Universal Audio made an interesting announcement, showing essentially a free DAW that will be available to their Apollo interface customers called LUNA - available 2020. While its' very exciting that LUNA will feature tight integration between hardware and software in the UA ecosystem, there are a few quirks and questions that arise.
First of all, its Mac only. Personally i'm a Mac fan, but they're seriously screwing over a lot of people with this. Next, they haven't announced what 3rd party devices will be compatible, and if anything inside LUNA will be able to be used outside of LUNA. Can it run VST/AU plugins? Is it a fully functional DAW or is this something users will use alongside their main DAW?
Many people online have been saying things like, "literally nobody asked for this", in some form or another. While it does seem quite random, I hope that UA has a long term plan for this. Since they also announced official UA virtual instruments alongside LUNA I would assume they have a solid longterm plan to have this fit in their ecosystem without flopping.
Its a cool idea, and it allows for some great sounds with super-low latency, but only if they integrate it tightly enough and make it open to everyone with their hardware without any issues. Using multiple DAW's is a HUGE PITA, so UA has some seriously convincing to do.
