Windows 10 support ends - Are you interested in Linux support by FAS?

[rossipedia]

Question is, are there valid reasons to avoid Apple today, more than there are for Microsoft?

My two cents, as somebody who's an avid and experienced user of all the platforms, and as somebody who's worked professionally either for or very closely with the organizations in question, I'd say you can find valid reasons to avoid any of them. Apple included. Not a single one of these big tech companies are more altruistic than any other. They all want to make money. They all treat YOU as a resource to generate profit.

But I don't think there's more reason to avoid Apple these days than any of the alternatives. I've outlined my reasons above for choosing their platform for my audio work. You can pretty much do the same thing on either OS, ultimately, just depends on how you like to work.

But I will say that in my personal experience, Microsoft has been way more user hostile in recent years than Apple has (just take a few minutes to look into Copilot Recall... that's some serious Orwellian bullshit). And given the horror stories that have been floating around about the Windows codebase (and what I saw personally from the glimpses I've had of it), I'm actually a bit reassured by how often Apple breaks things in order to fix their issues. Microsoft will leave horrifically broken bugs in their codebase just to appease big companies that use Windows. That's not to say Apple / Mac haven't had similar or equally as egregious issues. They have. Pick your poison ¯\(ツ)/¯

At the end of the day, these are massive companies staffed by people just like you and me. They are organizations that will naturally try to extract every last dollar out of their user base that they can, but individually these people are trying to do the best they can. It's just the way of the world.

But don't go deluding yourself that one of them is more noble or righteous than the other. That's a view that's honestly childish and immature in the extreme.

At this point, pick the one that works better for you and lets you get your work done.

(even if that one puts unwanted ads all over the place - sorry, had to put one last dig at Windows in there)

 

[Moondog Wily]

With all due respect, the idea that Apple is sharing Siri conversations with advertisers is laughable. If this was happening, it would necessarily be known to large numbers of people outside of Apple. Yet nobody has claimed to have any knowledge of that happening. There were a couple of odd coincidences with advertisements showing up on a web page after a conversation. Considering the number of conversations people have near Apple devices everyday, it would only be surprising if there were no such coincidences. That's why the settlement figure was so tiny.

Just because you did not hear about it in the news does not mean it did not and is not happening! Plenty of corporations keep big secrets that are known to many (hello tobacco, hello Haliburton, hello Enron). If it were so easy to prove that it was only a couple of coincidences, do you really think they would have forked out $95 million (and BTW, $30 million of that is going to plaintiff attorneys)? It is much more likely that they settled this so that those (and other) hidden secrets are not revealed, which is a very common practice in civil litigation.

I know from personal experience that "listening" has increased from examples in my life. I would estimate more than 20 times last year, I spoke a word (not typed into my computer, not sent via my phone, etc., just talking to my girl and I have not voice automation on anything in my life) I had not said in 20 years, or spoke of a place that I had not thought about or read about in 20 years and boom, there are ads in my feeds an hour or day later for a related product. I am not exaggerating (and I have zero Apple products in my world so it is not them) and it is not coincidence in my opinion based on the rarity and uniqueness of phrases/words/names I have seen converted to advertising feeds to me. It is happening and getting worse, at least in my world.

 

[Rock Chalk]

(even if that one puts unwanted ads all over the place - sorry, had to put one last dig at Windows in there)

Where are you guys seeing all these ads? I mean yeah, a couple years ago when I first installed Windows 11, Office 360 was in the program files and it wanted me to buy it....but once I uninstalled it and installed my old trusty copy of Office 2010, I haven't seen an ad since.

I might not be a power user like some, but I use it for internet, email, Axe-Edit, Reaper +plugins, the occasional game and music ect......no ads.

What gives?

 

[Moondog Wily]

I'm actually looking for concrete examples of why people are anti Apple.

Removing headphone jacks from devices.
Charging you $200 to have an extra 128GB of memory when a chip like that costs them probably $5.
Not allowing extra chips to be put into mobile devices, forcing you to spend the big dollars they demand if you want more storage.
Proprietary chords that cost exorbitant amounts of money compared to the rest of the market (I think this is done now but I can't be sure, I am not part of their system).
Limited software choices in comparison to windows.
Non-replaceable batteries.
Classic corporate philosophy and attitude about not letting users control their devices as they see fit (not concrete but my main reason for continuing to avoid them).

I will reiterate, they make great products and are innovators, but there is way to much bad blood history as well as current practices (some mentioned above) for me to forgive them at this point, plus, I have what I need and it works just fine ;~))

 

[sprint]

 

[frankencat]

So now that you guys basically talked me into setting up Linux Mint, how are you guys running FM3 edit?

 

[TheRedDevil]

So now that you guys basically talked me into setting up Linux Mint, how are you guys running FM3 edit?

Search the thread for Bottles, a Flathub "free app store" tool. https://flathub.org/apps/com.usebottles.bottles
Until now with Ubuntu based on Gnome/Wayland and Gnome/X11 I was not successful but some users with Arch Linux (and KDE?) were successful.

 

[Rock Chalk]

What gives?

Exactly what I thought......bunch of BS...........

 

[frankencat]

I got FM3 Edit installed with Bottles but no connectivity and not able to access the settings in the editor. I will mess with it some more later but I wonder if running it VM would be better. I have had pretty good success with the Oracle one in the past, VirtualBox I think it is.

 

[GlennO]

Where are you guys seeing all these ads?

In the Windows 11 lock screen and start menu. It is possible to disable those ads though.

 

[Rock Chalk]

In the Windows 11 lock screen and start menu. It is possible to disable those ads though.

Ahhh....I must have disabled them.......thanks.

 

[TheRedDevil]

I got FM3 Edit installed with Bottles but no connectivity and not able to access the settings in the editor. I will mess with it some more later but I wonder if running it VM would be better. I have had pretty good success with the Oracle one in the past, VirtualBox I think it is.

If you move the window to the screen edges it is connected and you see the presets, etc. But the refresh is done just once

 

[etomcat]

Chrome.

That is a problem of Crome , not the iOS
Same issue exists on android as well . The back button there is part of the Android OS
Use Safari browser - there is back button

 

[IAmThePepperoniKing]

No doubt storage upgrades are horribly expensive from Apple. That's not necessarily an important issue for music production though, since you'll probably want to put your libraries and projects on an external drive anyway.

Memory upgrades are a different story. Things have changed in the past couple of years and a memory upgrade is no longer a matter of adding an inexpensive chip. Integrated memory which is embedded in the cpu is now used to improve performance. You can't compare memory upgrades today to memory upgrades 10 years ago.

Keep in mind however, that memory requirement growth has slowed dramatically in the past decade. 25 years ago you could count on needing more RAM in a year or two after you would buy your computer. Things are different now. 16 or 32 GB has been sufficient for music production for well over a decade. The ability to add memory simply isn't as important as it used to be.

It's also worth nothing that you can't replace/upgrade RAM on a ton of Windows laptops anymore, either. Except that there's no integration with the CPU, like there is with Apple Silicon. Not yet, anyway.

 

[Androo]

I got FM3 Edit installed with Bottles but no connectivity and not able to access the settings in the editor. I will mess with it some more later but I wonder if running it VM would be better. I have had pretty good success with the Oracle one in the past, VirtualBox I think it is.

I couldn't get the editor to run on Ubuntu Studio / Bottles. Might try Wine instead.

 

[unix-guy]

It's also worth nothing that you can't replace/upgrade RAM on a ton of Windows laptops anymore, either.

That's not because of anything Microsoft is involved with because they only make the OS, not the hardware (unless you count the Surface?)...

There's really no such thing as a "Windows laptop", just laptops that Windows is compatible with. It's like a "USB printer cable" which is just a USB B to USB A cable...

 

[frankencat]

I couldn't get the editor to run on Ubuntu Studio / Bottles. Might try Wine instead.

I have been trying to get it working on Mint with Bottles as well but no luck so far. It says it's connected but no presets load. I would love to not have to use windows in my chill time.

 

[DLM]

I have been trying to get it working on Mint with Bottles as well but no luck so far. It says it's connected but no presets load. I would love to not have to use windows in my chill time.

I keep wondering if it all works for me because CachyOS has a one button install for gaming and multimedia packages. Maybe it installed something the Axe software needs to work that other distros aren't getting by default. Could also be the window manager. I'm using KDE Plasma Wayland. Mint uses Gnome by default, doesn't it?

 

[trixdropd]

I’m using a 2020 M1 for multitracking, VST/VSTi, etc. It’s far more stable than any PC I’ve had before it, be it preconfigured or something I built. My M3 Air is even faster.

Same

 

[maorgr]

I'd be surprised if MSFT didn't extend Windows 10 support time period.

Having just switch back from 11 to 10, I can attest first hand that win11 is still as horrible as it gets.