The Ableton and Cycling74 CEOs jointly stated that :
“new challenges face them with integration of non traditional computing platforms”
Which basically one can read as iOS and other non PC platforms ( Android )
So given Ableton is written in Qt and MAX in JUCE - if they were to come out with something on iOS it would make sense - to not mix frameworks going forward… and focus on a single framework for a future code-base for iOS iPad apps that incorporate both Ableton and M4L support…
I would guess they’re going to continue using both. Moving from one framework to the other would be a monumental task, and one which likely wouldn’t yield much gain other than a little more shared code.
Max4Live is already an example of JUCE-powered code running tightly coupled to the Qt-powered Ableton, so it clearly hasn’t been a problem in the past.
I remember reading an in-depth article somewhere about the making of Ableton Live, where they detailed how they had to roll their own framework to get the look and feel exactly how they wanted - using a particular sub-pixel accurate graphics library for the drawing, whatever the name was of that, so that they could get crisp tiny typography. Sorry about the vagueness, I can’t remember where I read this now.