I also told my friend, I didn't mean to convert them but I did mention it'd be coming and he seemed excited to try it out (I honestly don't know why, no offense to the bakers). I'm sure LJB wasn't taking preorders either. Can we all just take a step back and admit that - 1. No, it isn't the end of the world that it isn't here yet, and
2. Yes, it's quite lame that they said "this fall", it's now January and there has been no word on it at all.

The first sticky on the first page of this subforum still has "Sonar4Mac" in the title by the way.

One thing that usually gets bandied about with updates about product launches is the need to retain competitive surprise. But in this case there's no secret to hide. They're working on a mac version, it's going to be an alpha. I don't see the downside to giving a little shoutout as to how it's going. They don't have to get into what parts are proving difficult, or the programmatic strategies to overcome the problems. They can just say something like "we know it's running late, but here's a video showing SONAR on a mac using VST plugins. Yay!" or some such. I hope it's gong well and an alpha is imminent. I'd absolutely love to have a Mac version of SONAR so I can do more mobile work without having to buy another rig.
 

It may be as simple as they got the alpha to display "Hello World" on the screen.

mettelus
It may be as simple as they got the alpha to display "Hello World" on the screen.

So it's almost done then. Well played.

I am dying for the MAC version... Due to the downsizing of the music industry I've had to start recording Voice Overs at Video Houses for extra income. I'd give anything to be able to use Sonar instead of "SlowTools".  

Designing, creating and testing software, like any other job, can sometimes take longer, even much longer, than expected.

I don't have an inside line to Cakewalk of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Sonar4Mac project is taking quite a bit longer than originally expected.

Cakewalk's main product is Sonar for Windows, and it seems Windows updates frequently cause problems. Which means Cakewalk has to develop, test and release patches as quickly as possible and presumably have little or no more warning that a Windows update is going to break something than we do. And the sort of problems that are turning up aren't the kind of thing that could wait a few months before a fix was issued as was often the case on the "old" patch/update system. Which means the developer's plans might get unpredictably overturned at a moment's notice.

That may or may not account for some or all of the delay.

Secondly, there are "alphas" and "alphas". A Mac Sonar that was released as a barely functioning, very buggy and limited version, which much alpha software is, might be a disaster for Cakewalk in the Mac market. If it's free lots of people may download it who are unfamiliar with Sonar and regard a pretty basic early alpha as so bad or under specified they decide Sonar's useless and rubbish then rush off to forums to tell the world all about how bad it is.

I'm guessing that the idea of a free alpha release is in part to draw attention to Sonar and in part to get it installed on as many Macs as possible so any bugs are spotted as rapidly as possible. So Sonar has to work reasonably well on Macs from the day of release while bugs will need fixing quickly if product momentum is going to be maintained.

And the Mac market is awash with DAWs from Apples free Garageband and pretty cheap Logic Pro, which is a powerful, respectable and capable DAW that has a large number of users. Then there's all the other DAWs, all of which except Sonar have been Mac compatible for a while and in some cases for many years. So Cakewalk have to get it right technically and proce Sonar correctly if they want to make headway.

Mac Sonar will happen or it won't. If it doesn't I expect there'll be good reasons why even if they're not shared publicly.

tlw
I'm guessing that the idea of a free alpha release is in part to draw attention to Sonar and in part to get it installed on as many Macs as possible so any bugs are spotted as rapidly as possible. So Sonar has to work reasonably well on Macs from the day of release while bugs will need fixing quickly if product momentum is going to be maintained.

I thought it was free with lifetime updates but not for the general public.

Jimbo 88
I am dying for the MAC version... Due to the downsizing of the music industry I've had to start recording Voice Overs at Video Houses for extra income. I'd give anything to be able to use Sonar instead of "SlowTools".  

Why can't you record voice overs in SONAR (on a PC laptop)?
 

Here's a thought, maybe CW decided that talking about an Alpha Mac product on the main pages was too premature.
 
As somewhat illustrated example; an auto manufacturer does not talk about their 2018 models on their Jan 2017 website.
 
You may now all start with the nitpicking of my analogy.
 
 

bapu

Jimbo 88
I am dying for the MAC version... Due to the downsizing of the music industry I've had to start recording Voice Overs at Video Houses for extra income. I'd give anything to be able to use Sonar instead of "SlowTools".  

Why can't you record voice overs in SONAR (on a PC laptop)?
 

Buit that´s easy :
1.think of the price of a mac you record with,
2. you probaly will cry  high 
That´s the best precondition to get a nice high cry voice for a voice-over.
The quality of a mac high cry you cannot get with a win based pc.