After our recent conversation about one of the aspects I don’t like about Apple over on Dan’s blog, I just happened to listen to a recent episode of the Geek Nights podcast on which they discuss their recent (but short lived) switch to a Mac (and Garage Band) for their podcasting duties.
These guys do multiple shows per week, and until this point had been using Audacity and Rezound with Linux. They had heard so many good things about how podcasting (and audio recording in general) is so much better on the Mac that they bought one, and that episode is a recounting of some of their experiences. To be honest (even though I give Apple a hard time a lot) I never suspected that there were so many big problems, of the nature that they ran into. I’d urge you to listen to the show, and (especially if you’re a Mac person, you know who you guys are), comment here and tell me if anything was wrong, or if they were just missing something on some issues, etc.
After hearing this, I was prompted to do some searching, and found a couple very recent entries from pretty knowledgeable people who (until now) were die-hard Mac advocates (Cory Doctorow and Mark Pilgrim) explaining on their blogs why they are making the move away from Apple and to Linux.
At least this gives me comfort in knowing that my anti-Apple tendencies do not make me crazy… 
26 Comments
I think this is one of the major problems that Apple has because they make a lot of their one apps. It works out great because they get a lot of business out of it but then when people judge a program they judge the computer company and the OS as a whole. I never hear of anyone wanting to drop M$ because Windows movie Maker blows.
And if they wanted to use Audacity they still could, just because it’s not an iApp doesn’t mean they can’t use something else.
Honestly i won’t listen to the podcast unless I get really bored so you’ll have to enlighten me because if it were hardware issues that’s another issue entirely.
as for moving to Linux, they should have in the first place. If they feel comfortable with doing that they should, anyone capable to move to Linux should.
Boing Boing: It’s a natural progression, like from windows to mac. I may move to strictly linux one day too, most likely not anytime soon though.
Other: Haven’t read it yet but if he’s saying there’s no great free apps for OS X he’s crazy because most linux apps are ported and ported with great UI to boot, mostly all free.
Oh, and I thought you didn’t read slashdot.
Last one first: I don’t read slashdot. What gave you that idea? I didn’t mention anything slashdot related…
I’d have to go back and relisten to the podcast to get most of the finer points, but a huge one that jumped right out at me is that you can’t export your Garage Band files to MP3 directly. This was shocking to me. Even if it didn’t specifically advertise the new “podcast support” (which is primarily why these guys ended up using it), it should be brain-dead obvious that any audio editing program should be able to export to MP3. From what I’ve seen, Garage Band only supports AIFF and AAC, and to get MP3, you have to export to iTunes and then re-export back out to MP3 from there, and even that silly hack does not give you the kind of detailed control over the MP3 export options.
They mentioned a whole bunch of other stuff like that that was just kind of surprising to me. Most of my gripes against Apple are related to their business practices and policies, not their products, which I always thought were pretty good.
In addition to the stuff that just didn’t work, they also brought up a whole bunch of areas where the user is not given the kind of control that someone that knows what they’re doing needs. Having “intelligent” defaults is a good idea, but not being able to change them at all is bad, and having them set to bad values that can’t be changed is worse.
If you want more details, you’ll have to listen to it, but my point was that I was surprised to hear about what I would consider to be defects, because all I had ever heard was people raving about how good the bundled Apple apps are.
They did mention for most of the problems they ran into that there were other workarounds or hacks that you could use to get around the various problems, and most of them did involve using other non-Apple software, primarily open source. But their main point and issue regarding this (which I agree with) is that Apple is advertised as being the one-stop shop for stuff like this. Everyone raves about how it gives you all this cool Apple software that “just works” out of the box, but when you have to go out and download all these other apps that you could just as easily be running on Linux, then that kind of defeats that argument.
I will listen to it for Dan.
I’d like to point out that you’ve never used a mac to do anything more then start iTunes and record some audio at the Bridge.
I’d also like to disagree that whole point that Apple should have advanced options for their free software. These advanced features should be from other apps or provided by developers to sell as add-ons. They are free apps for a reason, they aren’t robust and they aren’t complicated or bloated for a reason.
Yes, if they can’t use the free software and would have to download more advanced free software which is available for Linux they might as well use linux but if you already have a mac why right it off as worthless when it does so much more? Because you can’t figure out how to convert something to MP3? Good luck with Linux.
The entire argument sounds set-up to me. First they say that they buy a mac because a lot of people are raving about it and say it’s great. Then they buy a mac and find out that they don’t like it. Sounds to me the problem derives from the new users since all the others use it and like it. Or they had an agenda fromt eh beginning.
As for the formatting. That’s nothing. AAC is quicktime and it still fits under usability. I find this in Video all the time, the more options you have only confuses people. And AAC is a superior format to MP3. The only issue that people would have is the few users without a player that supports it but the pros are so great: quality vs. size and enhanced podcasts with the built in options within garageband to setup markers and images (things that Mp3 don’t offer so why allow an export that would strip out that work?). Then again it’s not hard to convert it to MP3, the first option is to export it to iTunes then you just convert it from there. Or you use quicktime. I’d say the people that need to use Mp3 know how to get it converted no problem, except these guys.
I know you wont admit your contradiction but I thought the whole basis of this post was because of the software:
1 - You’re totally wrong about your implication that I’ve only ever used a Mac to run iTunes and for what we do at the b. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I’m guessing maybe you meant OSX, as opposed to “mac”, in which case you’d only be slightly wrong instead of totally wrong - not that it discounts anything I’ve said above, since this post was about other people’s Apple experiences.
2 - Being able to export to MP3 from an application that’s advertised to be able to produce music (and specifically “podcasts”) isn’t an “advanced feature”; it’s a requirement. Apple likes to say that “it just works”, but I’m just pointing out that apparently in a lot of cases it “just doesn’t”.
3 - Re: “Good luck with Linux” - Every audio editing app for Linux I’ve ever seen has the capability to export to MP3, with clear instructions on how to set it up. In Audacity all you have to do is tell it where your LAME DLL is, which they can’t legally distribute with the app, but they always tell you exactly where you can get it.
4 - If you’d listen to the episode, they make it pretty clear that they didn’t have an anti-Mac agenda, and they actually like it for the most part, except some of these brain-dead mistakes.
5 - Are you saying that you don’t really need to make MP3s for podcasting? I’d say you’re high. These guys didn’t say they couldn’t do it, they were just pointing out that it doesn’t “just work” as advertised.
6 - If you read the whole context of the line you quoted:
I think it’s pretty clear that it’s not a contradiction. My whole point was that, in the past, most of my gripes have been about the business practices and policies of Apple (with the exception of my one post about the podcast client in iTunes), and to hear that there were these kinds of flaws in the design of the software was surprising, since I had always had a high opinion of their actual products (hardware & software).
PS - I still don’t get the comment about Slashdot - what were you talking about with that?
1. You still haven’t used OS X enought to be a good judge.
2. If you weren’t going off of just hearsay in order to reinforce your distaste for apple you would know that it’s extremely easy to convert to MP3. And I’ve already explain in good reason why they would not want MP3 as a direct option. Onother reason is for ease of just clicking share>save to disk rather then figuring out all the options of exporting to an inferior format.
And if you’ve used Garageband you would know it’s still not that hard and could possibly be less clicks then any other application in order to produce an MP3.
3. You just proved how hard it is. On OS X it’s 3-5 clicks to get an MP3 from your first time rather then the same amount of clicks on Linux. And before you can even do that you have to read a bunch of stuff in order to even use the codec in the first place.
4. Maybe your agenda is fogging that it’s not a brain dead mistake. It completely makes sense to me. MP3 although the most used format isn’t a standard either.
5. No you don’t need MP3s for podcasting especially since every computer can play AAC and only a few players can’t play AAC. You must be high to think you’re the majority when almost all podcast listeners use an iPod. The ad doubtfully said “will export your podcasts to MP3 in 1 click”.
6. But the point of the post made it seem like the said podcast is talking about how crappy garageband is for them not the business practices.
Nathan: You’ve used Garageband more then anyone I know, how do you feel?
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/03/1934251
Same day and 4 minutes before your post.
Hmm… that’s an odd coincidence, but I definitely didn’t see it there, since I never read Slashdot. I saw it on Cory’s blog, who linked to the entry on Mark’s.
Oops, didn’t see that first response…
1. Like I said before, this post was about other people’s experience, but I have used it enough to point out things that I don’t like or don’t make sense. That’s like saying that if you open an application and it totally sucks, you’re not qualified to say that, since you’ve only used it once. I could use a similar (invalid) argument to say that since I’ve been using computers a lot longer than you that my opinions are automatically better, but I wouldn’t do that since it wouldn’t be true.
2. Not to produce a good MP3 (where you can set some options to not make it inferior quality); you can’t do that in GarageBand+iTunes, from what I hear. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
3. File… Export to MP3 is all you need in most apps, including Audacity. You can also set your preferred encoding options which iTunes will not allow you to do.
4. To say that a program such as this shouldn’t need MP3 support is pretty silly IMHO. MP3 is the de facto standard for podcasts; every single podcast that I know of supports it - while some (a minority) offer an alternative AAC feed. Just because you’d like AAC to be more popular doesn’t mean it is.
5. (see 4)
6. You’re still not getting my point on this. I said that most of my criticisms of Apple have been about their business practices. In CONTRAST, this podcast that I’m referencing was talking about their specific software features. I was stating that it came as a surprise to me because I hadn’t heard a lot of complaints about their actual software before that. There is no contradiction there.
I’m guessing there isn’t anything more then exporting to MP3.
I created a flickr group with all the options you could use either in iTunes or Quicktime (which I prefer).
I made a few notes as well.
I still stand by the decision of making AAC the only export option, there’s just too much stuff you cannot do with MP3 and the podcasting in Garageband is built around those additional features. Now I don’t know why you can’t export to MP3 for the other “normal” projects of garageband like music but I think they did have MP3 export in last years Garageband (Nathan could verify that).
Business practices: I’d have to say this might fall into this category because I think excluding MP3 export and not making it simpler (then 4 clicks) means it was intentional not because they were “brain dead”. Reminiscent of making AAC DRM a lock in mechanism they really want AAC to be the standard/”de facto” for podcasting, IMHO it should. The reason why they’ve added so many cool features. I love watching the Lost podacasts with images and I never knew this but you could add movies too.
They did have more issues than just that one; that’s just the one that jumped out at me the most.
I’m not necessarily arguing that AAC isn’t a better format in the end for podcasts, but for today, podcasts are (and should be) primarily MP3 because that is what pretty much all players can play.
Sure, NEW players can play both, but there are a lot of people out there with old (as in a couple years, but still perfectly functional for their needs) MP3 players, and these people should not have to buy a new device just because Apple decided that MP3 isn’t good enough to support anymore. Luckily they won’t have to, because 99% of podcasters out there still apparently agree that MP3 is the dominant format and far from dead.
Perhaps eventually AAC will become more popular than MP3, but until that day, any program built for producing podcasts should be able to save directly to MP3 without jumping through hoops. I never said it shouldn’t also do AAC, or anything else they could come up with, but for today, if you make podcasts, MP3 is a requirement.
It would be fairly easy to make a “publish” function for your podcast project that outputs both the enhanced AAC as well as a copy in MP3 format (with options you could define from within Garage Band), but they’ve obviously chosen not to do that.
Whether it’s an oversight in design or an intentional attempt to force people to do things their way (AAC vs. MP3), it’s still bad. I’d agree with you that it’s probably the latter, but I guess that goes back to my original thoughts about how they do business.
I haven’t seen any hoops just yet but when you see them through the 4 clicks of producing an MP3 from garageband you tell me.
You can’t produce an MP3 from Garage Band. You have to export to another program and then export to MP3 from that program. That’s jumping through hoops.
Still don’t see any.
Any what? Hoops? I don’t know how to make it any more obvious.
If you want to use Garage Band to make an MP3, you can’t do it. You have to employ a workaround for that deficiency by exporting to a separate program that can then export to MP3.
That is jumping through hoops when you’re working with a program designed for making podcasts, because any podcast making program (or music making program for that matter) should be able to export files in the file format that is the overwhelming standard for podcasts: MP3.
Still not a big deal to me and never will especially with audio and video. i find myself having to do some kind of processing after the original program and that’s not on just the mac. I had it worse on the PC with video.
Anyways, those podcasters are tools.
Hey, Scott from GeekNights here. I found your discussion via referrals, trackbacks and such. I just want to respond to a few of the things that were said here.
First off, someone said that it seemed like a set-up. I can assure you that it couldn’t be further from the truth. Check out this thread in our forum to see where this all started.
http://www.frontrowcrew.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=434&page=1#Item_50
We had been using Linux+Rezound+Audacity for our podcasting, but of course there were a few speedbumps in our workflow. Apple had been pushing Mac and Garage Band as the ultimate podcasting platform. We genuinely believed it would make podcasting easier for us until we actually tried it.
It was truly a big surprise when we actually tried to use Garage Band to record a podcast. Never mind the mp3 exporting. The simple act of cutting out a cough or a burp in Garage Band takes 10 times longer than in any other decent wav editor. Even after learning and mastering the interface of Garage Band it takes at least 8 separate clicks and/or keypresses to remove a cough. Add at least 1 long wait for the cpu to process some audio. In Rezound it takes 2 clicks and a keypress with no waiting on a slower computer. That is the kind of thing that caused the episode you have linked to.
We now use our Mac mini as a living room PC and DVD player. It takes up much less space and is much quieter than our previous equipment.
That does suck, good thing the stuff I love my mac for aren’t specific to podcasting because it sounds like if I did I’d rather right off the entire system to an expensive DVD player instead of figuring out that Rezound and Audacity work for the mac.
I really don’t care what you use for your casts, I’m not even a podcaster or an audio guy but I just started garageband again and the process of deleting a hand snap was only a mouse click with a highlight drag and command+X for a cut with another drag to merge the audio.
That process does suck though but not time consuming because of clicks but because there is no snapping or ripple deletion like I’m familiar with in FCP.
I’d be interested in seeing someone like Sara, Martha or anyone not experienced in advanced editing to try out garageband and see how they do because I assume those are the people apple is pushing this ultimate podcasting solution to.
Yes Dan, I think we all know that Macs can do other things, and do them well, but this conversation is specifically about podcasting.
Sure, you COULD run those other open source apps on the Mac INSTEAD OF G.Band, but then instead of an expensive DVD player you’d have an overly expensive computer, since you could run those apps adequately on another platform for considerably less money.
But the main issue (in my mind, at least) is that the overall Garage Band podcasting workflow absolutely violates Apple’s “it just works” sales tagline.
People totally unfamiliar with audio editing would probably initially have a difficult time editing out coughs no matter what app they’re using, but as Scott mentioned above, once you get over that learning curve (which would be there for either approach), it is dramatically easier using an editor like Rezound.
Also, (not to keep harping on this one, but…) for “newbies”, Apple’s product wouldn’t even bother telling / warning them that when they “produced their podcast” they didn’t actually generate an MP3 file, the standard format that podcasts are expected to be distributed in.
If you bring up that MP3 export isn’t supported one more time I’m going to hit you. Get over it.
And as I said before you’ve never used Garageband and the people you are basing your opinion from are “pros” that have already used and are completely familiar with professional software.
And like I said before I bet anyone that has never used an audio editing software before would love garageband. That’s only an assumption but at least I’ve used Garageband and I know it’s not out of the ordinary or unlogical.
Again, I’d like to hear what NATHAN has to say since he uses Garageband.
I wasn’t going to say anything more about it, until you got back in the conversation in response to Scott’s comment.
Like I said, I hate to keep mentioning the MP3 thing, but it is a glaring omission for any program designed to produce podcasts, and only a die hard mac apologist would believe otherwise. I don’t need to get over it, because it doesn’t really upset me. I recognize it as a deficiency, but it doesn’t bother me too much, like it apparently bothers you.
I have used Garage Band briefly, not that that makes any difference in the validity of the points I’m making. Have you used Rezound? If not, are you unqualified to participate in this conversation? No.
I never said that people wouldn’t “like” (or “love”) GarageBand, but I do believe that if you plopped down someone who’s never used any kind of audio editing application and asked them to edit burps and coughs out of a recording, using either Garage Band OR Rezound, I think it would be a challenge for them until they learned more about how to do it. If they could figure it out in one application, they could probably just as easily figure it out in the other.
Then, as Scott pointed out, AFTER they learn how to do it, (which they’d have to do with either system) it is a faster process with Rezound than with Garage Band. On that matter, I’ll take the word of someone who produces four podcasts per week and has tried both approaches.
I run into this problem using GarageBand (the lack MP3 exporting). GarageBand is great for quickly putting together music, but I’m finding more and more things missing the more I use. I’m currently exploring other options such as Logic.
I also found that iMovie had a similar problem with formats, it doesn’t offer exporting to any formats that I’d actually want to export to. It seems the whole iLife suite must be crippled (forcing people to buy pro software to do anything useful).
My primary desktop is Linux, so I’m also looking for audio software on Linux, but then I would’t have any need for a Mac.
MP3 is a legacy format in mac land, where superior codec’s come installed from the start. From the perspective of a linux user (I used to be one) AAC seems like a lousy closed off format, but that perspective stems from the lousy open source aac codec available in linux. The format itself is quite robust and superior to MP3, and compares well with vorbis providing similar audio quality in a formally standardized format with many good codec implementations (apple has one of the best) and wide support from hardware devices as well as software (even flash has AAC integrated in the most recent releases). AAC is also more environmentally and battery friendly by requiring less of a processor to decode it.
It’s important to realize that in the closed source world most people live in, AAC is a powerful and common place codec. The only reasons left for going with MP3 is support of legacy devices. GarageBand no doubt is not free, I would have paid for it as part of the cost of my mac, and I personally am glad an MP3 codec license fee was not factored in to that cost.
BTW - YES Garage Band does now allow exporting directly to MP3 and it even normalizes the output. It is with the new version in iLife ‘08. I hope that helps.