The company has the power to establish standards for plug-ins of all sorts, and even to optimize plug-ins for use with the vector/DSP-type power of the G4’s 128bit Velocity Engine, dramatically reducing the need for additional DSP cards to do many complex real time effects. This could be a superset of the VST standard that Emagic is already a leader in. There will be more opportunities to use the internal horsepower of the computer itself next year when the G5 comes out, including high bandwidth busses and even more DSP-like on-board vector processing.

Further, Apple has been a leader in getting USB and Firewire into general use by including them (and a wide range of basic drivers) in all of its hardware products, along with interfaces in applications. Apple is now also including gigabit Ethernet and wireless networking throughout its line.

Combine all of this with the new Rendezvous, which makes the automatic discovery of available computer services possible on standard Internet Protocol networks, and the result could be greatly simplified interconnect of expanding digital hardware products, ranging from Ethernet snakes to Firewire control surfaces.

By controlling the computer hardware, the operating system and protocols, Apple can open up opportunities for many smaller companies to build products that will simply work together without the hassle of cobbling together an advanced project studio like we must do at present. (Trust me, I have spent hours trying to get my Mackie d8b mixer to talk to my Digi ProTools setup.)

MIDI control could simply be replaced with advanced Firewire and USB for true self-configuring bi-directional control and signal communications. After all, Apple has Doug Wyatt (from Opticode) the designer of OMS (on board to help make this happen.)

Apple would also be in a position to make/expand the OMF (click here and here for more info) as well as AES31 support. The result would be files created on one system able to be easily transferred and used on any other system.

Apple’s approach of basing advances on open standards has worked well over the past few years, and with OS X, it is even more a part of Apple’s basic design plan. And they are big enough to pull this off like no one else out there today.

Apple wants, and will be able to, integrate their audio production products with their video products (much the way Pro Tools can be integrated with Avid.) If Apple produces a consumer version (iAudio), it would become the default editor for sound files on the Mac, including applications like iMovie.

On the high end, Logic Pro (or Audio Studio Pro, as Apple may call it) will integrate with Final Cut Pro, enabling audio production for video and film work. Many have speculated that Apple chose Emagic over MOTU because of its stronger video integration capabilities.

This is all part of Apple’s grand plan to make the Mac and OS X the dominant platform for media production. We can also expect that some form of native file format for the Logic-related Apple derivatives to be incorporated into QuickTime, making them a standard for all the viewers and production system that support QuickTime (basically everything out there).

This will take time. Hardware must be designed and built, and software developed and refined, in order to achieve the performance and integration necessary for Apple to fully play out their master plan. (Perhaps six months for version 1.0 and a few years for the full product line to reach version 3, where it all will come together.)

During this time, the existing major players will not be standing still, but from this point on, they will have to plan their strategies around the coming change in market balance – the Apple factor will loom large. The smaller and/or newer players will have increased opportunities to build products and plug-ins that bring added value to Apple’s basic system.

Ken Berger is publisher of ProSoundWeb and can be reached at ken@prosoundweb.com

For more information on the PSW exclusive coverage Apple & Emagic commentary, click here.