Apple Updates All Hardware and Software at WWDC17 and Announces HomePod Speaker

Apple's opening keynote for its Worldwide Developers Conference 2017 (WWDC17) at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, was a swirl of long expected announcements, wrapped in surprising underlying technology revelations. Among the many announcements was the preview of Apple's new home music speaker with built-in-far-field voice recognition powered by Apple Siri, the HomePod. As expected, the design is a powerful combination of electroacoustic mastery, digital processing and smart connectivity.

Promising a bright future for the entire Sound Forge Line, German software company MAGIX confirmed it is committed to release upgrades to this popular family of audio editing software products. Currently under development by engineering teams in the US and Germany, new upgrades will arrive in May 2017, with upgrades for the entire line slated for completion within the next 12 months.

Tracktion Corporation announced the release of Waveform. Transcending its own Tracktion T7 in look, feel and feature set, Waveform maintains the open, intuitive characteristics of its predecessor DAWs, now with a completely new foundation and name. In addition to providing a solid recording platform, on Waveform the Tracktion team has developed an array of new tools designed to speed up and expand creative composition.

NEXO released a new version of its NeMo system management software, making it available for the first time on the macOS platform and introducing premium features and functionality for operational control of NEXO systems. The software allows remote control and monitoring of amplifiers over a wireless network. It also makes it easier to exploit advanced sensing functions in the PNEXO NXAMP controller-amplifiers which help protect loudspeaker cabinets.

Over a year ago, Ircam Lab launched a revolutionary new standalone and plug-in tuner and frequency analyzer software called “The Snail” but it was released only on the Macintosh platform. The Snail set new standards in this software category with its flexibility, its wide range of uses, and its unusual interface. Now, Ircam Lab announced The Snail for Windows OS, available as a standalone application and as AAX and VST plug-in formats. A limited version is also available for iOS devices (iPhone and iPad).