Apple Releases Soundtrack

An anonymous reader writes "Apple have released Soundtrack to retail. The application, which is similar to ACID and FruityLoops on the PC, allows composition of music from a library of over 4000 samples (approx 14GB of data) that can be used royalty-free. It also supports the AudioUnit framework (which has a new logo) and comes with 30 AUs bundled in the box. The application was previously only available bundled in Final Cut Pro 4 and will retail for $299/£249."

Comments

Apple's Developer Relations Shift

[Alliante]

Is Apple trying to kill off nearly all 3rd party development for their platform or are they trying to fill blanks where 3rd party developers aren't doing as well as Apple would like for them to do?

Re:Apple's Developer Relations Shift

[alangmead]

I'd say that they're just trying to up the ante, and frankly the digital media creation software industry could really use the higher standards.

The same way the bundling of MacWrite upped the ante for Macintosh Word Processing programs through the '80s?

When Apple bundled MacWrite with each Mac, the only other word processor was Microsoft Word and eventually WriteNow. After they stopped, WordPerfect, FullWrite, and Nisus was released. As well as integrated word processing programs like MS-Works, GreatWorks and ClarisWorks. (yes, Clarisworks was published by Claris, an Apple subsidiary but the software developers created it without knowing who would eventually publish it.)

Apple spun of its application development to Claris and stopped producing application software specifically because they were too strong of a competitor for a software publisher to compete against in the Mac market. I wonder what changed?

Re:Linux and This Dept.

[NaugaHunter]

Exactly HOW is that going to happen? Does Linus have a huge catalog of free music samples he'll open up? Is IBM sitting on a sound tool they never bother releasing? Have you written one? Or thousands of free music pieces?

There are probably places that have developed something similar in-house for Linux, though most likely less powerful (read: only as powerful as they need). Why would they release it? If it uses GPL'd code, they won't be able to charge for it. If it uses their own sound library, they surely wouldn't release that for free, and would quickly get bogged in trying to enforce their rights and earn money from it.