing too. The future is going to be mobile because the present is starting to be.

Apple proved M1 outperforming its own i7 i9 over rosetta 2. Native apps will just fly… and I know their usual i7 i9 aren’t the fastest but what people still not figured is Apple was delivering the “more powerfull x wattage” so battery power get properly. All because they were thinking in mobility not only raw power. They delivered powerfull machines with large battery use and keeping temperature the best Intel let them. The same reason behind they ditch PPC back in the day… these can’t match Apple specification. The same reason they didn’t mount AMD (they tried with the trascan mac for the video card and it was a failure)

All of that bring us to the question about trucks, cars and post-pc era.


Steve was talking about this. We are still not there but maybe the next keynote is a step closer with macbook pro and m2… These are the trucks from Apple and iPhone/iPads the cars of that metaphore. Maybe some day these two worlds merge or developers release Universal apps varying their cappablities adapted to each host… but certainly these will be ARMs. When windows was a supremacy (and retrocompatibility a must) there was a reason to keep things x86 realm but nowadays even europe is trying to get into mobile computing with RiscV because is a geo-strategical “issue”. Shortage of chips isn’t helping neither…

https://www.nextplatform.com/2021/09/22/europe-step-closer-to-native-risc-v-reality/

Why if we have Ryzen? Again… it’s not about bruteforce…

Apple plays its own game and probably will not let other vendors to use their chips (btw Roland or Korg also did the same on their DSP over the history…) so it will require an alliance of vendors making some kind of standard like midi was in the 80’s.
That could be RiscV but ATM only promises meanwhile Apple is delivering..

What are others vendors doing?
Well in the music market field we have proposals like Mpc Live, Force.. M+, Pioneers…
These using custom chips (Pioneer) or embed rockchip with laptop i5 from 2015 (M+) being the first uncappable of doing realtime stem separation (yet afaik), meanwhile the technology behind that was introduced with iPhone X, and the second being outperformed by their own full software version running on a fanless macbook air (and going from 1600€ on release to 1000€ ATM and 850€ at wallapop/craiglist due stability issues and underperform specification) I said it when it was released a month before first Apple Silicon but of course Maschine even wasn’t Rosetta compatible… but today? Well we are discussing it.

What about other computers vendors?
Easy…
https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/23/inte...mpanies-as-part-of-its-new-business-strategy/
https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-r...-portfolio-with-ARM-based-chips.562085.0.html

Samsung, Qualcomm…
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing...g-new-arm-based-pc-era-arm-ceo-is-optimistic/


So it’s an opinion, of course… but market seems to keep shifting from iPhone inception, now in the first steps of skyrocket performance (x Watt, remember… it’s not about bruteforce…)



Conclusion and final thoughts:
IDK if we will see a future after Covid crisis (now world reset) where music making and computing has a place but what seems clear in the actual trend (and probably more clear when Apple release prices of the new macbook pro) is market has changed. Professional truckers will use 3K-30k computers (like the nutty iMac pro full featured) but also will earn a proportional reward making these an investment. The rest of users will be prosumers/consumers going from do tiktoks videos with dedicated apps into more-complex-but-not-professional works. Some will go standalone route too.

NI wasn’t aware of all of that (IMO) but probably Francisco Partners (probably) were and both (hopefully) designed an strategy to bring actual portfolio into the future without going bankrupcy in the process. M+ and all the x86 code dependency are things from that past and let’s hope there’s a roadmap with options for these who don’t want subscription models and use “truck computers” (meanwhile something disrupts the market) but NI needs to do very well their maths because or segment isn’t so profitable as tiktok/IG apps.

Benchmarks? We will see some in few days…

 

x86 has been here for 40+ years. And will be here for at least 20 years more, I guess. Apple has already third or fourth CPU platform.... It will switch to whatever else again in ten years, I guess.

IPhone, iPad are beautiful toys for adults. Mobility is fine. Would be great to have mobile monitors, controll surface and acousticaly treated room and big screen or two, three. Does Apple produce those necesary creative elements in mobile form?

OK, iPhone/iPad might work well for preliminary sketching. But not for most serious scenarios to create music. There may be rare exceptions and for sure there might be a respectable producer using just iPad... As well as there might be film maker who has made his film using iPhone.

M1 is not bad CPU, but wait for M2, M3, .,Mx... Will Apple be able to increase the power of CPU by 10-15% every few years, like AMD/Intel?

 

Read again the part about Intel developing ARM solutions due computer brands are demanding for… also look at the samsung, qualcomm, RiscV… facts are saying the opposite almost for consumer computers. For trucks you can get Xeon obviously but get ready for pay the prices when they get out of the common market and ARM-like solutions get the space as replacement.

Mobile monitors and acoustically treatened room are your earpods. Or almost to the point “regular users” will need.
https://www.whathifi.com/advice/what-is-apple-spatial-audio

Control surface?


Big Screen?
Why if I can do music on the couch? Anyways get an iMac and battery pack (lol) but iPad pros are huge too…

Apple is near to what you “point” that you think but not in the shape you expect. You think in studio equipment on the go… but you don’t need that. You try to justify use a truck and it’s ok but not where the market is going…

Does AMD ryzen chips for smartphones? At what wattage? What APIs have? They have a dedicated OS for audiovisual and music production for them?

You are forgetting a tiny detail… the mac mini SDK sent to developers before M1 release has an iPad Pro chip inside them. It means Logic, Final and whatever they put on these were running over that. It’s a matter of time and strategic that you can see an iPad pro running ANY desktop software on them. In fact it could be possible now if Apple wanted it but, aside segmentation strategy, Apple want to keep the tablets power efficient not like crappy Surfaces getting hot af and with 3 hours of battery… so Apple forces the developers into optimization like they did with crappy Flash technology back in the day.

One more time: wattage.

Do you remember when people ranted about Apple putting few Ram in their iPhones? Lots of brands gone that “more ram”, “more Hz”… but none truly won iPad as “the tablet”. Also in audio performing is recently when apps like Koala or Zenbeats came to Android… due Android. An iPad first generation could run DVS back in the day (djplayer) but NI still can’t deliver a proper app for M1?

https://djtechtools.com/2012/11/07/review-dj-player-5-1-ios-app/
Near 10 years ago so if that number means something to your calculation…

It’s not a matter of power only, it requires good coders and proper strategy. ATM iOS/iPadOS platform isn’t attractive to “big brands” (in our field) but that’s related on how Apple manages the appstore (just look at the fornite drama) more than technology. That could be change or could get as entry level as you point… but Did you see zenbeats or loopy pro teaser?





Actual DjPlayer runs NI stems and 4 euros app create NI stems from mp3/wav (processed not realtime since it’s an old iPad 4gen) so I can do more on my iPhone (it runs djplayer and not sure about the stem app). Actual DjPlayer app runs on iPhone 5s and above… so it’s not about bruteforce… once again.
I can do these with my mac mini (late12 maxxed) but NI ditched stem tool creator and it haven’t any spleeter stem solution available so I need to get Vdj (300€ the full license if I want to use controllers) or Djay Pro subscription…

So When Apple ditch totally x86 platform what are going to do software brands? Going standalone could be a solution (even M+ shown us how Maschine mk3 over rosettized M1 mac is their worst competitor)… what else? Invest in multiplataform support? (x86, Apple Silicon, Qualcomm, Samsung… read that part in my previous comement again, please…)

Benchmarks? Performance? Just wait few days to macbook pro release (if comes… Apple is getting slow so users and brands can get involved on purpose to get accepted and don’t disrupt the market too much) and see benchmarks… but remember some of them will be Rosetta…

Unleashed maybe will mean that % you expect but not in bruteforce (or if so, not cheap…) but in optimization and PowerxWattage even on desktops. Probably more integrated memory and extra APIs integrated in that SoC will be the highlights of that keynote. If you only read bruteforce numbers and price you will get dissapointed for sure… but let’s see how Logic/Final work to get an idea. Meanwhile let’s see how it gone with M1…


Sorry that was an iPad pro… but almost native app.

using Premiere (not optimized)


Using DaVinci (Rosetta)

 

And the Apple Silicon architecture will usher in whole new concepts of how we'll use technology to create music.

Future music software for all Apple Silicon platforms can be developed knowing that a powerful Neural Engine will be available.

This will be part of the "Unleashing" in years ahead.

Software for the fragmented Intel/AMD platform won't have this consistently available computational resource to capitalize on.

All the magical things the Neural Engine is doing for iOS photography will find many new applications.

From Apple's M1 press release last November:

Blazing-Fast, On-Device Machine Learning
The M1 chip brings the Apple Neural Engine to the Mac, greatly accelerating machine learning (ML) tasks. Featuring Apple’s most advanced 16-core architecture capable of 11 trillion operations per second, the Neural Engine in M1 enables up to 15x faster machine learning performance. In fact, the entire M1 chip is designed to excel at machine learning, with ML accelerators in the CPU and a powerful GPU, so tasks like video analysis, voice recognition, and image processing will have a level of performance never seen before on the Mac.

Now imagine this Neural Engine doing analysis & processing for the music & audio we create.

Here's a quote from one of the head Machine Learning scientists at Apple regarding Apple's strategy with ML:

I don't know if you saw that demo in the State of the Union, but basically the idea was: given a video, go through the video frame or frame-by-frame and do object detection. And you can do it more than an order of magnitude faster on our silicon than you could on the legacy platform.

And then, you say, "Well, that's interesting. Well, why is that useful?" Imagine a video editor where you had a search box and you could say, "Find me the pizza on the table." And it would just scrub to that frame... Those are the kinds of experiences that I think you will see people come up with. We very much want developers to use these frameworks and just surprise us by what they can actually do with it.

Here's a link to the article that the quote is from:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...achine-learning-across-ios-and-soon-macos/#h1

 

Do you think it is so difficult for x86 architecture to add AI capabilities? AMD alredy has it in its computing graphics cards and Intel as well, I guess.
They may add it any minute they decide so.

And AI chip probaly is mostly some kind of vector or maybe matrix calculations. The both Intel and AMD already have vector calculations. The problem of porting Massive X to Apple Silicon is that it has only very reduced and unsuffitient set of vector calculations...

So, AS AI chip is mostly marketing label.

I wish Apple has succeded with their chip, but I doubt they will do on long run. I give it 10 years at most.

Mutis
AMD Ryzen 7 5700G has TDP 65W and takes 80 W at most. In case it would be produced on the same process like M1 (which is one generation ahead of Ryzen), it would be around 40/55 W. It is peak consumption when all cores loaded. There are also Ryzens that take 15 W and would take 10 W on process comparable to M1 is produced on. They are not in phone or tablets as they are not aimed to be used in phones or tablets.

Next generation of Ryzens will be even more optimized to consume less in idle situations.... Intel and AMD processors are RISC inside, they just have CISC layer above.....

I doubt PC platform will leave x86 any soon. There is no reason to do so, users do not want it and SW developers as well. PC is here almost unchanged for 40 years. It develops in evolutional steps, not like Apple's revolutionary changes.

PC platform and Apple platform are different worlds. And not be fooled. Apple might be popular in US, but I know personaly only 3 people using Apple computer. And those are people who do not understand computers and were adviced by their american teachers to use Apple. If they had european teacher, they would most probably use Win notebook, because would be adviced so....

 

We will see.

 

And this would just create more fragmentation of the x86 architecture.

Apple will have a much more consistent set of resources to provide developers to build the future upon.

 

Why would that create fragmentation? Maybe for a while. x86 world is able to handle it. No big problem.

New set of instructions would bring either AMD or Intel, and the counterpart would adapt it later. Or the both in cooperation.... That is how things work for 40 years. AI acceleration or whatever else is just another extension of what already exists. There is already several tens of extensions. Do not seek a problem where none exists.

Simply. Apple is good in marketing. Comparing M1 to old Apple computers is yet another smart marketing. And comparing M1 to Ryzen 5 (6C/12T) instead of Ryzen 7 (8C/16T) is just another trick. And concerning the CPU comparison that video compares M1 and AMD CPU that is 2 generations older than current Zens (and also 25-30% slower.) Fair comparison for M1 would be APU Zen 7 5700G. One may have sub 1000 EUR PC using it. So it is also comparable concerning the price....

M1 is not wonder. It is just another CPU.

 

Matt from NI has said in another thread, that native implementation might come this year. It is his guess, not official anouncement. If that happens, it will not be that late after new HW hits the market.....

 

"How things work for 40 years" is gonna change big time. Thinking that it's just "marketing" doesn't account for the sea change taking place.

 

We will see. I bet it will not change much in next 20 years. RISC in phones/tablets/iHW and probably more and more on servers. And x86 on most of notebooks and desktops.

 

Anyone intrigued by this conversation about future direction, I again strongly encourage reading this article in its entirety:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...s-machine-learning-across-ios-and-soon-macos/

 

Just to note. There was big hype about AI and ANN and deep learning 30 years ago.... I have used ANNs that time. And still use to certain extent. At present, CPUs are at about 1000 times stronger comparing to back then. And AI accelerators even more. So, simple deep learning may be done in consumer grade devices.

Apple was probably among the first ones to bring it to consumers, but other CPU producers will follow. They have the technology and design, but it is used only in pro appliances, supercomputers and so on, now. But to place it to consumer market is more a matter of decision to do so than matter of developing the technology...

 

Apple's advantage in designing almost all facets of the user experience is hugely significant going forward.

Our needs in music and audio will piggyback on the larger development of technologies for Augmented Reality. This will greatly change how we will interact with sounds and music in creative ways.

 

Get ready for benchmarks but not only on cpu/gpu power by itself... but unleashed in apps due thight OS integration.



It was written...

 

Just ordered mine.... 14", 32g, 2tb, M1Max, due Nov 5