Logic Pro X… A Sign of Things to Come?
Apple released Logic Pro X yesterday, the latest version of their flagship audio product — thanks David and Tim for the head’s up. I’m certainly no audio guy (GarageBand is enough for me), but it does tell us several things.
First, Pro isn’t dead to Apple. For those out there who’ve been saying that Apple doesn’t care about the Pro market, while it’s obvious the company makes a lot more money on hardware with an “i” in front of the name than products like the Mac Pro and Final Cut Pro X, a release of the highly anticipated Logic Pro X tells us that they’re still in the game. Personally I’d expect that the photography market is bigger than the audio market, too, and therefore of larger interest to Apple.
Second, we may have a hint at the next name. As I’ve noted and joked about before (“let’s call it Aperture Blue!”), big version numbers are largely irrelevant in today’s climate. Aperture may still be 3.x, but 3.3 was a major release, and by not calling it 4.0, we didn’t get charged for it. If the next Aperture is 4.0, then we’ll still have to hear from the Adobe camp that “Lightroom is at 5, so pthththth!”. Of course we’d hear that kind of retort even if Aperture 4 automatically ingested, culled, edited and sent the selects to the client, all while you were still shooting, oh and also made you breakfast, thank you very much — so shifting away from traditional version number makes sense. I predict then that we won’t see Aperture 4, but instead will see Aperture X. Remember, we’re still on Mac OS X 10.x, and no one has complained that we’re “still on OS 10!”.
Third, a notable stand-out feature on Logic Pro X is Logic Remote (go here and scroll to the bottom of the page) an iPad companion app for working with Logic. It’s no secret that the world is going mobile, and the more we can do on our iOS devices, the happier we will be. iPhoto for iOS is fantastic, but it’s fatal flaw to Aperture users is the zero integration problem. We’ve long noted that some kind of iOS integration will be much appreciated, and seeing this sort of thing on Logic Pro X gives one hope.
What do you think? What other Logic nuggets of goodness to you see that may hint towards future Aperture features?
Comments
on July 18, 2013 - 4:13am
I like the idea of using my 1D X on Aperture X!
on July 18, 2013 - 5:00am
I certainly agree that X is what is likely coming. I don’t think Apple is forgetting pros, it just takes a lot more time to refine and enhance some of the more sophisticated apps.
on July 18, 2013 - 5:21am
An iPad remote control for Aperture would be a good idea. It should pointed out that Logic Pro X is the logical name as the previous version was Logic Pro 9 (I’ve owned Logic since v7 and the user interface has undergone a previous major change as well as the current re-styling.). So it’s likely that Aperture will simply be v4.
Interestingly although Logic Pro X has all the previous features of v9, a new method of hiding controls not relevant to the user has been implemented, we might see something similar in Aperture - a simple and an advanced user mode perhaps? You can see the advanced features control here http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/07/logic-pro-tips-x-coexists-peaceful…
on July 18, 2013 - 5:26am
Very good news …
On the possible nomenclature of a new version of Aperture … don’t forget that the previous versions of FCP and Logic Pro were both v9 … or that the iPad 3 turned out to be “The New iPad” …. just sayin’ …
I don’t think there is any way to accurately predict what the name will be … though, I do agree it will likely be a more generic term rather than a hard and fast numbering versions structure as in the past .. if for no other reason than to bring all the pro apps into the same naming structure, much as they did with the varying version numbers of iWork apps … they are all ‘09 by name … but varying version numbers for the individual apps in the sub text …
Indeed the release of Logic Pro X is good news for Aperture users … especially in light of the recent update to the Aperture SDK … (something that hasn’t been done since Aperture 2) … I think the combination of these events, in addition to a new Mac Pro on the horizon spells an end to the long drought of something very substantial for Aperture … the v3.3 update not withstanding …
on July 18, 2013 - 10:35pm
Before I started interesting in photography I was a computer music passionate, so I’m happy of this long awaited version of Logic Pro.
Of course Aperture is close to the release, who knows Logic story has realized that it took so many years to re-engineer all the app as it looks today.
I think, and hope, we will see a huge update to Aperture too, don’t know how it could be named, probably 4 not X, but it’s a matter of commercial rules.
Happy to be part of this community…I say hello to every one.
Daughter & nature photography
iMac 24" late 2008,4gb RAM, 320GB hd
Mac OSX Lion 10.7.5
Aperture 3.4.5
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MacBook Air 11" Early 2014, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD
Mac OSX Yosemite
Aperture 3.6
on July 18, 2013 - 11:17pm
Actually FCP terminated at v7 before the main rewrite and renumber to X. With LR at 5, I can’t see them calling it Aperture 4. Since its known in the store as just Aperture, Aperture X probably makes the most sense. Doesn’t replace Aperture in your purchases and lines up with the rest of the line. But I’d love to see it as Aperture Pro X.
I will predict a $99 price tag and Aperture Remote for the iPad and iPhone. And I also predict they’ll incorporate some of the talents of the LightZone creator who Apple picked up a while ago. LightZone was ahead of its time but it still did tricks that Aperture brushes don’t quite hit.
on July 19, 2013 - 11:00pm
I think it’s coming, whatever the Version naming. There is another job posting for a QA position:
https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=27789165&openJobId=27789165#&openJo…
However, I don’t think this points to an imminent release. QA cycles can last a few months and then the recruitment process could take a couple of months too. So all in all, I personally would not expect anything until Feb 2014.
on July 19, 2013 - 11:00pm
I think it’s coming, whatever the Version naming. There is another job posting for a QA position:
https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=27789165&openJobId=27789165#&openJo…
However, I don’t think this points to an imminent release. QA cycles can last a few months and then the recruitment process could take a couple of months too. So all in all, I personally would not expect anything until Feb 2014.
on July 19, 2013 - 11:01pm
I think it’s coming, whatever the Version naming. There is another job posting for a QA position:
https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=27789165&openJobId=27789165#&openJo…
However, I don’t think this points to an imminent release. QA cycles can last a few months and then the recruitment process could take a couple of months too. So all in all, I personally would not expect anything until Feb 2014.
on July 20, 2013 - 4:03pm
I think it will be called “Aperture Pro X”
/Jim
/Jim Pappas
on July 20, 2013 - 4:17pm
One more comment in favour of Aperture X vs. Aperture 4. As Apple has made quite clear that China is a strategic market, anything with 4 in the name is not seen as auspicious in the Chinese culture (unlike westerners afraid of number 13, Chinese are afraid of number 14. The reason being that in Chinese “4” is pronounced closely to “death” or “dying”).
So my vote for Aperture X :)
Christian C. Berclaz
www.photoanimalium.com