Hi Freddie, as always, an enthusiastic statement (EDIT: referring to a controversial post which Freddie deleted), which I enjoyed reading. Naturally, I respectfully disagree with you on many of your points, but not for the obvious reasons.
-
In 5-6 years, according to many predictions by people who know a lot more about it than you or I do, the personal computer as we currently know it will radically change – that applies to both Windows and Macs. A “desktop” operating system of today will be obsolete.
-
However, even those experts can’t predict too well what the replacement of current personal computers will look like, although if current predictions hold, it may look something like a cross between an iPad, Kinect/PrimeSense device, Oculus Rift and/or Google Glass. Those same people predicting a radical shift in the industry also completely missed the iPad, Kinect, Oculus Rift and Google Glass! So who really has the answers? I suspect no one in this forum.
-
How DAWs will fit into that new paradigm is anyone’s guess this far out, but the overall PC picture will be very different than what we have today.
-
#1, #2 and #3 are essentially irrelevant to people who need to make music right now, today, this minute, in 2013. Because your version of 2019 is a long, long, long way away… an eternity in tech land. Current DAW users need to use the best tools available today to help them get their projects done today.
-
Both Windows and Mac platforms run Cubase beautifully today, and I can vouch for that personally. You can get great, professional hardware that run both platforms, so that is not an issue. The choice of platform is a personal preference issue now, no fanboyism is needed on either side… and the performance wars are over, Freddie. You may have missed the memo. A “typical” Windows machine and a “typical” Mac running the same software will produce the same results in the hands of the same person, and performance is no longer a primary issue. Sure, Windows will always win the bang-for-buck equation, and no one is going to argue that you can get a certain % more plugins running on the same cost of Windows machine, but so what? Even a cheap Mac Mini, as humble as some people might think it is, can work miracles in the right hands… including with Cubase. There is no need to bash either platform now.
-
In 5-6 years not only will the entire personal computer landscape change, but so will the DAW software landscape change. I can guarantee that the only DAW developers left standing in 5-6 years will be the ones who are embracing the coming paradigm shifts. The ones that will come out on top will likely be making bold bets and taking some risky moves, and more importantly, they will be AGILE to the coming changes. That’s actually why I think Steinberg will still be standing… they’ve been doing well on mobile and now getting into gesture recognition. That’s where UI stuff is headed, according to many predictions, and they’re already allocating resources to experiment in those areas. Even if those areas don’t pan out, they have invested in and are aware of the coming technologies and trying to be agile. I hope they keep it up. Or Cubase will become the next Opcode Vision.
-
Whatever happens in the future will involve a LOT of change for everyone, not just Mac users, so the best advice someone can give to users in the “here and now” is not to jump on or dump on Windows or Mac, etc… but rather to build a platform-independent workflow and make sure you have a solid strategy to archive older projects/content to a lowest-common-denominator (such as wav stems), so that in 5, 6, 10 years you can still access your projects to some degree or another.
-
In the end, what matters most is the music you are making now. Who could have predicted the rapid rise and fall of recent tech trends? The same holds for music technology. But let’s not engage in platform bashing. We all use Cubase here, and we all know it’s an incredible DAW.
EDIT: This post was in response to Freddie’s post which he deleted.