Not sure if it's still the case but for many years Apple's Core Audio was a big draw for people running audio software due to it's stability, performance and compatibility with various devices. I've used Windows with ASIO drivers for many years and always found it a bit buggy with occasional random drop-outs that can only be fixed by reinstalling the drivers. Pulse Audio on Linux can be even more of a nightmare to get working with your equipment, but I've heard it's improving recently.

That’s a good point. In my experience in studios (from around 5 years ago) windows is just about as prevalent as OS X at this point. I’m sure whatever niche you’re in does affect this however.

They are not tied to apple, but it is often the preferred OS.

I haven't used MacOS/OSX in a couple years, but at least back then it was in my opinion by miles the best out of the box experience for audio related things.

E.g it took me hours on Windows 10 to have a basic setup with reliably low latency, without clicks, noises, dropouts and generally getting the OS out of my way (e.g. automatic rebooting for updates is kinda suboptimal if you plan to use your laptop for live music). Never had anywhere near the same level of issues on macs.

Sure you can make it work on Windows or Linux, but if this were my main job, I'd need very specific reasons or strong personal os preferences outside audio to not pick an Apple.

Movie composers are often Windows, not Mac. Even after the new MacPro It's much easier and cheaper to put together a monster PC with no-compromise specs for loading huge sample libraries and running huge mixes.

Also, these people have people to do tech support, setup, and configuration for them - often onsite - so mostly their systems "just work."

Apple had the money to buy "Logic" from a German company called "Emagic", and scrap their Windows version. Logic then soon became industry standard.

Voilà.

Logic isn't the industry standard though. PT has long been thought of as the industry standard, although that's changed recently with Cubase/Ableton Live/FL/Logic becoming massively popular as well. Really depends on genre/application (EDM, acoustic, film/game/media, etc).

It's way more likely to be ableton, reaper or logic now.

It's very dependent on application niche. Movie and game composers are more likely to use Cubase or Nuendo. Very big pop studios (includes rock, country, rap, etc) are likely to use ProTools. Smaller home studios are likely to use Logic or Cubase. EDM artists may be using Ableton Live, Reaper, Logic, BitWig, Cubase, or sometimes ProTools.

There really is no "industry standard" now. PT was the standard maybe ten years ago, and still has traction in studios where artists need to move their sessions to another facility. But Avid pissed off everyone by overcharging for buggy software, so there's a lot more diversity now.

> Avid pissed off everyone by overcharging for buggy software, so there's a lot more diversity now.

Huh, it will be interesting to see if Adobe ends up in a similar position ten years from now as a result of their pricing strategy. In the graphic design space, which I'm more familiar with, it feels like there's very slow but still real migration away from Creative Suite.

StudioOne has gained a ton of popularity in home and small studios over the past half decade as well.

The DAW market has very healthy competition right now!

Logic on macOS is the pro-audio industry standard.

No, it's not.

The only thing in the pro audio industry that is close to being an industry "standard" is the continued use of Pro Tools as the preferred tracking software. Even that is starting to fade outside of the coastal cities.