So what's the deal with Mavericks?

[MBTC]

I think it's not a bad thing to go with a DAW that's committed to cross-platform compatibility. I tried Logic a couple of years ago, and found it okay as far as DAWs go, some aspects I liked and others not so much. But then I started seeing weird changes within Apple that really rattled my confidence in committing to the Mac as a music making platform.

Recently, Apple has said "we are committed to OS X". From someone who has worked inside many software companies, I can tell you that the fact they have to announce that is a scary statement in itself. It means there is a lot of question internally regarding how much resources will really be invested in OS X going forward (relative to their other, much more successful products like iOS). The fact that they have to prepare a public statement to reassure the public that OS X is not in danger, is almost a sure sign that long term, OS X is in danger. It doesn't mean that we won't still have Macs 10 years from now, we certainly will. It just means that we probably won't see the "win" and marketshare increase in Macs we saw from about 2006-2011 or so, and we will see Apple increasingly putting their money on iOS as an alternative to Macs.

So, honestly I think your strategy of spending more time with Ableton or even Reaper is probably a wise one over the long haul, that way you have the option of another music OS without losing all your workflow habits and having to learn a new DAW from the ground up later.

I went mostly Cubase for a lot of the same reasons. Prior to Cubase, I found myself spending way too much time in FLStudio. FLS is a fantastic DAW, but very Windows dependent.