tenorwannabe

Logic Pro price disruption

As I predicted when Apple launched Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro is now following on the same bandwagon. Of course, it’s not something difficult to predict at all because Apple’s strategy is clearly using software to attract people over to their hardware platforms. That’s where they make big bucks. Logic’s price is now $199.99, available only as a download from the Mac App Store, and it’s a price difficult to beat by any other competitor, methinks. Steinberg Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar, Presonus Studio One, MOTU Digital Performer and all the others are now at a clear disadvantage price-wise. Not that Logic Pro is the best tool of them all, but it’s top-tier and I’m sure everyone will check twice before buying or updating they’re favorite DAW.

As a consumer, in this case as a musician and a DAW user, i don’t have any problem with this move. By the contrary, I love it as I’m loving the fact that prices are dropping everywhere and I get promotions either for virtual instruments of VST effects almost every week on my e-mail. Clearly developers are having a hard time selling, but from a consumer’s point of view, what counts is the price.

On the other hand, as a software developer I’m concerned. This may put an end to independent smaller shops who now may find it substantially harder to enter the DAW field. To get to the point of Logic is at, it sure is a lot of work. Add to that the fact that no one knows you and you now need a below $200 price tag to be competitive. Cockos Reaper made it, but when they started DAWs were even pricier than they’re today. They were compelling because of their price. I needed to upgrade Sonar and the cost of Reaper was inferior to the upgrade, so why not? Loved it! Not out-of-the-box but the price was worse my time and attention. I take it as an investment. Do more with less. And this is exactly what may end up happening with Logic.

It’s simple logic, really.

The Internet Filter Bubble

Reading about Eli Pariser and the Internet Filter Bubble on New Scientist made me think that, in reality, there are two kinds of filtering:

• the kind that shows info based on the likes, votes, previous searches, etc.
• the kind in which we specifically choose to consume from specific information sources of our “liking”

The first kind is the one Eli addresses on his book and on the small interview he gave to NS, better explained by this quote:

Increasingly we don’t all see the same internet. We see stories and ideas and facts that make it through a membrane of personalised algorithms that surround us on Google, Facebook, Yahoo and many other sites. The filter bubble is the personal unique universe of information that results and that we increasingly live in online.

Although we know they’ve been doing this for quite some time, from his interview one gets the impression the scale on which it’s done is only growing, and that’s something of concern, of course.

On to the second kind which is the filtering we deliberately do based on personal preferences when, for example, we choose to read tech news from TechCrunch instead of ARS Technica, when we watch world news on CNN instead of Fox, when we go to the iOS App Store to look for apps instead of using something like AppsMosaic for the same task. We simply can’t keep up with all the world presses constantly pumping out information and knowledge impossible for us to consume as a whole. And truth is everyone’s got a life, and what (or who) puts food on the media outlets’ tables requires them to play by certain rules (i.e. limits). This is applicable to almost every other industry on the planet, so if we don’t take counter-measures we enter a progressively narrowing road where our vision becomes so biased we don’t feel at home anywhere outside it. Ultimately, the searches we do on Google, the like buttons we click on Facebook are a byproduct of this phenomena and not the other way around.

We can’t deny Social Media is increasingly becoming a news source, but we’ve doing the same filtering ourselves for ages, well before the advent of the Internet. Facebook, Google and company? Well, they’re just perpetuating what we always did (or allowed to be done), and exploiting it for their own profit.

Yesterday, driving home from work, I was listening to a radio program where a Contemporary Art teacher was being interviewed. Asked about how we should approach art, he responded: “availability and an open mind”. He went on saying people usually have a grid of what is and what’s not, driving them to look for meaning and explanations everywhere when in reality some things just don’t need or have one. This was about art, but we can easily translate this for our own universe’s. Keeping an open mind, changing sources often, and never letting ourselves drive the narrowing path should be a top priority.

Lytro - disrupting photography?

Great news for all wannabe photographers! Lytro plans to solve all your (and your camera’s) focus disabilities. You can read more at TechCrunch and play with an example (I know nobody reads this blog, but it’s always good to pretend so). If it works as they say (and we must believe so, they just got $50M, so it better work), this is disrupting photography as we know it. We already have the tools to correct, manipulate and improve photos up to a certain point, but focus was always the Achilles’ heel. You simply can’t correct an out of focus picture. My wife is a casual photographer and produces a substantial amount of images a year. Yet, she’s always complaining about bad focus on pictures she thought would be perfect. So I can clearly see the market here (and I’m already dreaming with less complains at home). Makes me think if we ever come to the point of capturing audio on the street and focus on specific points of it (like dialogue, birds, machines, etc), removing all the other noise in the process. Probably that’s something already in existence. Anyone?

Final Cut Pro X price disruption = destruction

Fourth post and guess what? Yeah, you got it! Apple … those crazy guys … they did it again. Why? Well, yesterday I read about the new version of Final Cut, just launched. This is not the kind of product for the casual video editor. Nah, this is the real thing for the big guns, the tenorwannabes of this world. It’s not something I would use, but it’s impossible to miss the new price tag: $299. In Europe it’s 239€ and that’s with VAT included. For a company VAT is deductible, so you end up with it around 200€, a very low price indeed. I just checked Premiere Pro CS 5.5 on Adobe Store and it starts at €849 (without VAT) and even if I find a retailer selling it at a lower price point, the difference is still huge.

Apple profits big from their hardware (big margins x lots of sales…). With App Stores they have cut out the middle-man and cash in 30% off every sale. If that wasn’t enough, they happen to create some great pieces of software and they’re lowering the prices. In practice, they’re pretty much covered from every possible angle (i.e. they own it, man). For the average consumer (and yes, I’m a consumer), putting the “garden walls” comments aside (I know they’re real and I feel the same, but it’s the nature of the beast), these are the kind of news we want to hear: fine products, low prices. Heck, Lion will be sold on the App Store for $29.99. That’s peanuts! Windows 7 is not even close. Now they’re releasing Final Cut banana-priced, and I’m sure pearls like Logic Pro will follow with an equal price drop, making Mac OS X a really enviable platform for professionals and wannabes alike (even if hardware is still somewhat pricier, software evens out the difference). As a regular user of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation) software on the PC, I’ve used Cakewalk Sonar for a long time but settled on Cockos Reaper because of its stability, performance, features, regular updates and, of course, low price. However, when time comes (next version), I’m sure going to give Logic Pro a try, and I know I’ll probably end up sticking with it. So yes, from the consumer point of view, this is a game-changer. Feels like a never-ending warehouse clearance (except you don’t need to get up from your chair and go to the store).

However, I’m a developer too, and this is getting scary (not scary as in a ghost movie, but scary as in someone’s laughing at you one hour straight). No doubt lots of software is overpriced, but take an example from the real world (yeah, that world outside Silicon Valley and other few places on Earth where money seems to grow on trees, no pun intended), where you’ve got a really small team (say, 3-4 people) developing a product during six months. Realistically, costs will fluctuate between $20,000 and $100,000 (depending on where you wake up every morning). To break-even the costs, with current pricing policies, you have to sell in the high numbers (just think of mobile apps selling for $0.99)…

I understand an App Store is a great way to reach consumers as they’re signed in with their credit cards ready to buy, but what good is it when you have to compete with 500,000 products (and growing) for virtual shelf space? Makes me think of the long tail (and momma told me the tail is not the place to be, unless you’re the store owner). Of course, new models and new patterns require new solutions. For example, if people really are starting to use mobile devices more than the web itself, our channels to potential customers are, at the moment, more limited than before, even if they’re more targeted.

As a consumer, the shift towards lower prices is enjoyable. After all we’re in a crisis, which can only deepen (Roubini is with me on this one), and people should start saving more and spending less. But, as a developer, this poses greater risks to companies (specially the bigger ones) who might not adapt fast enough to this new economy and its challenges. We must adapt and evolve to the new level but this might be more of a roller-coaster ride, though.

Apple’s move is bringing the pro world closer to the average user. I remember when the so called prosumer audio interfaces started to flood the market with gobs of other great audio gear ensuing. All those basement (or attic) musicians that were unable to rent a studio, suddenly could buy the complete outfit and be heard. It was disruptive in every possible way. It “built” the new music industry (or is “killed” the right word?) and brought us to where we are today. Don’t want to enter in the music argument (at least today) but, truth is, disruption usually brings destruction and destruction is not necessarily bad. That’s where we the unpredictable part comes: what will be destroyed, and what will be built upon its ashes.

Apple and the World Wide Web

Now that’s a bold statement:

Apple is not afraid to venture forward on something while thumbing their collective nose at the conventional wisdom of the “right way” to do it. They take a concept and cut it down to its essentials and re-work an idea from there. That is why they are the most successful tech company on the planet right now. They set trends — or reset them, if they have to — they don’t follow them.

After reading today’s article by MG Siegler on TechCrunch I must confess that his reasoning is perfect (hmmm, and by perfect I mean in line with my own :).

As a recent convert to the Apple world, I must say I entered it loaded with prejudice and some nasty yet touching A-grade hostility. Partly because of that ego-sized obstacle, although I’m working with a Mac and an iPhone for half an year now, I only recently felt like a convert. It’s not a life-changing experience like having your first son (I have nephews, so I should know) or visiting Iceland (and getting lost in the snow), but after it creeps in, it’s difficult to get out.

As a standard, average-looking, well-behaved computer operator, I used a PC (Windows and Linux) daily, but never got the time (nor the money, nor the attitude) for really trying a Mac. They’re expensive and they’re aimed at the elites of this still-not-post-capitalist world who can afford spending thousands on computers that do the same or less a half-priced PC can do (but additionally can double-act as minimalistic furniture, feng-shui approved). So I thought, and the ranting went on. Every day I sat at my new Mac Mini toaster (not quite exposed to the full Apple experience), I noted down a round of things I disliked with Mac OS X, only to laughingly throw them at my friends operating for the dark side (i.e. the Apple side).

Because tenorwannabes learn lots of different skills, I can act like a conventional user, which makes for Mac OS X’s primary target, but also as a programmer (aka spaceship-ready-user). So I completely hated those “advanced” PC things that couldn’t be done out-of-the-box on my Apple toaster (trying to move files without a mouse, deleting files with the keyboard involving no trash, using Tab to switch between dialog buttons and the list goes on), but I absolutely loved other points like having a Unix shell (which is a clear advantage Linux also has over Windows and helped to ease-out some initial bumps). Also, coming from years of .NET and Visual Studio to Xcode, even in its fourth incarnation, is still regarded (by me) as a major step-back, although one I can live with … and don’t even get me started on the differences between PC and Mac keyboards, with muscle memory tricks reducing me to the status of an helpless joke.

Anyway, the sun is a good friend and shines, birds sing, life goes on and we’re developing an iPhone app at my startup, point being I could use one as my main device. But loyalty is somethin’ hard to break so I never ever carried it along, as it felt like kryptonite weakening my hard-learned PC super powers.

One day (or one night … I can’t clearly remember …) the unnatural paradox set in like a dark scene from an horror movie: I was developing an app concept I loved for a platform I hated. Oh man … shhhhhh! How could I sink so low? My blood sugar levels dropped and for a moment I thought I was lost forever, depression awaiting me for eternal consumption.

From that hardening yet blissful moment on, I had to watch very carefully where I would walk my feet, I had to sneak through corners, fearing an high order close encounter with my Mac acquaintances who could ask difficult, unreasonable and impertinent questions about my line-perfect conduct. Not safe, definitely not funny. It eventually happened, more than once, more than twice, more than … but I don’t want to talk about it.

The key: switching to an open mindset, I could separate platform differences from platform troubles and advantages. Given enough room, it all started to make sense. To better relate and experiment with what I was feeling, I took a week vacation and brought the iPhone with lots of apps, games and Kindle installed. The rest, as they say, is history. It works great, it’s good stuff (really!) and it’s beautiful. I have to tell you the right side of my brain is very developed (because I’m a tenorwannabe, but you already know that) so aesthetics matter a lot. The iPhone is a piece of art (ok, not museum art, but art anyway), and Mac OS X does wonders to the look of some old friends of mine: even Eclipse (yeah, the ugly IDE with a great name) looks great on it. Suddenly, staring at a Java application is inspiring, almost motivational! :P

I don’t want to make this post too long (otherwise I would’ve chosen Lulu instead of Tumblr), but fanboyism aside (don’t buy into that), I now see the concept, the beauty and the purpose (money, that’s obvious) Apple is building in! As a web developer myself, I would prefer a cross-platform solution (Appcelerator and PhoneGap were seriously considered around here) for reaching a broader audience, but in the end what matters to users is the immersive, integrated experience Apple enables you to deliver. So if I have to compromise reach over meaning I think, for the moment, I’ll choose that path. After truly living the “other” side, I must swallow the pride, silence the prejudice, and tell you that I’m yet to find something comparable.

Apple does believe that native apps backed by the Internet will best pure Web-based apps for the foreseeable future. It’s a big bet, but it’s not as crazy of a bet as some may have you believe.

Although I’m still at the backstage envisioning the next Internet (WWW) thing, I concur this is currently the best approach for mobile applications.

Disclaimer: the last three paragraphs were added to bring this post back on-topic. Even if I derived from what was initially planned, my intention was to agree with MG Siegler after disagreeing with him (silently) so many times over Apple issues. Lastly, I recommend trying Apple for a change (if that’s your thing). Digestion after lunch improved, so who knows how you’ll benefit?