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Comment by calinet6 | Hacker News Reader

As with many of Apple's recent price drops (OSX, iWork, etc. etc.) I think it's a highly strategic and intentional move, not reflective of the greater market, but showing that Apple is enabling the larger success of their brand by enabling more people to purchase and use these pro apps at a lower price point. Plus, it will sell Macs, both laptops and Mac Pros. Smart.

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Plus, it will sell Macs, both laptops and Mac Pros. Smart.

Plus? No, _first_. Apple is a hardware company. They sell computers. Their software, while excellent and profitable, IMO exists only to sell more hardware.

All companies have a core competency & purpose. Everything else must feed that core; a product may be excellent on its own, but must still support the core. Deviate from that core, badness happens. Logic Pro is awesome on its own, but was created to give a niche a reason to buy into the Apple ecosystem, buy hardware, and buy more hardware.

This strategy benefits Apple, but screws over independent software developers/vendors.

Look at the top 10 apps in the Mac App Store. That list is always dominated by Apple's applications like Logic and iWork because of this pricing strategy. Nobody else can afford to sell a DAW for $200 and make money. IMHO it's some kind of anti-competitiveness but I don't know if there's a term for it. Maybe it's just a fact of life when Apple owns and controls the entire software/hardware ecosystem.

Of course others can afford it. Whether they want to is another matter, but other companies like Propellerheads make lots of money selling software in the same price range.

Also, don't forget that most of the Apple Pro Apps came about because pretty much none of the creative market vendors were initially on board with OSX, that only happened later when they saw OSX grow.

That's not totally true. I've heard from several professional musicians who use Reaper ( http://www.reaper.fm/ ) and it sells for $225.

Reaper also has the excellent discounted license for $60 which covers a lot of musicians who would otherwise be forced by the singular license of Reason / Logic Pro / Ableton Live.

Both Ableton and Reason are over $400 and tons of musicians still choose those over Logic. For many, price is not the only consideration when picking a DAW and there are plenty of developers selling mere VSTs, not even DAWs, at $200/pop.

I would argue that having the type of professional software that only companies like Apple can develop, available at an affordable price, is a great win for consumers.

Companies will find ways to compete. Just look at the $30-$50 apps that emulate stripped down versions of Photoshop (Acorn, Pixelmator) - yeah, they aren't near the full feature set of PS, but they get 90% of us what we need and for way less money. I'm sure audio apps already have some of this going on in the market.

Are the existing DAWs really hurting since Apple dropped their price? Live, Pro Tools, Reason, etc. seem to be doing well.

Are many independent developers really in the business of creating DAWs anyway? There seem to be far more developing instrument/effect plugins. The more people that use DAWs, the larger the market for plugins becomes. The net effect for independent developers could be positive.

Besides, if independent developers cannot find a way to compete, perhaps they should reconsider their business. It's not like they're competing with Microsoft's monopoly in the 80s and 90s. There are many other platforms (some much more popular than Apple desktop) on which they can develop, and Apple won't compete with them there. That's still a huge potential market share.

Requires: OS X v10.8.4 or later

Lots of people will need a new mac for this. I know I can't run it on my Mac Pro 1,1

There is a way to get Mountain Lion on your MP, which is I think the only reason you can't have LPX. It looks a tad tricky (and it's not recommended if your 1,1 is in any way connected to your ability to earn money) but you can do it by mucking about with hard drives and the installer images.

Kicks off here: http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/23/mountain-lion-installed-on-a-m...

Thanks, I'll check that out.

> That list is always dominated by Apple's applications

I haven't looked, but I bet the Microsoft equivalent is (will be?) dominated by their apps, like the Office suite. It's not unfair, it's just the reality of such markets.

A supermarket's home brand would probably also be the most successful brand in their stores, too.

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