Not surprised at all by this news, though it is disheartening that Apple doesn't seem to want to comment on this stuff. Between the public relations nightmare that was FCPX, the nebulous future of PCI-X equipped Macs, and the perpetual issues plaguing Logic Pro, the pro market does seem to be less and less of a focus on Apple's part.
Do you want to know what I think the single biggest issue is? Their stupid, stupid, moronic, idiotic corporate communications policy. It is all well and good to be mum on consumer developments - after all, hype is a great marketing tool - but when you're dealing with professionals, they can't be left in the dark in the way that Apple has perpetually left [us] in the dark. To be frank, I've been seriously considering jumping ship from my Logic/Apple based rig (I'm a music/sound engineer and producer) to a Cubase/Windows based one, mostly because I am tired of waiting to hear news about the new Mac Pros. My system right now is stopgap, and has been for over a year, waiting for that announcement. The same goes for Logic Pro 10/X - there are glaring issues with Logic that make its reliability less than stellar for professional work (don't argue with me on this point - the "Disk too Slow" errors on SSD's, the spotty AU validation, the runaway cores, the MASSIVE memory leaks...), and there is NO WORD FROM APPLE ABOUT IT.
They don't say a goddamn thing about anything, ever - it is telling that it took them so long to issue such a paltry press release about their plans for FCPX, after the public reacted INSANELY negatively to it. That attitude is fine for iWhatevers, but not for PRO equipment and software - in fact, they would sell significantly more systems if they had a roadmap, I'm pretty sure. Why do I say that? Because, even if they are bad about actually meeting goals (as such large companies inevitably are), AT LEAST WE'D KNOW THEY HAVE GOALS IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
I have no faith at all in Apple as a Pro company anymore - even if they care about that market (which is far from obvious), their communications policy has put me off so badly that I am, well, pissed. I find it a tad ironic that this Reality TV company has jumped ship to AVID of all places, as well - they are actually WORSE than Apple about supporting their own products, especially at the low-to-upper-mid end of the market. Honestly, the $300 upgrade to PT10, with little in the way of added functionality and less in the way of added value, is just galling. The fact that they are letting RTAS die a slow death, yet not telling people about it, is also pretty horrible. By the way, Pro Tools is only the standard in larger studios, and not because it is BETTER than the other options - it is just what everyone KNOWS already (myself included), and is a hardware-software option known to be relatively stable. Myself and most of the engineer friends I have all despise the program, for the simple reason that it is outdated for all but the most pedestrian audio editing tasks - and TDM is becoming less and less necessary (and, ironically enough, wasn't even really necessary at most places that had it before - how many unused outboard comps, TC, Eventide, etc, do you think there are out there?).
I think ALL these companies (Ableton, Waves, NI, and several others are quite bad as well) need to get off their asses and tell us what is going on! Apple and Avid are just the worst offenders, not the only ones.
Oh, and I agree with whoever said that the trickle-down effect is very important - it certainly was for me, and for 90% of the people I know in my industry. In music, "Mac is better" (a falsehood, especially given the advances with ASIO and the languishing of CoreAudio), but that seems to be changing. If you think that the entire plethora of bedroom musicians and "producers" that use Macs aren't a large market, or more specifically if Apple's management thinks that, then god help them in 5 years. They're in the process of sowing their own failure, and are going to look so shocked when their loudest advocates (Content Creation Pros), who they've forsaken, drive their students and proteges and would-be successors away from the $$$ platform. It will be another 5 after that when the real effect is felt - when they've decided to drop "computers" entirely to be a consumer electronics company - because, "nobody buys computers anymore" - once again, leaving Content Creators to fend for themselves...
[/rant]
