Apple anounced recently that upcoming releases of iOS and macOS will drop support for 32-bit software.
Their attitude is basically this: developers should update all this stuff and provide you with new copies.
Myself and many other people, especially musicians who use lots of hardware and plugins, have already been frustrated for a long time with the way Apple seems not to care very much about all of the hardware drivers and software that it breaks compatibility with, every time it releases an OS update.
Whether it's audio interface drivers or plugins and their installers, I have become deathly afraid to update—not only because I will have to spend lots of money for updates and new hardware that I don't need, but also and especially because some of my most commonly used software instruments are no longer supported, and there is no substitute where the same MIDI files and DAW projects will work with them and sound the same.
I had written Apple a letter in the hopes a future macOS release would improve these backwards compatibility issues, but it seems they are going the opposite direction. I am really freaking because now they are saying all 32-bit software is getting dumped. Why?! Why not offer a compatibility environment?
This is particularly a problem for CoreAudio plugins on the Mac, like Native Instruments Pro-53. I have hundreds of hours of projects with it. No update is available. Same with my Avid 002 Rack drivers, which I had to hack in order to barely get them to work even on 10.8, where I gave been stranded as a result for the past 5+ years.
Apple's changes to sandboxing and permissions even in 10.8 were problematic and they got even worse on recent macOS versions. It was common for plugins to save preset files in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins, yet now this is locked from being writable unless you disable SIP and and modify your permissions. Even then, the stupid sandbox daemon (which seems to have no manual overrides) can cause crashes and problems.
I understand and appreciate Apple adding performance and security features and optimizations to their OSs. However I strongly feel they need to maintain user overrides and controls for this crap, and they need to spend some of that 250 billion in cash they have milked all of us for and are now hoarding, to ensure their products can be updated and will continue to "just work".
They can afford to engineer new Macs and software to keep working with older hardware and software. I know Microsoft keeps support going for Windows 7 for a very long time due to this reason, because businesses and professionals who rely on their software cannot usually afford to upgrade all their specialized software and hardware.
The fact is that most of the new features of macOS past 10.8 are mostly UI things that I don't need. The security improvements however are crucial in many ways and so I'm forced to keep my 10.8 machine off the internet now, which can be a pain.
I guess I'm just venting but maybe someone knows of a workaround for the 32-bit plugins, like a compatibility shell or some way to run them with low latency on a 64-bit-only OS.
Their attitude is basically this: developers should update all this stuff and provide you with new copies.
Myself and many other people, especially musicians who use lots of hardware and plugins, have already been frustrated for a long time with the way Apple seems not to care very much about all of the hardware drivers and software that it breaks compatibility with, every time it releases an OS update.
Whether it's audio interface drivers or plugins and their installers, I have become deathly afraid to update—not only because I will have to spend lots of money for updates and new hardware that I don't need, but also and especially because some of my most commonly used software instruments are no longer supported, and there is no substitute where the same MIDI files and DAW projects will work with them and sound the same.
I had written Apple a letter in the hopes a future macOS release would improve these backwards compatibility issues, but it seems they are going the opposite direction. I am really freaking because now they are saying all 32-bit software is getting dumped. Why?! Why not offer a compatibility environment?
This is particularly a problem for CoreAudio plugins on the Mac, like Native Instruments Pro-53. I have hundreds of hours of projects with it. No update is available. Same with my Avid 002 Rack drivers, which I had to hack in order to barely get them to work even on 10.8, where I gave been stranded as a result for the past 5+ years.
Apple's changes to sandboxing and permissions even in 10.8 were problematic and they got even worse on recent macOS versions. It was common for plugins to save preset files in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins, yet now this is locked from being writable unless you disable SIP and and modify your permissions. Even then, the stupid sandbox daemon (which seems to have no manual overrides) can cause crashes and problems.
I understand and appreciate Apple adding performance and security features and optimizations to their OSs. However I strongly feel they need to maintain user overrides and controls for this crap, and they need to spend some of that 250 billion in cash they have milked all of us for and are now hoarding, to ensure their products can be updated and will continue to "just work".
They can afford to engineer new Macs and software to keep working with older hardware and software. I know Microsoft keeps support going for Windows 7 for a very long time due to this reason, because businesses and professionals who rely on their software cannot usually afford to upgrade all their specialized software and hardware.
The fact is that most of the new features of macOS past 10.8 are mostly UI things that I don't need. The security improvements however are crucial in many ways and so I'm forced to keep my 10.8 machine off the internet now, which can be a pain.
I guess I'm just venting but maybe someone knows of a workaround for the 32-bit plugins, like a compatibility shell or some way to run them with low latency on a 64-bit-only OS.
