Future = IOS7 Goodbye iPad First Gen

[Wynnd]

I was so used to hearing people complain about their computers being obsolete as soon as they bought them.  I currently using a 4 year old MacBook Pro still on it's original battery and I can still use it for about 7 hours on a single charge.  (Try that with a new PC, let alone consider attempting it with a 4 year old one.  Did I mention I upgraded the hard drive to a somewhat thirstier Momentus XT hybrid?)  Anyway, my point is you don't have to upgrade.  My DL is already more than I ever expected with the few Master Fader upgrades I've gotten already.  I'm running an ipad 2 using ios 7.1.   That means that at least the next couple of MF upgrades should run just fine.  My Mother used her first computer for 10 years.  At least one friend also had hers that long.    In 10 years, I think I'll be either retiring or only volunteering for groups I belong to.  So I suspect you'll be OK because the ipad 2 will run ios 7.x just fine and that's the requirement for the next version or MF.  If you haven't upgraded the ipad, it's probably getting close to time to upgrade.  (If you're a PC guy, you might not know that the ipad updates through Itunes.  It also backs up through Itunes, so even if you don't want Itunes on your PC, you really need it there for the ipad.) 

[WK154]

If you're a PC guy, you might not know that the ipad updates through Itunes.  It also backs up through Itunes, so even if you don't want Itunes on your PC, you really need it there for the ipad.

Actually you can quite happily live on your iCloud even for backup as long as you have a WiFi to the Internet. You can off course spend all your $ at the iTunes and App stores and never need a PC for updates. PC guys don't want to pollute their real computer with spy/crippleware like iTunes.

[Wynnd]

Don't know about spyware, but I've seen a lot of irrational hatred of Apple and their products.  I only hate having to fix things and Apple products don't have the quantity of software failures that Microsoft does.  (MS products keep getting better and have had acceptable failure rates since XP.  Still more than Apple's OS-X)  Hardware failure rates are about the same.  (I used to be a PC/Network tech and CNA.)

[WK154]

Irrational and hatred are pretty strong words to defend a company looking to restrict information for their own greedy gains. You did work in the IT industry that stands for Information Technology not Information Repression. You also lost track of time as I remember XP and OS9 were the competition. You really don't want to compare these two. A 11% market share and dropping is not inspiring and I would sell my shares of Apple stock.

[Wynnd]

OS-9 was pretty good for a task-switching operating system.  I was using BeOS back then.  That was worlds ahead of anything else out there.  True multitasking, multimedia with a file system that would directly address 16 Peta-Bytes of drive space.  (I had to look up what that meant.  I still have yet to see a peta-byte drive in a store.  Probably happen before I die.)   I was running BeOS on a 400 mhz Pentium II machine, playing MP3s from the drive, running Seti-At-Home in the background, downloading software and installing it and surfing the web, all without a single hickup from the music player.  (SetiAtHome would peg the processor at 100%.  Windows version only ran during the screen saver.)  I had Windows 98 on the same machine, and it never would have come close to that level of performance.  (besides taking about 5 times as long to boot, having to reboot after every software install, and it's MP3 player skipping under the load without seti-at-home running.)   I didn't remember OS-9 and XP being available at the same time.  By the way, BeOS's journaling file system's advances are mostly built into OS-X now.  (But OS-X built onto Next's version of FreeBSD still can't address 16 Peta-bytes directly.  It will probably get that when drives start getting closer to that big.)  BeOS was doing this in 1995 and the second OS to do it was OS-x in 2002.  They were worlds ahead and designed for a 5 processor box originally.  They would have run rings around MS and OS-X even today, if they weren't killed mostly by MS.  (BeOS won't run with the massive RAM that all machines run today.  Probably wouldn't have been a difficult problem to fix, but the company got purchased for their programming expertise by Palm.  Wonder where those guys are today?)  I do have to eventually sell my Apple stock.  I've sold 3/4 of it over the years to diversify. Being that I bought most of it at $20 a share before they split 2 for 1, the stock has been very good to me.  Jobs dying and no real apparent heir to guide the company into the next big thing has me worried about their move into the future.  They are big enough to probably outlive me, but the ability to out think the market may be gone.  Jobs with all of his quirks, was able to see the potential of nearly anything.  (And boy, did he have quirks.)

[sam.spoons]

If one is going to criticise Apple then pretty much all the same criticisms can be directed at Microsoft, I'm not an Apple Fanboy but I am a late convert to the Fruit's products. After many years of fighting PC's and Windoze (having to learn a completely new OS paradigm every 18 months, struggling to make various random PC hardware work ect) I bought an old (8 year old in fact) Power Mac which turned out to be faster than my wife's 3 month old Win 7 PC (and cost me half as much).

Apple products are not perfect (far from it TBF) but neither are MS based PCs (and Win 8 is just horrible  )

[Wynnd]

For all the complaints of Win 8,  I think MS is on the correct track with a touch screen OS.  I've gotten so used to using my ipad and iphone, that my next laptop will have to have a touch screen.  Maybe they shouldn't have changed the desktop so much, but it's the right direction and outside the touch screen, Apple's been doing something similar.  (moving towards one appearance on the screen.)  I can't bring myself to use the app style, but I forced myself to move to the inverted way of using a mouse and now Windows feels screwball.  When I get my touch screen, I will be ready.  (Just not ready to give up on my 4 year old macbook pro yet.)   I have yet to hear of any Windows 8 complaints that don't involve the tiles screen.  It runs fine.  (And I wish MS would quit renaming things.  That happens every single OS change.  I'm expecting files to be renamed lambskins in the near future.) 

[WK154]

You both missed the point I was trying to make. It's not about reliability of equipment or Microsoft or any of the other usually unsubstantiated claims. It's about a philosophy that tramples on your freedoms on both sides of the oceans for personal gains and control. Apple is far from the only company or governments doing so. It up to you to vote with your money to approve or disapprove that practice. When I say PC it doesn't mean Microsoft there are many other solutions a lot of which you take for granted such as the Internet and NOT running on OS X or Windows.

[Wynnd]

Wasn't missing your point.  Was making a few of my own.  My Son has a company supplied iphone 5 and doesn't use Siri because it runs on Apple's servers.  I understand the privacy issue and I'm more likely to not provide my phone number when asked for it from a merchant. (They really don't need it and the one auto dealership that insists on it has lost my business.)   I've also built a few Linux and Netware machines over the years.  (Got a Raspberry Pi in the house.  Haven't figured out what to do with it.)  My Daughter-in-law refuses to have her face on the internet.  Don't know the reason, but I'm sure it's a good one.  Her facebook page's avatar is a no-cameras icon.  I find it funny.

[seventhson]

I understand where you are coming from but.....

The way I look at it, when I bought my last few analog mixers (the latest being the A&H MixWiz) I knew that I "got what I bought".  That was it.  As it stood was what I was going to be using until I retired it.  I did buy the Lightning 1608 but I know eventually I'll have to get either A: A new iPad, or B: retire this board and go with a new board at that time.  I know it sucks that your iPad 1 is going to be obsolete but like others have said, it was on the way out when you got the Mackie and its not really Mackies fault.  If I were you I would just not bother to upgrade MF at this time (as long as it works, why not run with it).  When the new iPads come out, people will be dumping their old 3s and 4s to upgrade (I see 2s all over ebay for ~$200 now).  Id give my kids the 1 and let them have fun with it and move on at that time.  To me at least, dropping another $200-$300 down the road a few years for new and improved functionality is well worth it.  I get more than that per gig so its a good investment.  But I'm used to mixing on that old reliable A&H MixWiz for the last few years with no functionality improvements.  If I wanted to improve something (IE add some gates or another effects processor) I'd have to drop $200-$300+ anyway.