Having a full DAW on the go is a killer feature imho.
The promise has been there since stuff like 8tracks on the iPhone 3G, and various Audio Units already on iOS. But I’ve always found the workflow very limiting or clunky. (Edit: I’m a Logic Pro user on macOS so my comments reflect getting things into that specifically)
The divide from putting down an idea when it hits, to working it into something, has always been really high.
Having something where I can potentially work out an idea with just my iPad , and then take it to my desktop is really exciting to me.
FCPX seems neat as well. I doubt it’ll be something people use in touch mode, but I can see some folks using it for quick on the go edits for things like social media stings. Go to an event, shoot, edit and upload. I don’t see it being used for more than that level of work.
But also, as much as both the things I mentioned are very spur of the moment things, I think the real value here is having a step ladder through the ecosystem.
A lot of people, especially youths, only need an iPad for more of their computing use. Having more pro apps on the iPad signals to them that they can shift more of their computer life to it. A lot may just even need to add a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Conversely, the people who do want to use it more seriously after whetting their teeth on the mobile platform, will then see the Mac as the next logical stepping point.
It’s a smart way imho to get people on either side of the fence to consider the other side.
As developers of professional audio plugins this is very exciting for us. The horsepower is there and the touch interface allows for some really cool possibilities. We already enjoy using AUM and Cubasis, but will be very interested to see if support for pro hardware improves now on iPad.
I've got a Steam Deck and I've been curious about using that as a music composition tool. The controls offer some interesting possibilities as performance inputs.
The problem is that all Windows or Linux music apps tend to presume a large monitor and a mouse and keyboard. I've not found anything terribly usable.
Can steam deck run any Linux application? You might have fun designing creative abstractions in Pure Data meant to fit in the UI. Then, if you can hook it up to a keyboard, you might be able to take advantage of the user inputs on the steam deck & keyboard to make an ersatz OP-1.
On top of that, it's basically just Arch linux with a complicated filesystem scheme. Flatpaks are the recommended distribution mechanism, but you can do whatever you want. It comes with KDE and an X server out of the box.
That's a really interesting idea! With the dual trackpads plus all standard controller inputs and the paddles on the back, the Deck is really uniquely positioned here.
You could try plugging in a monitor via HDMI. If you don't have a dock (the JSAUX one is cheap and gets great reviews, but I personally have the official one) you can get a pretty cheap USBC to HDMI cable nearly anywhere. I found some in stock at a random walmart on a road trip. Was able to plug the deck into our van's built-in entertainment system (it still blows my mind that there are now vehicles with TV screens built in).
If you do end up doing it, I'd love to see a video/blog post/whatever about it
I got the JSAUX dock while waiting for Valve to release the official dock. Never bought the official on release, the Gen 2 JSAUX with the extra USBs is awesome. Docked my deck to my TV and its both a media player as well as my console, almost never remove it except to dust :D. Also, the USB has recognized all peripherals I've thrown at it (I use desktop mode 98% of the time) and the ethernet works as expected.
Nice! I've been amazed at what a great console it is. I love docking it and hooking up controllers and doing local co-op with my kids. Some of the best times we've had as a family in the last 6 months were playing Shredder's Revenge with the deck docked to the TV. that game and many others work wonderfully with these cheap XBox 360 controllers: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09WQGQ6D2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
If only we had taken the issue of accessibility seriously 30 years ago, and realise that it isn't about pesky blind people wanting to participate in the society, but actually about being able to run software with different interfaces seamlessly, this problem wouldn't even exist today ...
I recently did a gig with a quad cortex and honestly I couldn't shake the feeling of just wishing I could have all my Plugins (FabFilter, SoundToys, NAM and NeuralDSP mostly) instead. iPad, good interface, some bluetooth switch/expression pedal and all the same plugins I have at home would be amazing for me.
Just curious if anyone knows. Suppose a band of the future is just a few players who show up with iPads (guitar, bass, key/synth, drums) and, where relevant, a control surface (midi controller, edrums, etc). Does Logic have a "federated" mode? Can each iPad synchronize to a shared click track or other backing tracks for lights, etc or does the "brain" of a performance still need to be centralized?
Edit: I'm wondering if that "federated" functionality could be used to reduce the amount of gear required for a band using IEMs. That would be a _killer_ use case.
I'm super excited about this though and really looking forward to a major step forward at least in the guitar world.
While Logic doesn't feature this yet, the closest analog I know of is the Ableton Link protocol which allows users on a network to synchronize their master clock with other users across any app that supports it (Ableton, Pro Tools, Korg sequencers, etc).
While simple and meant more of a collaborative feature, this is a tremendously helpful feature that allows people to jump right in to a music-making session and ensure that their rig is going to be synced up with others in a musical meaningful way.
Latency is the issue, not bandwidth, and the internet isn't fast enough for live instruments across it (unless the performers happen to be on the same local uplink). Even me pinging Google is 23 ms, where as most actual home users will be 50-200 ms from me.
Latency on a home fibre will be significantly lower than a 56k dial-up connection.
Somehow the artists could collaborate remotely using a shared MIDI clock. Admittedly it was techno which is both loopy and predictable, but still a cool achievement nonetheless.
I have home fiber. Again, I have 20 ms to Google. 40 ms (approximately what you'd expect from two not-physically-far-apart home fiber links) is already in the range that playing traditional instruments in sync is basically impossible. At a more typical 100 ms between nodes, that's a full 16th note of lag at common tempos. You can get up to 200+ ms between continents.
I know people that have also done it with techno, but they consider the lag as part of their unique sound. It's not something you can do with music in a general purpose sense.
How does this handle latency of data transfer? I have worked with professional musicians and the delay of even 10ms across the stage annoys them.
I am trying to envision how syncing DAW's through the network could possibly avoid what easily amounts to more than 20ms of delay back and forth between devices.
Is this just not an issue for digital music production? It's a massive issue for live music and in-ear-monitors on stage.
Yes, latencies of 10 ms are noticeable for musicians. I feel like I can feel everything over 5-ish.
A fun fact is that that's why a symphony needs a conductor: one corner of the symphony to the other is 17-ish meters, which is 50 ms of latency. They have to lock in to a visual queue because at those distances, you can't synchronize on sound. It's also interesting to note that a symphony very literally sounds different on one side than the other, and not just in relative prominence: at march tempo (120 BPM), if you're sitting on one side of the symphony, some instruments may be a 32nd note ahead of the ones on the other side by the time they reach your ears.
> NTP can usually maintain time to within tens of milliseconds over the public Internet, and can achieve better than one millisecond accuracy in local area networks under ideal conditions
The algorithm is more sensitive to variance than latency, but over a LAN variance is usually pretty okay. Wifi can be a lot worse, though, especially if there are a lot of clients.
For live performances you can do a lot of this stuff with AUM. It’s awesome for chaining plug-ins in novel ways. Has midi support as well. It’s the main way I use plugins on iPad.
The “federated” option you’re talking about sounds like it’s regular MIDI Sync with transport control. You hit play, everything plays in sync. Logic already supports this, you just have to wire things together.
I was a long time Cubasis user but had to ditch when the latest one was released so buggy and with a load of usability regressions that are still not fixed. I bought it on launch day and found about 15 showstopper bugs in the first half hour of trying to use it. At that point they'd lost me as a customer forever more and I switched to NanoStudio 2 which, in terms of touch interface design, is a work of art. Plus it never, ever crashes.
Logic has been the most intuitive DAW I've used, with Ableton up there but way too busy visually.
Cubase/Cubasis has always been riddled with bugs. It was my DAW for two different stints and I loved a lot about it but had to abandon because it wasn't reliable.
I absolutely love Ableton for all my electronic work. Whenever I am composing with virtual instruments (Kontakt, etc) though, Cubase just works better for me (even though it is a beast).
We develop on JUCE and I really would suggest anyone just getting into this should too or maybe iPlug2. Handling all the quirks of different formats and DAWs is an enormous time sink. Do you want to do that or do you want to spend time developing your idea for an effect or instrument?
You don’t need to use the GUI stuff from JUCE so if you have a preferred framework use that instead. We use none of their DSP. We concentrate on developing our own DSP algorithms and making them best in class.
A second vote for JUCE - but also don't forget to add TRACKTION to your framework shopping list. It sits on top of JUCE. The basics are: JUCE for audio i/o and cross-platform plugin coding, TRACKTION on top of JUCE for DAW-like features.
It's an interesting consideration how frustrating and dangerous non-tactile interfaces can be in cars, and how versatile they can be when you can give them your full attention.
I had always assumed pro-level DAW users would want lots of knobs and sliders to change as many parameters of the sound as easily and quickly as possible.
Do you have any insight on why bigger companies like Arturia don’t bring more of their VSTs and plugins to iOS?
I’m a hobbyist music maker and I vastly prefer AUM on my iPad to working in GarageBand (logic is far beyond my needs). I just want more of the desktop plugin ecosystem to trickle down.
I can only guess but it can be a daunting prospect to get things portable. Could be their DAW abstraction or their graphics framework that causes them massive work. And let’s get real here. It’s not exactly a lucrative market. We charge much less on iOS than we do on desktop for several reasons (among them no method for resale). Yet when we launched on iOS people were shocked at our high prices (we’re not making yet another compressor or 3 band eq we’re doing complicated original stuff at the highest audio quality). We are just two people and want to make a modest income. (We would earn way way more in typical software jobs). So yeah I suspect it’s just not worth it to these larger companies. Especially with the Apple cut.
Fellow audio developer here. Yes, the iOS market is rubbish. I spoke to some DAW companies, and they all said they sell their iOS apps at a loss - they don't cover the costs of developing them. It only makes sense when you think of iOS apps as a promotion to sell their desktop counterparts.
Which is a shame because I think the iPhone is a beautiful device for musicians. A fantastic microphone, right in your pocket.
I kind of knew the answer when I posted the question. It's also hard to properly price something like an audio plugin, right? Niche customer base, poor customer base (musicians)… the people making money, audio engineers and such, want to work on the "best" hardware for their job, which basically means a traditional computer.
I do believe that using a modern touchscreen interface to creative software unlocks more potential than simply using a keyboard and mouse. Touching interfaces to control sound just seems like it would hold a lot more creative potential energy to me.
Chicken and egg problem. Hardly worth porting plugins if there is no decent DAW ecosystem beyond a watered-down Cubase version ..
The desktop plugin ecosystem will come to iOS now that Logic Pro is on iOS. I'm seeing tons and tons of plugin developers jumping on the AUv3 bandwagon that is now on the road ..
Glad to hear it. I think maybe it's generational too. Watching the promotional video for Logic Pro on iOS and nobody featured on it is over 40, maybe even over 30.
Yeah on the apple its Au only but with the clap plugin format its open source so it may be possible to have clap plugins in an android daw, but on ios its au only and I doubt that will change.
I guess I should expand why not a laptop, but it boils down to removing lots of little friction points that make ephemeral ideas harder to put down.
1. Touch first is important because your instruments are touch as well. Being able to record my live instruments and not have to switch to a trackpad to move between UI elements seems small, but it really keeps me in the zone.
2. Same point above, but basically being able to switch between my live instrument and an on screen virtual one is a big deal to layer up an idea. Can’t do that easily with a trackpad or mouse.
3. There’s something to be said for the mobile platforms single app as a focus model. I know you can full screen a Mac app, or split screen on an iPad, but having a singular focus helps reduce distractions.
4. Weight/portability are quite different. Maybe a MacBook Air would be better, but I take my iPad Pro to more places with me than I take my much heavier MacBook Pro . I’m already taking it to draw on the go, so this is just one more thing I can do without needing to buy a new device or take a heavier one.
Edit: oh and number 5 is a big one. I can put my iPad Pro in my existing music stand that works for me at multiple heigh levels. There are laptop stands that might work too, but I already use my iPad for sheet music, so it’s already a convenient setup.
I think there is a lot going for the music ecosystem on ipad - lots of affordable apps, cheap effects compared to desktop etc.
At the same time I don't think the device itself is built with the connectivity for the kind of music making I think about. If all your synths and effects live on the iPad and you don't care about after touch maybe, but if you want to hook external gear up the iPad just isn't made for it.
no headphone out. requires an external audio interface to connect to hardware synths. not an aftertouch capable control surface. Not really portable if I have to lug a bunch of supporting equipment to make it usable.
I agree to a large extent, but I've been pleasantly surprised just how much audio hardware works using a USB hub, especially now all iPads have USB-C ports with the exception of the 10.2 inch entry one.
Given how many USB accessories now work with the iPad, I really really wish Apple would relent and at least give us two USB ports on the side like the MacBook Air.
I get a spare USB-C port from my Magic Keyboard. I generally plug the charger into it and something else into the on-board port, but I have the option to put devices into both ports.
Regarding aftertouch, it does support it in a way (and it's shown in the video). For many synths, after you press a key on the on-screen keyboard, if you hold it and move your finger up towards the back end of the key, it gets translated into aftertouch. GarageBand on iPad has supported this as long as I've been using it (a few years). I don't know if every synth supports it, but there are definitely some who do.
I think I have seen that some users connect AVB capable devices (e.g. from Presonus or Motu) to the USB port of iPads and got full connectivity to the other studio setup via AVB networking. Some AVB devices are quite affordably nowadays. That would also allow for great audio routing setups in a gig I assume
I have a presonus audio interface. It works 100% with my ipad pro and has for years. But if I have to take an ipad and an audio interface and and and then why do I need an ipad at all? I could be using my laptop and have more options.
Even as a paying Bitwig subscriber, I don't get it. My instruments are velocity and aftertouch sensitive. Having a touchscreen interface for these instruments is no better than typing on your keyboard to play notes. And then if you want to plug in hardware, you have to either settle for one thing and no charging or buy a dongle.
> being able to switch between my live instrument and an on screen virtual one is a big deal to layer up an idea. Can’t do that easily with a trackpad or mouse.
Keyboard shortcuts exist. Failing that, it's one click on my trackpad to switch channels.
> There’s something to be said for the mobile platforms single app as a focus model.
There's also something to be said for multitasking desktops that give you the flexibility of both.
It's a neat option for people who already use Logic Pro, but touch-enabled DAWs have existed for over a decade (and they all kinda suck - ask me how I know). Besides the form-factor of the iPad being fairly convenient, there's no way I'd trade-in my laptop's IO and OS for a mobile one. The iPad doesn't offer enough flexibility to replace my DAW laptop.
Every time you’ve replied to one of my comments in the past, it’s been very binary in terms of workflows and the discussions always devolve.
So this time I’m leaving it as: I explained why it’s a big deal for me. If you have your own workflows or needs, so be it. But it’s irrelevant to why I like it.
I don’t need velocity for a quick idea for example. I just need to get the idea out as quickly as possible. Besides, you can always connect an external midi keyboard or audio interface to an iPad as well.
All that's well and good, I'm mostly just agreeing with the people who suggest a Macbook for this. The iPad runs iOS, it's gimped for all kinds of creative applications. I won't judge you if you've found a workflow to apply it to, but the status quo feels unchanged. Professional DAWs existed on iPad before, the world beneath our feet didn't crumble or anything.
> Besides, you can always connect an external midi keyboard or audio interface to an iPad as well.
Sure? Everyone can use class-compliant USB audio hardware. Android and Linux both support it, for whatever that's worth. Both of those OSes even support audio plugins, too.
Not everyone can install MPE drivers or get that Focusrite interface set up properly without software though. That's why I still carry a laptop, it may not apply to everyone.
How hassle-free it is for a given workflow or user is highly subjective and relative to the task at hand. The file management on iOS is still a dumpster fire.
Lacking plenty of common power user functionality to do things efficiently. It's fine for casuals, they don't know what's missing, but it's pretty poor versus a fully-fledged file manager on a desktop computer.
I'm with you on every one of your preference points. My own extra one is that I spend all day every day at work on my Mac, when I want to relax and work on music I want to physically separate myself from the thing I do my work on. I embraced touch in the first place just for that, but now I'm infinitely more productive for music on my iPad than I am on desktop. I can reach a state of flow that's just not there when I use Logic on my Mac.
Ah, I was going to join in with my own thoughts but this conversation seems to have gotten a little... personal...
For the record, I find touchscreen interfaces rather underwhelming. I've tried to love my iPad for creative purposes but I just find trackpad/mouse + keyboard faster and more versatile.
Of course - both pale in comparison to physical buttons. I dream of a touchscreen with really convincing haptics. That would be the best of both worlds.
It should go without saying, but I’m not talking about absolute workflows because there are no such things.
Workflows are subjective and contextual. I too use a Mac for a lot of audio work, and I’m not suggesting that one replaces the other in all forms.
I’m simply saying why this is a big deal for that one part of my workflow that had a hole which a Mac doesn’t cover.
The whole “touch vs not” discussion doesn’t add much because it’s not a binary. It’s only a subjective preference for me in my workflows in a specific context.
I’m simply elaborating on why I prefer an iPad in this context. Rebuttals are pointless as a result because it’s not a debate, it’s an elaboration of choice.
So again, I would say to people: “you do you” because my workflow doesn’t impose or force other people’s choices with their own trade offs.
I think there's a difference in conversation style here.
If somebody says "I think x" I've always felt it was entirely reasonable to respond with "I disagree because y" - that's not being argumentative, it's just having a conversation.
You're not the first person that seems to feel differently about whether or not it's impolite to respond in this way. It just always surprises me when I hit this particlar difference in communication preferences.
That’s fair, and perhaps an issue of tonality being lost in text or cultural differences in speech styles .
though part of the issue is “I disagree because Y” is not relevant because it’s an opinion with no negative effect on those who disagree (as opposed to say opinions on very factual science). So “I disagree because Y” is implicitly a rebuttal.
Instead , the subtly different “I see where you’re coming from however for me Y” is not a rebuttal. It’s an acceptance that two views may exist simultaneously and be equally valid.
If you look at the responses of the person I responded to, they’re always in the form of “well I need this so it makes no sense”
Note that they never acknowledge that others may not have the same needs or views. There’s an absolute way in all the interactions I’ve had with them.
The simple act of accepting another’s perspective changes the post from a negation to something that builds upon it.
Yeah. I probably would have found smoldesu a little brusque if they were replying to me. But on the other hand I'm sure I'm a little too brusque for by other people's standards.
Or 3D touch! Aftertouch and velocity are both possible on a touchscreen, the tech just never lived long enough to give it an earnest try. I'd be very curious to see how that works if someone had a POC up and running, doubly so with good haptics.
>Even as a paying Bitwig subscriber, I don't get it. My instruments are velocity and aftertouch sensitive
So what? You can get an idea down without either. It's not about making the final performance (though you can also program the DAW piano-roll this way just fine too).
>And then if you want to plug in hardware, you have to either settle for one thing and no charging or buy a dongle.
God forbid you have to buy a $20 dongle, or like, just use the device without one, and enjoy merely 10 hours of use instead of 15.
I bring up Bitwig because it was originally made as a touch-enabled DAW. I daily-drive it on a laptop with a touchscreen, and used to even have it configured to run on my Surface Pro. Despite all this, the touchscreen was never really intended as a performance surface. If you look at how Bitwig (or even the new Logic) is designed, this is obvious: the portion of the screen reserved for performance is minuscule. Touchscreen devices are outclassed in expression by cheap XY pads with aftertouch sensitivity. Everyone, Apple included, knows people are not going to use this as a touchscreen MPC. Akai's touchscreen MPC does not rely on a touchscreen for expression.
> God forbid you have to buy a $20 dongle
God forbid the iPad ever exposes a second USB port worth of IO bandwidth.
Actually, I take it back. Knowing Apple, I'll get my wish fulfilled with 2 Lightning ports and some MFi cable DRM...
There seems to be a divide between people who find the extra level of abstraction with a keyboard/mouse to be a problem. I don't understand it either, to the point where I see people try to flex with a room full of synthesizers, I just roll my eyes as I pull up my favorite VST
FWIW, the iPad is velocity sensitive. I haven't tried Logic Pro on it yet, but with Garage Band, it definitely plays louder if you hit it harder (for patches that support it). Some software synths in GB also have a pseudo-aftertouch where you slide your finger up after hitting the key to invoke aftertouch.
That said, I don't like playing on a screen. I'm a long-time piano and keyboard player so I just hook up an external instrument. But I was pleasantly surprised by what I could do just on the iPad with GarageBand.
I wonder if this works by measuring the size of your touch (i.e., how much your finger "splats" when it touches) or using the accelerometers/gyroscope or what.
have the UX such that you can have multiple screens that you swipe btwn... such that you can add screens for DRUM MACHINE 1 through N and you just swipe btwn them... and swipe up or down for media access and other screens.
it would be cool to have both apps (final cut for vids and logic for trax) running at the same time with "integration" such that you can swipe btwn video and sound editing on the same final output...
I would assume more people using Final Cut Pro will use a keyboard case, but for mobile music production, it there may be more people willing to go without the keyboard case, particularly if you are mostly using it to noodle down ideas, use the on screen instruments, etc.
And pedals! I've half-seriously considered experimenting with an expression pedal as a vertical scroll controller for desktop applications, using a second pedal to switch between relative (pedal position relative to center → scroll velocity, zero movement when pedal position is centered) and absolute (pedal position → page position, zero movement unless pedal position changes) modes.
For wide multicolumn IDE/text-editor layouts, spatially-mapped fader banks and/or organ drawbars might also make useful scrollers.
The 11-inch iPad (Pro) is much more compact, imo. You can also just mount it flat against some hardware in a rack, or against a wall in a small studio booth.
Personally, I feel like the iPad is very "flow" and the computer is very "precise." When I'm in the zone, just vibing, I'd much prefer to bust out musical ideas on an iPad (assuming no instruments available, of course). When I want to tweak the exact reverb parameters I'd rather have the computer.
The idea that any piece of gear enables artist is one of the biggest lies we have been sold. True Artist will use any tool at their reach to do art. In terms of music the level is so high already that is irrelevant. Sound is not music.
Saxophone player of adequate standard here ... yeah the gear shouldn't matter and you can get good stuff out of garbage with the right pre-existing skills and attitude. But on the other hand I've upgraded my two main instruments recently-ish from low/mid range instruments to high end, and in both cases my playing improved a lot instantly, as suddenly I didn't have to work so hard to get the instruments to cooperate[1]. However having to work around the limitations of my old instruments also improved my skills too.
[1] having a good soprano sax that basically plays itself feels like cheating, but one of the reasons for that is having developed the skills to keep crappy sopranos cooperating reasonably well for so long too.
Glad for you, is really nice to have a nice instrument, even inspiring, I play guitar many years and some guitars when you pick them up, they almost inspire/invite for music, while others they make you want to quit music altogether. So i am with you, i wish everyone could work themselves up to a nice instrument. I doubt an app in an ipad can have this meaning to someone.
Does a piano player relying on a piano not count as “gear enabling an artist”? If there’s no piano does that true artist start playing a napkin instead because it’s within their reach?
If they relies on a piano of a very specific brand, and can't play a cheap alternative at all, then yes. But I don't think most pianists are like that.
As a piano player I definitely depend on the existence of a piano for me to play. Better tools absolutely enable artists to make better things faster — Yo-Yo Ma can make a cheap cello sound amazing, but he can make an expensive cello sound even more amazing.
And many think that for art more options is better, however the greatest works were done with huge limitations. Beatles 4 track, Bladerunner no CGI to name 2.
If by "everything" you mean better production quality, sure, but I doubt you'd do your best sound-design work laying down on your couch with your airpods.
I think the only thing this enables is for you to "finish" your songs on the ipad itself, which is not the game changer the OP is saying it is.
True, I didn’t mean to imply that there wasn’t and I thought I’d alluded to that by mentioning the other recording apps on the iPhone.
However I’m a Logic Pro user. Cubase is great but it just never clicked with me as much as Logic did. I’ve gone through a majority of the DAWs on macOS but Logic Pro and Live were the only ones that really stuck for me.
Obviously purely subjective. I edited my comment above to reflect my DAW preference factors in.
Subjective indeed. I usually dabble in Nuendo and have pretty much all Steinberg workflow with Dorico in the mix too (also on iPad).
I really should check out Logic too one of these days, but as it's a mixed environment in the "studio" with Mac OS and Windows these multiplatform apps make life a bit easier for now.
GarageBand was always pretty decent on iPad back in the day, at least as a scratchpad for ideas. But yes, this is exciting. I'd quite like to see something like Ableton or Bitwig make its way onto iPad as well.
Have you tried Ableton Note? It's not a 1 to 1 version of Ableton, but it streamlines a lot of the features to make the equivalent of musical sketching app. You can then save your session and it opens perfectly in Ableton Live.
I'm not a huge fan of music apps on iOS, but I played with it briefly and it's quite good. They've really done a great job to make it a very musical tool within the limitations of an iPhone (and presumably iPad).
> Having a full DAW on the go is a killer feature imho.
I think the problem here that most won't realize is that they'll have no idea what you're listening to and so will be mixing audio in the dark, so to speak. Professionals will check headphone mixes, but generally won't mix with headphones certainly not bluetooth headphones. I suppose there may exist such a thing as powered Bluetooth monitors, but again, the wireless Bluetooth, and what it does to audio, is the weak part in the chain. iPad built in speakers are not flat, so if you mix for them, the audio might only sound alright coming out of an iPad.
There are probably audio docks for iPad which will include a DAC for converting stereo sound from the iPad USB-C port, and jacks for monitors, but I have never seen one that doesn't have the cheapest components available. Not sure of the current abilities of iPad and USB-C, but last I heard, iPad was only capable of stereo in and stereo out. There's a lot that can be done with just two tracks, but do not doubt that everything depends on the converters and preamps, so a professional quality USB-C ADC/DAC with decent pres (unless off-boarded) is paramount to creating half decent tracks, which is paramount to creating very good mixes.
Not everyone is a professional audio engineer, and everyone here that is an expert at everything will likely be satisfied with terrible converters and the audio they produce. YMMV
> I use iPad with RME ADI DAC-2 and I can't think of a single issue.
I hope I missed a joke. That is a high end DAC that retails for $1300, and could very well be the best DAC available for less $1500. That'll do nicely. I'd prefer Lavry Engineering's discontinued DA11 (and AD11), but it's somewhat of a judgement call at that level.
There's nothing special in RME regarding its USB operation.
iPad can emit material with different sampling rate (haven't verified different bit depth, but I guess, there should be no issues), iPad also knows not to meddle with the software mixing and delegates everything to the DAC. It behaves exactly as I'd like it to behave.
No joke intended. My point was, that if iPad has no issues with this device, then it must be able to drive any other USB Audio Class interface.
> Is there an example or anecdote you have in mind of a platform meddling with mixing?
Sure,
Android resamples everything to 48kHz, uses software mixing. No workaround.
GNU/Linux by default does the same with PipeWire, PulseAudio and ALSA (dmix). One can configure it for bitperfect playback though.
I can’t say about modern Windows, the last one I used was Windows 7, and by default it resampled everything to 48kHz too.
> USB Audio that is special
The last time I saw a non USB audio class device was some 15 years ago. I frankly do not understand, why are you stressing this so much.
Well, BT introduces additional delay and jitter. It's fine for listening to music because you can "cache" segments. That's totally not going to working real-time audio.
Apple doesn't support aptX HD, aptX Lossless, LDAC for Bluetooth devices. IIRC they use AAC 256 kbps for their wireless audio.
Once again, totally fine for listening Spotify and apply music, but I imagine suboptimal for DAW.
I had a brief foray into using a set of Bluetooth headphones for PC gaming. It was “brief” because the delay was enough that it got me killed in games regularly enough that it was just intolerable.
Yeah, for gaming you need headphones that use some proprietary protocol, unfortunately. BT just doesn't work well.
It's not as noticeable for people who never talked on a real landline phone (i.e. not VoIP) because everything else has noticeable and often non-constant latency.
Evidence? It uses lossy audio codecs. Some are good, and some are less good, but they're all lossy. The quality loss happens before the bits hit the radio. That part is fine, as you note. "Oxygen-free copper", regardless of whether it's beneficial, is generally used for analog signals, which isn't moving bits at all.
Bluetooth also introduces latency. It might be ok for mixing, but it's completely unusable for recording applications.
I'm fairly sure this isn't quite possible. It has to do with the physical properties of the space. Not that I'm an actual audio engineer. Not to mention that the iPad speakers are probably mostly designed to be compact and this probably places some limitations on what they can do.
Yay more Apple users complaining that their VSTs don't work on Apple's XYZ variant that yet again broke something instead of actual talk about the VSTs in question. It already makes many discussion threads nearly useless, I look forward to more of it.
The iPad is not an entry point to the ecosystem; the difference with Macs in terms of modality of use is too stark.
The Macs are simply meant to eventually go away. From the perspective of Apple, they are a legacy coccyx. For them the iPad, where nothing is replaceable and Apple is in full control of content distribution, is the superior form of computing.
Developers have been begging for years to be able to code for iPad on iPad, wouldn’t allowing this be an easy first step towards the iPad only dystopia? Do you have an explanation for why it’s still almost impossible?
Apple will allow that when they have the means and inclination to lock you into coding only what they want you to code, and nothing more. At the moment this is not possible - developing an iOS app requires knowing about files and filesystems and utilities etc etc, which means you cannot stay in your little sandbox. Once they figure out how to build tools that do away with all of that and still work, then you'll be able to do it.
That's exactly what they did when they allowed users to "Submit your completed apps to the App Store with App Store Connect" from Swift Playgrounds on iPads: https://apps.apple.com/app/id908519492
Interesting: Apple is moving their apps to a subscription model.
„ Pricing and Availability
Starting Tuesday, May 23, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad will each be available on the App Store for $4.99 (US) per month or $49 (US) per year with a one-month free trial.8 Final Cut Pro is compatible with M1 chip iPad models or later, and Logic Pro will be available on A12 Bionic chip iPad models or later. Final Cut Pro for iPad and Logic Pro for iPad require iPadOS 16.4. For more information, visit apple.com/final-cut-pro-for-ipad and apple.com/logic-pro-for-ipad.“
It'd be interesting to see them modify their Apple One tiers.
Split out Premier to a "Premier home" tier (keeping News+ and Fitness+) and a "Pro" tier at the same price that gives you 4TB of iCloud Drive + Logic and Final Cut instead of the 2TB/News/Fitness option.
Apple needs to at least adjust their iCloud storage tiers to match their phones. The jump from 200GB to 2TB is ridiculous and feels like extortion. The 50GB -> 200GB is also ridiculous because it can't even support a full backup of their base 64GB iPhone.
Your Backup does't include your all of your iOS and App Installation. So a 50GB in most cases should be able to backup a 64GB iPhone unless it is all Photos.
I wonder what the fallout will look like if they make Logic on the desktop subscription based. The DAW / audio plugin community at large have resisted subscriptions quite ferociously. And considering how competitive the space is, I could see a lot of people jumping ship based on this alone.
It's interesting as they was a big uproar weeks ago when audio plugins developer Waves tried to move to a subscription only model (they caved in four days).
There's a big difference in earned trust. Waves has had scummy business practices for a long time - price gouging back in the day, and more recently, an "upgrade plan" that amounts to a barely optional subscription already. That is, unless you don't want bug fixes, M1 compatibility, etc.
They also have perpetual sales cycles that only serve to trick new customers into thinking the sale price is actually a deal and not just the normal price (this is not exclusive to Waves but they do it more broadly and more often than anyone else except for Plugin Alliance).
In other words, Waves is the used car salesman of the audio plugin world. Certainly not alone in that, but way less trustworthy than a big player like Apple. Who knows what they'd try to pull this time. THAT is the sentiment behind the recent uproar.
You're not wrong about Waves. But, I'd argue that one of Logic's most appealing features is it's low one-time price. You could have bought Logic 10.0 ten years ago, and upgraded it all the way to 10.7.5 (current release), and paid $0.
Otherwise, it's feature set is really nothing special relative to other DAW's. And, if you're into making electronic music, it's pretty lackluster compared to Ableton or Bitwig (imo, of course). Plus, the whole no VST's bit. Which is less of an issue these days, but still.
This seems like a silly comparison. Obviously the people buying Wavves plugins trust them enough to buy the software. Wavves has always been a little scummy, sure, but it's not like Apple is a guardian angel themselves. They saw an opportunity to make money, and Tim Cook made the predictable move of pushing the "service" button on a new software product.
All of these companies are making the wrong decision, and refusing to stand by their products because their runtime is too fragile to stay put. Apple is complicit in this problem, and uses it as an excuse to sell you more services than products. They could work to solve the issue of subscription software being required for perpetual update models - but they don't. They are put in a position where perverse incentives (like the App Store monopoly) is their de-facto solution. This is bad for users. It's why I left the ecosystem and how Apple burned their "trust" with me.
> trick new customers into thinking the sale price is actually a deal
Wow, it's almost like you're describing Apple's "sale" model verbatim. Constantly offer 5-10% discounts at big-box stores to make people think they're getting good deals, and unload used models with upsell marketing like "factory refurbished" or some such language.
Which one of them are you comparing to the car salesman again?
My guess, based on the fact that Logic Pro and FCP, in the nicest way I can say this, haven't had any meaningful core upgrades in a while, is that they're planning some fairly major updates on macOS for both and the plan is to release them as new, subscription-only versions later this year.
Well, for a $200 app that was feature complete when I bought it, I am not at all sure what I'd want them to do with it. It'd be a really hard sell to go from almost a decade of "free and professional" to a subscription model- I'd much rather have them just keep maintaining the software exactly as is so I can use it when I buy my next MBP in 2026.
So I am a bit skeptical that your prediction is accurate. But I can't tell the future and I don't know folks at Apple so maybe you know something I don't.
You’re probably going to be pushed into it over time. Whether it’s because they will make it incompatible with newer plugins, or because they will make newer hardware incompatible with older Logic.
FWIW, I’m in your boat too. Logic is a PERFECT DAW for me the way it is. I would be so sad to have to switch to Reaper or something, and have to go hunt for plugins..
Logic is the only thing tying me to the Mac, so I guess that’s a plus.
On one hand, I do enough work that the price of Abelton (which is what I'd move to if that happened) isn't a big deal so unless there simply is no non-subscription tool I can use I'll be okay.
However, I remain hopeful. It's a 30 year old piece of software and my understanding of Apple's model for it is to drive hardware sales seems reasonable to me.
Are we talking about the same Logic Pro? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203718 shows quite a lot of activity of the last 2 years. Idk what you consider a "meaningful core upgrade".
Those are just releases that improve/change some small workflow stuff, fix bugs, or add minor or niche features like "Spatial Audio mixing with Dolby Atmos" that Apple cares about more than most producers do. The change lists look huge, but if you lose closer its all minor stuff.
The last release with a meaningful core update was 10.5 (May 2020) - the one that introduced Live Loops, major new devices like the new sampler, etc.
If it was a regular company selling its software, 10.5 would have been a paid update/major new version, and 10.6 and 10.7 would have been point updates.
It's nice, but I wouldn't go that far. Professionals who mix for Dolby Atmos do it with a Dolby-approved system, not their Atmos-certified home theater or Airpods Pro. For the prosumer market, it's mostly a gimmick to promote Apple Music.
It's not necessarily a bad playback platform, but neither is an Xbox with 5.1 surround hooked up. Apple's commitment to surround sound is far from revolutionary.
Mind you, I'm still running Final Cut for video making. Hope I don't have to bail on that too. I'll keep running the version I have, but much like I don't use Adobe at all, I won't run such a program if I have to rent it.
Exception, XCode :D most certainly have to pay yearly for that! But I view it as paying for authorization as an Apple dev, not so much as 'for the app itself'.
Platforms are weird. I'm a Godot user, but have made a game on Unity and have downloaded the Unreal environment. There are circumstances where I have to give all those entities a cut of whatever I do (except Godot is MIT-licensed open source, so I'm not restricted by them very much at all).
It's a bit like paying for access to Apple's Gatekeeper system? Without their involvement, I can't circumvent their code signing systems, so in some ways it seems to me like it's a given that if I code for their platform, I'm expected to pay for access to their security system that checks my submissions for malware. I could code stuff purely on the Unix layer to run in Terminal or something like that, but then I would clearly be an outsider with no association with Apple's 'walled garden'. The cost of entry to being considered inside the 'walled garden' and safe to use, is not just willingness to have my code audited and code-signed if it's safe to run, it's also paying for engagement with those systems.
I feel like if Apple both did that and prohibited use of any other dev software, it would flip something for me and I would be adamantly against their practice. Since it's for access to a class of developer that's meant to be treated as privileged and Apple-approved, it doesn't bug me to pay $100 a year. I would be distressed if I had to cough up $1000, and if it was $10,000 a year I might not be able to continue the practice.
don't you also have to pay if you want to load your app on your device? (aka side-load) So yeah you could dev with the emulator for free, but even if the app is by you and only for you, you have to pay
Damn if you're not right. I stand corrected. I wonder why I thought I needed to mentally camel-case it? Is that what it was? Was it ever capitalized this way or have I been making it up this whole time?
I think it's Mandela Effect. I don't know of any other words that can have the letters 'Xc' in sequence in a capitalized word, so my brain must just reject the idea even though I've literally seen it over and over right in front of my eyes.
As someone who uses these professional apps, maybe two or three times a year, the subscription prices would be an absolute blessing. The critical point is that there should be no reason for Apple to sunset the existing price. Surely they can do both. Offer a perpetual license to anyone who wants it. Offer a subscription price to anyone who wants it.
That said, a dual pricing model can get unstuck depending on the future development path of the app. Does the perpetual license include the next major version? What is the price of a major version upgrade? How does that compare to the value of the subscription price?
I don't know about Final Cut, but I do know lots of Logic users in the media composing world. Some will keep using it no matter what but plenty will leave for Cubase or Studio One if Apple forces a subscription on them. And Logic is probably the reason they buy Macs for producing music...
Still strange that apps that work fully locally and thus don't entail any running costs are a subscription. Adobe did it first but they at least threw in some cloud stuff (that no one uses) to try to justify the subscription.
What happened with people using one single version of something for 10 years? If there's a major update, it's a separate product that's a paid upgrade. We've had that figured out since the 90s. And quality software doesn't need maintenance.
FCP and Logic are highly optimized for Apple's CPU and GPUs. They fully utilize all cores and operate in a way that won't bring the general OS to a grinding halt if you're encoding in the background. Additionally, Apple updates these to provide all the latest video and audio encoding available on their devices.
Doing all of this requires significant engineering and licensing (Dolby) that comes at a cost.
Sure but none of that should fall under "maintenance". Apple makes a new SoC and needs to optimize Logic for it? Fine, issue a paid upgrade but make it optional since it has 0 impact on my M1 Mac. They add a new feature like Dolby support? Again, make the update optional if it's paid since a lot of people (me incl) don't care about it. The entire point is to not cut off access to one's offline workflow if money is tight which is absolutely possible for tools like Logic and FinalCut.
People are broke and too undisciplined to save up even a little money, so normal software prices look huge in their eyes. That's why subscriptions and splitting a purchase is coming to everything now. It won't take long before the cashier in your local supermarket will ask you if you want to pay everything at once or divide after ringing up your stuff.
>People are broke and too undisciplined to save up even a little money, so normal software prices look huge in their eyes. That's why subscriptions and splitting a purchase is coming to everything now.
Or people don't want to have to continuously pay to have access to some latest version, and prefer to update when they feel like it and need some new feature, not always.
Producers and video editors especially hate to have to upgrade.
As for subscriptions, they have made the total yearly cost for getting a product much higher in many cases (doubled it in the case of some software), and made you lose your software any time you have to prioritize something else over its payment, like a medical emergency...
> As for subscriptions, they have made the total yearly cost for getting a product much higher in many cases (doubled it in the case of some software), and made you lose your software any time you have to prioritize something else over its payment, like a medical emergency...
That's how "rent-to-own" furniture works too. It exploits poor people for whom the price tag seems prohibitive but the monthly payments look deceptively cheap.
> Or people don't want to have to continuously pay to have access to some latest version, and prefer to update when they feel like it and need some new feature, not always.
These people are not the target group for subscriptions, nor are they the majority. For large swatches of potential customers there are only two options that they accept: 1) Free or pirated 2) Low monthly value subscription.
I highly suspect Apple considered the market for one-time purchases too small to bother with, right or wrong. People think and behave different around purchases when it's on an ipad, even if they by now are powerful devices.
I highly suspect Apple (like all these companies, Adobe first and foremost) merely consider the elasticity of demand when they force their customers to the subscription model.
They also factor in heavily the securing of recurring income to impress their shareholders.
The needs or desires of customers are never considered. Just whether enough of them suckers would yield to a subscription model.
Of course they think about their profits and shareholders. But nobody is forced to get the software, they can go with a competitor or use Garage Band - for free.
If you think somebody is a sucker for getting software as a subscription, then you are very unimaginative as to what are the needs and wants of other people. Many people are going to think it's great. Those who hate it can still buy Logic for their laptop for $200 something.
>Of course they think about their profits and shareholders. But nobody is forced to get the software
Yes, nobody is threatened with death if they don't comply. I'll give you that.
For many pro users, with project files in that software, compatible hardware, accustomed to workflows, a studio setup based on it, etc, "just go to other software or use Garageband which is free" is as good as forcing.
They do. My comment is not narrowly focused on FCP and LP on iPad, but on FCP and LP turning into subscriptions in general (which would inevitably follow), and other pro software already changed into the subscription model to the dislike of its user base (but to the profit of the issuing company).
> That's why subscriptions and splitting a purchase is coming to everything now.
Maybe that's a factor, and in this particular case a reasonably large one, but I'd guess it's because subscription revenue is the holy grail for modern software. People end up spending way, way more than they would have, often forgetting about the subscription and paying for it when they don't even use it, and the revenue is predictable and stable. There aren't any downsides for the company, and the question of ethics is irrelevant to them
The downside is that the company has a responsibility for delivering software that is working as long as the subscription is being paid. Contrast that to pay-once software, where maybe you might not get much help if you can't get the product to work - depending on the seller.
Agree. Once off purchases have to focus more on sales and then who cares what the user thinks after. Subscription software must continually justify it's existence against the competitor since the user can jump ship at any time for free.
It won't take long before the cashier in your local supermarket will ask you if you want to pay everything at once or divide after ringing up your stuff.
Aren't our supplies already a subscription?
Like we don't purchase lifetime, and we already have credit cards/Monthly installments for any big purchases, at least in my country EMI(Easy monthly installments) is already huge.
Yes, in some countries this is already the norm. It will become the global norm and it will be for almost every purchase except the smallest for the majority of the population.
So many “I don’t get it” comments in this thread. And complaints about the subscription pricing. The market for this seems pretty obvious - teenagers. iPad seems like the default computer for kids these days and kids like to create. When I was a teenager I had to build my own PC, struggle to pirate Cubase and some plugins and it was a nightmare. When I finally got a MacBook Logic being $200 was out of reach still. A subscription makes it affordable for the people who are going to use it on a tablet. The same thought applies for teenagers trying to make YouTube videos. Now they can legally and easily use the professional tools on hardware they already own.
That is not at all the obvious market; people in the HN bubble are just ignorant of the creative world and love to shit on Apple. The iPad is already huge for content creation among professions. It has made a huge dent in the tablet market (think Wacom), and is heavily used by professional artists. The audio options are amazing and USB midi output on instruments is very common now and works with iPads. An actual computer will probably remain a key component in artists' workflows, but iPads and iPhones are increasing part of it.
> people in the HN bubble are just ignorant of the creative world and love to shit on Apple.
defensive much? I didn't see anything even remotely resembling shit in GP's comment. You'd probably have a better time on the internet (HN at least) if you don't go around looking for things to be offended by whether they're intended or not.
To be fair, nearly every Apple thread features several stubbornly out-of-touch programmers sneering at iOS devices as "consumption-only" or something similar, usually with a tone that makes you expect to see the word "sheeple" occur. If we had a bingo card for HN Apple threads, you could just go ahead and make that the free space, the effect would be practically the same.
Sure. But how many of those creative professionals are there v. teenagers who want to mess around with these tools--especially when it's priced at only $5/mo? Seems like Apple is continuing to make tools for creative professionals while also making them accessible to a wider audience of amateurs to broaden the revenue base.
The $5 per month pricing is for skeptics to try the product without committing to a $299 purchase.
And yes, it does bring in some revenue from non-professionals, but they have other alternatives on iPad. Including iMovie from Apple which is free, and others like CapCut, LumaFusion, etc.
Kids aren't creating on iPads though. The only tools needed are TikTok/Snapchat + filters. Beyond that, it starts to feel like work.
YouTubers making 'long form' video (> 5 mins) also aren't going to buy an iPad when their computer does the job just fine. And even then, Mac owners don't necessarily use Final Cut; Adobe Premiere and Davinci Resolve are enormously popular.
Bold of you to assume that YouTubers are using full-fledged computers in the first place. Video editing on cellphones and tablets has been a thing for yonks.
What about the people that will emerge as YouTubers because they can now run a channel without buying a computer?
It doesn't need to be a replacement, just comfortable enough that you'd be willing to throw an iPad and a keyboard (And maybe a pencil/mouse) in your backpack instead of a laptop if it fits your use case.
There's a non zero amount of people that have ditched the PC as their main computing device for this reason
if you're pro enough to want to improve your quality (my 500k follower friend still uses capcut while living off of brand deals but in the future I could see her wanting to upgrade / hire an editor) then why would you use a tablet based editor rather than just a laptop with a real editing program?
Also if you want to do just one project (i.e. you don't produce music/video for a living, but you know enough to do your own stuff), then you can probably get away with paying $5 a month for just enough months to finish your project.
That was a use case completely uncatered for with a $400 one-off license fee.
Yep, I totally forgot about this use-case, but there were plenty of situations where it would've saved me. With one a couple a years ago that I vividly remember.
I volunteered to edit a demo video for our internal hackathon project, and had both an M1 iPad and a new macbook. I wanted to go all out on the video just for the fun of it, and I still had some of the final cut pro muscle memory from many years before, even though it was a much older version. iMovie proved to be extremely inadequate even for some basics (on both macbook and ipad). iPad had some third party options, but they were all either unwieldy or expensive or various other issues. For macbook, there were various alternatives (davinci, etc), but they either had similarly high pricing or various other limitations or an insane learning curve (which i don't mind usually, but not in those circumstances). Final Cut was only available as a full-priced option. I would have easily been willing to pay $10-20 for one month worth of access for this project, but no way I am paying hundreds for that. Ended up using iMovie and making the video that i absolutely hated and that wasn't resembling anything I had in mind for it at all.
P.S. I am genuinely baffled by how terrible iMovie is compared to its big sibling Final Cut Pro, given how amazing and well-rounded GarageBand is compared to its big sibling Logic Pro. GarageBand is obviously not competing with Logic Pro, I was just trying to illustrate that Apple has those hobby->pro creative app relationships (iMovie->Final Cut Pro, GarageBand->Logic Pro), and the GB->LP one is imo fantastic overall, and both products are shining in their respective tiers, and I get a good use out of both of them. But with iMovie->Final Cut Pro, I am pretty much fighting against iMovie even for some basic things and would rather deal with Final Cut only. And yes, for basic video editing, I still miss windows movie maker (the newer MSFT replacement for it, Clipchamp, is the worst out of major basic video editing software i've ever used).
Agreed, but only because comparable alternatives are even worse imo. Hopefully, one day Apple will nail it like they did with GarageBand, as GB used to be pretty meh as well not that long ago.
I'll do you one better, I just started the App store on the Mac to check whether they've implemented the same model there. The only music I make is analog, but I'd have liked to try it out for a few bucks.
But you are not paying $5/month. That’s a gimmick. You are pre-paying a full year’s worth. It’s like paying (almost) full price but for only a year’s worth of use.
For Adobe, at least, the actual monthly rate is way higher.
I see you missed the whole "Logic Pro costs $499" era and the earth shattering news when Apple lowered the price to $199. And far too many DAW creators refuse to learn that lesson, instead going "you can have a DAW for $199 but you only get three and a half tracks, only one can be a plugin, and your audio files must be in 17 bit RIFF wave with the bytes in reverse order. If you want something better, pay us more".
Logic used to cost far more than that. When Logic 6 came out it sold for $999 and was a great deal because they’d finally bundled all the plugins and synths in to one package. To buy the whole package before than was thousands.
I remember when they dropped the price to $200. It's what finally got me to move from Garageband/pirating stuff. It's also what keeps me away from playing with a lot of other DAW's.
honestly the only way to get most of the other ones is to go "okay if I get a MIDI controller with a free copy of the entry level version, then I can bump that up to the REAL entry level version for cheap, and then when they release the next version I can bump that up to the intermediate version during a sale, and then a year later I can probably get the REAL version as a black Friday upgrade."
I kind of wish they'd have an option for both. ToonBoom Harmony still lets you do that (though they kind of obscure that on their website). You have the option of paying $71/month for Harmony Advanced, or $1130 for a perpetual license.
It would be nice for people to do something similar with Logic; you can pay for a subscription, or you can pay a flat rate to own something forever; I'm personally kind of turned off by products that do not offer perpetual licenses.
It is usually not billed monthly. They SAY it’s $5/month, but your actual price is $60 right now, for a whole year. That’s a huge difference. You’re paying a good portion of full price, with the “benefit” of having it stop working after a year.
This is so true. When I was a kid I could have gotten my parents to pay $5 / mo for me to explore my creativity. $200 not so much. I think this pricing is actually a really good thing for consumers.
The fact that the surrounding market sucks does not make this intrinsically better.
It's the same situation as rent, except that a DAW is not the living necessity that a home is.
If the best deal you can get is to buy someone lunch every day, that's still prohibitive enough to price a lot of people out of the digital music scene. That's terrible for the market of creativity.
Month subscription available, but by paying the annual subscription you get a perpetual license for the last release covered by your purchase, which makes an annual subscription pretty much the same as "buy with 1 year of updates".
That technical method isn't the only way to implement this business method, and a number of existing apps are doing this quite successfully already. So this both already exists, and works.
As for 'side loading', it's somewhat possible, but even if it was available by default it would be messy for most customers -- they already have trouble with what's currently available. Perhaps some sort of in-app store would make that model feasible. The vendor gets to show and deploy whatever they want, and the end-user gets a very clear and very specific list of options for the app/vendor. That would even be better than the 'everyone in one store' model for some more specialised apps, especially when searching (which currently leads to a plethora of tangential ads and applications you actually don't want).
The other two ways I've seen are committing to lifetime bugfixes but maintaining a feature lock based on last license renewal or releasing a separate app per release. The first is actually a different model but if you're alright with it from the developer side then it's very similar from the user's perspective. The second is either different or the same depending on how it's implemented. 2a is commit to upgrading these apps for life the same as the first method, at which point it largely turns into a worse option to both sides. 2b is to not commit to lifetime updates, at which point it's not really lifetime as much as "until Apple removes it from the App Store and you need to download it on a new device".
Based on the wording comment it sounds like there may be additional ways I haven't seen but you didn't really say what they were as much as dismiss the point assuming everyone knew what apps or release models you are familiar with.
I agree an in App Store solution like the one you describe would be the preferred answer for most users. Sideloading is more useful as a catch-all for anything Apple doesn't have a good first party answer for. Once non policy related use cases for the sideloading exist it's going to be easier for most to have a first party solution for those use cases.
I think there is yet another option we both didn't state, but an option that is also in use to this day. Some apps simply have multiple entries in the current AppStore model, and the version you currently have is very much separate from a possible 'future' upgrade. I'm not sure how they handle major upgrades on the back-end (perhaps tied to an in-app purchase or transferable purchase based on some sort of online account?), but this is a more 'hard' distinction between actual versions.
I suspect that this model has some downsides considering good security practise would prevent the apps from sharing their namespace contents. And for end-users they might end with "MyCoolApp 1" at first, but then "MyCoolApp 2, MyCoolApp 3, MyCoolApp 4" unless they delete the old one. I think some app vendors even use the year as the release distinction but in true software engineering fashion those years and the actual release date tend to be out-of-sync (just like MS Office).
What you've described is more complex than managing one app with feature flags.
And it's still undetermined whether Apple would be required to host your app on their App Store once you've decided to run your own store. Which means you would be losing a major distribution channel.
Not sure how widespread it is, but TapBots and 1Password both released separate apps for their major version updates. The 1Password subscription carried across to the new app, the TapBots one was a new purchase for each app, so there's 2 ways that model has been working on iOS.
It would be simple enough (yes I know I sound like a product manager” to add another rule to allow someone to download the last version they are eligible for. Apple keeps all of the previous versions of apps. They use to be available via a simple url.
> The features you unlock are permanently available and any other pro features added the next 12 months after purchase are also permanently available. After one year new pro features introduced will be locked until you purchase a upgrade. Even if you do not purchase a new unlock after 12 months, the app will still be updated with improvements and bug-fixes.
Yes! I was going to comment the same, it's a very reasonable model from a developer who makes great software. I recently within the last year switched from the Blink shell to his app "Shellfish" as it's become a daily part of my workflow when using my iOS devices. I highly recommend it if you like workingcopy.
there's a difference between temporary feature flags which eventually go away and permanent ones. say you build a new feature that has some overlap with an existing feature flagged one, and you unify some of the UI for it. now you have to always check what the UI looks like with one feature flag, with both, with none. as time goes on this gets worse, and maybe 3 or more features start overlapping in some way. If you're just using feature flags for A/B tests, this is manageable, but over time it can get really messy.
iOS and iPadOS are not stable systems like OSX where the fundamentals of the overall experience is clear and largely complete. There is still a lot of innovation and new concepts being introduced each year.
To have a large percentage of users with older apps that won't properly support these changes would hurt the platform.
As was mentioned feature flags are a much better option.
In the jetbrains you only get a perpetual license for the current version. You lose the year of updates.
Also why should companies do that? They could be leaving money on the table as people can continue to gain value from the perpetual version without you getting any compensation for that value. Also you now have to deal wind a fragmented user base on different versions. And the user community has to dear with not everyone supporting the same features and menu navigation as everyone else.
In the jetbrains you only get a perpetual license for the current version. You lose the year of updates.
Yeah, that model is infuriating. While your subscription is running you get the updates. Then they snatch them away if you cancel. It's a dark pattern.
Perpetual licenses were the norm for most of the history of commercial software. They only went away in recent times. The fact that we tolerate this state of affairs is appalling.
> They could be leaving money on the table as people can continue to gain value from the perpetual version without you getting any compensation for that value.
They were compensated when you bought the version you keep. If you get nothing from them after that, then what would they be compensated for? I could understand it if the application required server-side resources, but if it's all local, then no further compensation is due.
If you buy Microsoft Word and make $10 million from a novel, you don't have to kick any of that back to Microsoft. The software company has no claim to the value created by their software beyond the licensing costs.
Nordstrom's liberal return policy increased sales. Probably by mooting the fear of buyer's remorse. Their policy definitely wasn't motivated by altruism.
Maybe something similar is happening with Jetbrains.
I continue to pay yearly for Ultimate, even though I only use vanilla IntelliJ, and sometimes not for years. Why? I have no idea.
I usually cancel subscriptions without hestitaion. Somehow the Jetbrains license doesn't piss me off and I'm content knowing I could cancel without too much inconvenience, should I choose.
Whatever the case, I'm certain they validated their current license maximizes revenue.
> In the jetbrains you only get a perpetual license for the current version. You lose the year of updates.
False unless they changed it recently. It explicitly read last version on the subscription. I actually bought one a few years back and I got fallback to the last version of the subscription timeframe.
Regarding the “why”, it’s simply the option that properly aligns interests. A long enough subscription (ie an year), should cover initial expenses and development during the period, if the company wants to keep a customer paying, it needs to keep making the software better.
It’s putting customer first, which is something companies tend to forget which tend to lead to a downfall if they have not secured a strong prison/moat for their rent seeking behaviors.
Companies with proper alignment on incentives tend to make/maintain/develop better products over a larger timeframe. But ofc that was meaningless when money was “cheap” (negative interest rates), so VCs could just dump a huge amount of money on creating some competitor out of nowhere, put it out for free, operate under losses, and once they have “captured” a big enough userbase and fcked the rest of the competition, and have decent lock in, start the shitification of service for revenue, to make up for all the “investment”, leaving customers with no proper alternative.
A perpetual fallback license is showing customer that you care. And it’s also putting a gun on yourself to keep improving the product instead of stagnating for “captured” revenue.
Also, happy customers tend to give free publicity, look here at hackernews how their tools are mostly praised.
Edit: it seems that indeed they changed the version to the initial plus bugfixes, or 12months old if using consecutive monthly billing
I'm positively surprised by the pricing. While I still prefer outright buying apps instead of subscriptions, last time I paid €230 for Logic on desktop (and it used to cost even more), this new sub would take four years to match that. This massively lowers the cost of entry especially for countries with devalued currency against the USD.
$49 a year is pretty damn cheap in IMHO. Also, when the new version comes out, you don't have to put another lump of cash up front to get it, you just upgrade your subscription and get the new version. Something better comes along? Just cancel the subscription and switch to the new software. The fear of "being too invested in a software package" basically goes away. I think this is a good move on Apples part and the customers part on several levels.
I was about to wish Apple had made Logic Pro free or cheap for students / hobbyists, and a $5/month subscription does that. I've want to get into sound design but not going to drop $1000s on software.
Though I wish they'd do something like Kilohearts, where subscribing for enough time basically gives you a perpetual license (https://kilohearts.com/products/kilohearts_subscription#rewa...). It's good because if I pick up something and then drop it I can just cancel the subscription, but if I decide to keep using it until I reach the price point I get to keep it.
To be fair - GarageBand is free, and while it’s feature set is obviously lethargic in comparison to Logic’s, I do like their philosophy of having kind of a free consumer and education version vs. a professional version.
As a teenager I very successfully followed the path of using iMovie and GarageBand for a couple years until eventually I outgrew the feature set and wanted more.
At the time; they sold what was called ‘Final Cut Express’ and ‘Logic Express’, which were essentially 95% feature complete versions of the software at a significantly reduced price aimed at the education and hobbyist market. It was a perfect little balance between affordability and power.
Best of all, you could, and still can; open up iMovie projects in Final Cut and GarageBand projects in Logic - allowing you to actually flex more power if you need it in existing projects.
This workflow was so fantastic, and I actually still use it sometimes when I’ve got musical ideas on the go and want to jot them down quickly with GarageBand on my iOS device.
At $50 a year (equates to $4 a month if paid annually), this is - albeit a subscription model - so much better than Adobe's £20 a month plan for just Premiere (obviously to get you to go for the £50 a month plan). It's a much better plan and I hope things like this make Adobe consider their costs. It's a big ask and I know they won't... but you can hope.
I use the free version of Davinci Resolve to edit videos for a few occasions. It's amazingly good. Easy to learn and easy to use. Quite impressive with the feature sets.
I'd love to hear more about this! I'm a photographer but look on jealously at Davinci. Black Magic got so much right with the design (and business model) of their software. How does it work for images?
Davinci Resolve just treats photos as another source media. When added to a timeline, the photo got repeated as a still image throughout the timeline. You can apply color and filter transformation to the timeline as usual. Export a frame from the timeline as image at the end for output.
I think next month's WWDC and the AR goggles/glasses are really going to define how this decade plays out for Apple. There's clearly some kind of unification strategy going on behind the scenes but whether it's going to be good enough to win out over competitors or not is up in the air. Combos like NReal Air and Samsung Dex/Steam Deck are going to become more and more common and unless they get a move on I can see them falling behind the competition like Intel did. Stuff like this is kind of in the right direction but I do tend to be in agreement now with the people who say that we need an iPad with MacOS, or at least something that's leaning more towards MacOS than iPhone OS, especially on the large screen models.
IDK, Apple's brand loyalty is absolutely incredible. I know multiple people who will buy everything Apple makes, and if Apple doesn't make it they won't really consider it. Apple's strategy of letting other people validate markets and then coming in with a good product (like they did with the Apple watch for example) would likely not work for most companies, but it works great for Apple. They'd have to lose an insane amount of ground before they'd be at risk of being left behind. They also have enough cash that they could chase tail lights and do their not-original-but-better thing for decades.
Fwiw I do hope you're right though. I think competition is badly needed.
I probably fit into the Apple loyalist camp, I've currently got an Apple laptop, phone, tablet, smart speakers and TV and in the past I've also tried the watch, the AirPods and the iMac. I'm probably more tech orientated than the average consumer but, based on the products I've seen released outside of the Apple ecosystem the past year, it's the very first time in over a decade that I've been giving serious thought to switching. I'm thinking I can't be alone in this so I'm interested to see how this plays out.
100%. Whereas in the prior decade there were hardware limitations to device convergence (e.g. lack of CPU power, RAM), this is a no longer an issue and software is the roadblock is most cases. Ironically Apple threw open the doors when they not only put the M1 chip into the iPad Pro, but also into the iPad Air.
One reason for this slow transition is likely due to the legacy software support requirements. Microsoft seems to have vastly overestimated the complexity involved in porting Windows OS to ARM through its many attempts: first with Windows RT, followed by Windows 10S, and most recently tighter developer hardware tie-in with Project Volterra. Apple probably isn't too keen to follow this playbook - opting instead to just keep iOS and macOS separate and gradually drop x86 support entirely from macOS.
As an occasional Samsung Dex user, the benefit of having "one device to rule them all" is obvious and overall experience has been good. But to play devil's advocate, Samsung's revenues is heavily hardware-based so they'd much prefer to sell you multiple devices.
What Samsung device are you using? My initial thought when I saw the Fold was that it was a gimmick but I'm looking to do some long term travelling and I'm starting to come round to it, especially with Dex thrown in the mix. The RRP is absolutely eye watering though so if I was going to dip my toes in it would probably be with a second hand device.
I'm using a Fold 4, but would've preferred on the Flip series given its smaller footprint. But Samsung made the asinine decision to enable Dex on the Flip series (could be due to thermals?).
Dex actually works starting with the S20 series I believe, with the same feature parity as the latest devices. So you could pickup a cheap used S20 device to try it out.
I think we’ve heard the exact same argument about phones with keyboards, large phones, tablets and web apps (that if apple doesn’t do X they will get left behind, or if Apple doesn’t do Y soon enough they will get left behind), apple has not been left behind.
I don’t think the goggles or ‘pro iPad’ will be any different. Apple will release when they are ready and likely they’ll do very well.
Maybe. But I've been buying Apple for over a decade and this is the first year I've considered migrating off the ecosystem. I think AR glasses (not goggles) are going to be the defining hardware tech of the decade and I can see them becoming ubiquitous. If they're planning on releasing the goggles at the rumoured price point ($1500 - $3000) I think people might be tempted to jump ship.
You do make some very good points. We all thought Intel were going to dominate ten years ago though and they managed to fuck it so it’s not unprecedented. Apple do seem to be a lot better managed though. I think there’ll be more clarity after the headset reveal next month.
I don’t think it was quite so clear on intel 10yrs ago, hard to believe but Apple introduced the 64 bit A7 in 2013, for me that was the point of no recovery for intel (without major changes like we are seeing since Gelsinger returned). The path to apple silicon was clear then it was just a matter of timing, intel had no cohesive strategy for mobile…
Apple has a long history with the majority of it spent as the underdog, so I think they are less likely to be usurped… in the next few decades they could get to the point where no senior management where there in the dark days and then it all goes to hell, but I think they’ve cemented themselves pretty well into position…
Am I the only one that finds the process of getting files of a decent size from non-Apple devices to Apple mobile devices incredibly frustrating, almost enough to be a deal breaker?
What is the current best practice for the fastest way to get video files on an IPad as of now?
It's not just non-Apple devices. I use my iPad to make music and sketches, and sometimes I need to move files between my iPad and MacBook. Airdrop almost never works, and transferring in the Files app is confusing--sometimes the file won't appear in the relevant app, or sometimes it appears twice, and it's not clear which is the newer version. I often resort to emailing the files back and forth to myself as attachments, which is not ideal.
If anyone knows of a better way to move files to and from an iPad, I would be delighted to hear it.
Not been an Apple user since a little while after Steve Jobs passed away, but this is in stark contrast to what people usually say about Airdrop. What I usually hear is that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and how everybody should be using it.
Wow. I’ve seriously actually never heard that once in 15+ years of being a Mac developer and using them full time.
I’ve never actually heard anyone, in real life; or offline, recommend, suggest; or even say one single positive thing about AirDrop essentially since its release.
It’s easily the most unreliable piece of software integrated into the MacOS/iOS platform, just a feature that has been so fundamentally broken since it’s introduction that it makes me wonder why it exists at all.
It’s definitely below 50% on the times it actually works as intended - given any network configuration, combinations of Macs or OS versions…nothing really seems to even consistently affect its continual failure.
AirDrop not working, is the expected result of using the software. As of Ventura I’ve not noticed any improvement in the feature’s functionality since it’s introduction.
I feel like you must have a specific use case for which AirDrop fails more often.
I use AirDrop all the time for various things, and it mostly works as expected. It almost always works correctly when it's transferring between two of my own devices; the only issue I think I regularly encounter is when airdropping to another person's device. But I do not AirDrop particularly large files, so perhaps something goes wrong there.
That said, among average users, AirDrop is pretty consistently considered to be a great feature. I witness this occasionally in-person, but also in online discussions.
It’s certainly not been a specific use case over 10 or so years, I mean…in any given scenario; small files, big files, any given file type, on any given network configuration, with any combination of MacOS or iPadOS/iOS devices, I feel like I have a higher probability of making a dunk from a 3-pointer line than getting AirDrop to work; and that’s been the general consensus I’ve gotten from any fellow developers I’ve actually discussed it with.
If there was any consistent behaviour I could use to get it to either misfire or actually work; I’d love to have seen it, but every major MacOS revision I give it another try, only to inevitably just facepalm and use a USB key or something like DropBox.
It’s a shame, I honestly think it should be a fairly simple technology to implement and make work well, but it’s clearly just…not.
> I’ve never actually heard anyone, in real life; or offline, recommend, suggest; or even say one single positive thing about AirDrop essentially since its release.
I've seen lots of people, many non-technical, suggest, recommend, request and use AirDrop.
Anecdotally, I've only had issues when trying to transfer large videos and annotated PDFs (music sheets and from within a specific music app).
I often use airdrop to transfer small, one off files like PDFs or images. For larger files I transfer through my NAS. I’ve never had any issues using airdrop. I wonder if it’s because people are trying to transfer gigs of data using it.
Airdrop was amazing when it first came out with MacOS. It really just worked. Our lab of mostly Mac users stopped using USB drives to share stuff.
Then they released a new version of it to be compatible with iOS and enable all the continuity and handoff stuff.
Then all the problems started. It simply wouldn’t work. Devices couldn’t be discovered, files couldn’t be sent. Handoff would eat half written emails. The problem was due to the replacement of mDNSresponder with discoveryd which they eventually rolled back.
In fairness it’s been fixed for some time now and I’ve got no more problems with it.
AirDrop is - by far and large, especially in the Apple ecosystem - the single most unreliable, almost guaranteed-not-to-work piece of software I’ve used.
It works - for me - with any combination of Macs; old or new, desktop or laptop, on any given network configuration; in any location - about 3 or 4 out of ten times I give it a shot.
It’s honestly baffling to me how Apple has for more than a decade shipped a major feature that works easily less than half the time in my experience and my co-workers. Coworkers and I mostly completely avoid it at this point; and if we do actually give it a try, it feels more like praying to a God for rain than actually trying to use a piece of software.
I really have to wonder what has made it just so, brutally; unusably broken, for more than a decade.
Same experience here. I've been using Macs and iOS devices for over a decade, and while I cannot say that it never works, I could count the successes on one hand (granted, I don't try very often after so much failure). I've even tried setting the "allow me to be discovered by" option to "everybody", and it still fails.
Maybe the problem is me, but I'm good at computers. I can make them do almost anything else in the catalog. Airdrop is a glaring exception.
I use the files app to move stuff to either a cloud storage (google drive, whatever) or a Samba share. Or, because I'm fancy, a Samba share pointed at a mounted cloud storage directory. :) That seems to work ok.
It is inexcusably obnoxious to do without iCloud, thanks to iOS' hamstrung file system & APIs, plus lightning being stuck on USB 2.0 speeds. But I think this is why the iPad Pro is on USB-C now: so you can hook up an external hard drive with all your bigass files.
I'm surprised they haven't added support in Finder for the iPad to just show up with direct access to its file directory. Surely you must be able to directly move files between an iPad and a Mac that don't require going over Airdrop or iCloud?
Current best practice would depend on what you are trying to do exactly.
But overall the fastest way to transfer files to/from iPad (both in terms of ease/speed of use, as well as the actual transfer speeds) is just hooking up an external drive (whether it is a flash drive or an ssd) and transferring files using Files app (aka the file browser app preinstalled on all iOS/iPadOS devices). Note: this relies on the assumption that you have an iPad with USB-C (aka pro models and some recent non-pro models).
Wow, huge. Can’t wait to try Logic Pro. The iPad is a fantastic device for music making in many ways with lots of amazing apps, but I’ve never been happy with any of the “full fat” DAW options. Hopefully Apple have nailed the usability and flexibility - $49/year is a reasonable price to pay in my mind if so.
Neat....although sad that it's via a subscription model, rather than buying the program outright.
That said, what's the point of this? Everyone works off laptops already, even people new to A/V production. Especially in the audio world, laptops are just so much more convenient because you can host 3rd party plugins and other stuff like sample libraries. Can't do that on an iPad, can you?
I work in the video world, and video editors have been asking for something like Final Cut Pro on the iPad for ages. They often used iMovie but wanted something more, so they'd start in iMovie on their iPad because they had it on them, then later when they hit something they couldn't do in iMovie, they'd move the project to their Mac and import it into FCP. It was a bit of a pain. And obviously Apple isn't the only one who thinks that. Davinci released an iPad app a few months ago. (Or announced it, anyway. Not sure if it's available yet.)
For fun, I've used GarageBand on the iPad, and it's great! I use Logic on my Mac for actually writing and recording, but I do think it would be great to have something more powerful than GarageBand on my iPad. Sometimes I hit a wall on the iPad and have to move over to Logic on the computer. It would be nice to not have to switch like that right when I'm in the middle of working.
To a certain extent you have to ask what does a one-off purchase of an App mean any more. We got to a point on desktop where you could buy a windows XP application and it'd last forever, and that's fine. Or even a OS X application for several years. But mobile operating systems are still a treadmill. If you buy the app what are you getting? This version and no updates? That's not how iOS works. Will it support future iOS versions? Do you get the new features? Can you install it on a new device if you buy a new device? You bought it one off, if a new version of iOS comes out and the old app isn't supported what do you do?
I've seen a trend of recording studios using ancient computers with versions of Logic from like 2005, with big signs taped to the wall warning against connecting to the internet or installing any updates.
In some ways, the lack of updates can be a feature. I'm sure we've all been frustrated by updates that break our workflows, deprecate useful functionality, or inadvertently degrade performance.
A lot of them are still on Final Cut Pro 7, Soundtrack Pro, Color which don’t work on newer macOS’s. That version of FCP was the last before the magnetic timeline redesign IIRC. Perhaps also the last to work with DV tapes?
This probably builds a brand reputation for the product of being old and shit. While the subscription product is always delivering the newest and best experience to everyone.
This is only an issue on one operating system. Purchasing an application on Windows still comes with absolutely none of this worry. You can still use applications that are decades old on Windows 11. It's very odd that this is now accepted as a norm that is inevitable, rather than an obvious and avoidable disadvantage of Apple's ecosystem.
This is only the norm on Windows 11 because Microsoft has dedicated themselves to backwards compatibility, something that very much hampers the rest of the OS - in that Windows 11 uses much fewer resources if you rip out WinSxS and 32 bit application support https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34654649.
There is a whole audio plugin ecosystem on iOS (AUv3), but I think your point still stands.
Anecdotally, I use my iPad for music production, but it’s a very different kind of context and process from what I do on my Mac. On the laptop, I’m typically producing full tracks in Ableton Live, while on my iPad, it’s more “jamming” in apps like Drambo or AUM, something closer in spirit to a “DAWless” hardware setup.
Logic Pro on iOS doesn’t hold any appeal for me as that’s just not the kind of workflow I value the iPad for.
I use iMaschine, GarageBand and occasionally FL Studio Mobile on my iPhone. All great apps, but all are limited. Can't beat using Live on the desktop/laptop.
Great for getting one's feet wet, or for ideas that spring to mind when you hear something cool on the street or on the train or whatever. Hear something, record it, manipulate it, and make a quick beat or riff on the spot.
However, like you, that's just a small part of the process, and if one wants to do something more with the sound they recorded, it needs to be moved to a more powerful platform - in this case a laptop. A DAW on the iPad is neat, but kind of stuck between usecases.
I have the same workflow as you, using Drambo or AUM, but I do love the idea of being able to "finish" a track on the iPad. Granted the laptop will probably always be more powerful and perhaps a better interface for precision editing, but to be able to do it all on the go on one very portable device would be pretty cool IMO.
I doubt the truth of this statement, especially for younger people. When you look at iPad revenue compared to Mac revenue it's plainly obvious that Apple sells more iPads than Macs.
I subscribe to a YouTube vlog where the creator is seen editing their videos on an iPad, not a laptop or desktop computer.
I learned how to get work done on a personal computer because my parents had a family personal computer. There were no tablets or smartphones.
That's not how kids today are growing up: they're growing up with tablets and phones, and even their schools are mostly providing tablets for schoolwork.
Well, yes you can, and this move hopefully will relax whatever limits are on the AUv3 hosts now. You already have FabFilter, Klevgrand and many more, Modartt has anounced Pianoteq for iOS, so plugin situation is good (and prices are way lower than on desktop). AUv3s such as Pure Synth or AudioLayer already support streaming sample libraries from external SSDs. So that situation is not bad either. Of course there is no Kontakt, Serum, Melodyne or RX, but until now there was no serious DAW either (Cubasis and Auria Pro lack a lot compared to Logic or Bitwig)
Actually having equivalent tools on iPad and Macbook, i'd pick ipad for two reasons: stability (newer MacOS versions are not fantastic) and touchscreen (can't map everything)
Now, if only Apple would finally make iDAM full duplex, so that it would be possible to use either ipad or mac as a plugin host.
Interesting- I'd much rather pay the perpetual fee.
At home, I run a 13 year old Mac Mini in my studio. Everything DAW related on it still works, and it's all compatible with each other. This is quite common in many studios I've worked in. It's not unusual to be running 10-15+ year old machines. Everything is updated as far as it's ever going to go on that hardware.
I do like the Jetbrains model where there is a perpetual fallback license. It think that would be a good balance for software like DAWs.
That setup is using an Apogee Duet Firewire. I had an original digidesign mbox (USB 1!) hooked up to the Mini before that.
The original Duet stopped getting driver updates a few years back. For a while, apogee had a trade-in deal if you sent them your old firewire interface, but then I would have had to update hardware + software to support it.
The last update I did was OSX from 10.11 to 10.13, and this was partly to keep some of the project work synchronizing with dropbox.
At this point I'm kind of just keeping this system alive to get through my latest project and observing the first few years of Apple Silicon before I build a new system.
I don't think the concern is that the subscription doesn't bring value. Just that it builds no equity. Once the renting agreement ends, you lose all the access you once had, not just access to future things to come.
(edit: I don't know if this is actually true of Final Cut Pro's model)
Right, but that's the tradeoff and it's a good tradeoff for many.
If you only need Final Cut Pro for a 2-month project, it's amazing because you'll save so much money.
And any time you need it again, you just resubscribe. You're never losing access permanently, it's just $5 away.
The point is that the flexibility and ongoing updates are a more beneficial tradeoff.
A lot of people (like myself) simply don't care about owning equity in software, so we have eternal access. It's just a tool, and it loses value over time without updates anyways.
> It's just a tool, and it loses value over time without updates anyways.
Why? It will continue to do exactly the same thing. If that thing had no value to you why are you getting it?
Edit:
> Because the world moves forward. Something that might have worked well 5 years ago but has had no updates or improvements to keep up with competition is ultimately not as useful as it once was.
>It will continue to do exactly the same thing. If that thing had no value
The parent poster you're replying to wrote "loses value" not "no value".
As an example, I have the last version of Adobe Creative Suite CS6 ($2599) that had a permanent license with CDs instead of subscription download but that came out in 2012. Over the last 11 years, that old software has continually lost value.
The old version cannot easily be installed on newer macOS versions after Catalina. I can't freeze my os version at Catalina to satisfy Adobe CS6 because other tools like the latest Xcode and Logic Pro forces you to upgrade to newer macOS versions. I can't freeze Xcode at an old version because Apple's App Store rejects apps built by old versions of Xcode. And then you have the lack of desirable new features. E.g. the old Premiere Pro in CS6 can't open newer ProRes HDR HLG files.
The rest of the world around a particular software changes which then affects its value.
So "owning the software forever" doesn't necessarily translate into continually using it forever in a practical way.
It will continue to do exactly the same thing…on exactly the same hardware and OS. Chances are that in several years, you’ll be using newer hardware and a newer OS. So the old software might not work at all. Or, it might work, but not use new hardware capabilities. An example of this is old X11 software: it runs on a modern Mac, but is unaware of Retina displays so it looks horrible.
Because the world moves forward. Something that might have worked well 5 years ago but has had no updates or improvements to keep up with competition is ultimately not as useful as it once was. Depending on how good other software has gotten, it very well could be a case of wasting money by not switching over depending on how much you value your time.
It's generally better for your finances to not pay 100% of a committment today if interest on payments is below the immediate return of how you'd otherwise use the money.
The way we use a platform over time changes, as does options in the market and the way a business treats that platform. If we can export and keep our IP that was developed through the platform, it's not a bad thing to have the option to cut and run without having sunk purchase costs.
It also provides a signal for the business's product team to use with finance to argue for how to continue updating the product. Ongoing engagement metrics and new conversions are continually reviewed. How those change with the release of, or marketing of, different features directly drives the development of the platform—it should in the best case see a more useful product in our hands over time.
That's true but I think a lot of professional users prefer the service model for cash flow (and maybe tax?) reasons. For those users, maybe a monthly service fee is better than purchasing?
I feel like folks on HN (many of us developers ourselves) give this theory too much credance. Subscription pricing may be necessary to finance continuous development, but that doesn’t mean it will. Many developers (particularly larger corporations like Adobe) have taken advantage of this perception to see how much money they can squeeze out of people while making… fewer updates than their users are paying for (to put it nicely). I’m sure there are indie developers who get away with this too (although I feel less bad about that).
I’m not totally against this way of thinking, but I do think we need to start presenting it as the double-edged issue it currently is, not the fresh perspective it used to be.
Agreed, and further I don't think I buy the premise that without updates it won't work. For SaaS that's definitely true. For some desktop software that's true too, but it's true far less than we make it out to be nowadays. I have a handful of Android apps that got updated in a direction I didn't like that I still run and still run fine (sometimes dropping server supported features like old PocketCasts before the NPR acquisition) even though they haven't been updated in years. For apps that don't rely on server support this is nearly always true.
I agree, and that’s a good argument for an alternative icing model that includes a one time payment for a version, I think jetbrains does this (and a discount on subsequent update patches)
"As many readers here probably understand from first hand experience, software isn’t a final product (typically)."
But then Logic Pro for the mac has been a one time purchase for me since Logic Pro X and has been religiously updated every year with tons of new content and features. Probably to empower Mac sales, which is a boost that they feel the iPad does not need.
no, i can see into the past and you're being disingenuous. this is the current way that older apps are supported, and compared to android, apple provides longest support for older os versions. the ones that are not supporten anymore get to keep (and download) the latest compatible version of the app. i had a device where i tested that.
Yeah, subscription sucks. $200 bucks for Logic and Final cuts desktop is such a nice deal. Final Cut used to be like $1000+ bucks and Logic $800+ or something.
Subscription. I'm out. I already paid for these softwares on Mac and I don't get even a discount in the price. I was expecting some kind of upgrade option.
I don't think it's aimed at the same market. I mean: I can run large sample libraries on my MBP, but I don't see that happen any time soon on an iPad. There's not enough disk space, and I don't see the whole NI library eco-system adapt itself to iOS (let alone custom players like EastWest or Spitfire).
But it's a great option for people who've outgrown GarageBand.
Maybe just release and sell a complete and polished product? And add significant value to that product again before asking for more money? What about the notion of having enough pride and confidence in your work that you can make a solid value proposition regularly, and not yoke your customers to you permanently with a nebulous agreement?
Also, practically, consumers in the audio software market are more savvy and have higher expectations than those in other markets. In particular, they expect a fair ownership model (something provided by many plugin and DAW shops, big or small), and are wary of subscriptions and things like them. Perpetual licenses are the norm - in fact, even things uncommon in other software markets like the ability to resell your licenses are often provided due to market pressure.
Some people do not need the updates, some will pay a fair value for the updates. Nobody is asking for non-subscription software to be priced the same as the subscription.
Bottom line is that the App Store not having upgrade pricing has forced everything to become a subscription.
As a user, fuck subscriptions. Subscriptions just cause me to move all my tooling to open source variants over time. Developer livelihood is not my concern.
Maybe OSS with a Pateron-style model is the way forward?
Well in this case it's not the same software, it's a touch-optimized iPad version so the original comment demanding a discount for having purchased the Mac version is...well, yeah
Let's ask the few decades of software developers/publishing houses who managed to make respectable incomes without requiring this subscription rent seeking nonsense.
This is Apple we are talking about, this is greed-based.
Why would you want to use iPad version if you already using it for Mac? It’s a big pain due to the file system and storage limitations. The ipad version is aimed more at non professional use but still giving them professional features. Would never touch ipad version, totally different use case. You won’t see Hollywood types saying I’m gonna use this because, because it’s touch screen
If you just want to sketch ideas, garage band could be enough. I mean both a Mac and iPad are quite portable, but i do see if you just want to professionally develop music on the cheap, iPad it is, you will have a hard time with the screen size however if you want to anything with many instruments and tracks
Yea, granted. I don't have any issues carrying my m2 air about for writing but it's still a bit cumbersome vs. ipad and I'll be trying out the new version for sure. Just seems complimentary rather than binary.
As someone who started editing videos in the early 2010s when Final Cut Pro X was a beta and Final Cut Pro 7 was extremely expensive, I think the age of charging for video editing software is already over. FCP X was only $300. These days you can use DaVinci Resolve for free. Plenty of very good videos by independent creators on YouTube or TikTok are produced without spending a single cent on video editing software.
I think Apple will regret this pricing decision and make the software free (as in beer) in a few years' time. I mean I paid for iWork 09 and iLife 09 and I was livid when Apple made them free but still I think that's the trend of where things are going.
Subscription models for creative software is the worst thing in the industry. 10 years down the line when you get a blast of nostalgia and you want to open a couple of songs you wrote, and you even have the laptop in a drawer. OH! None of my programs work anymore.
It's a fine model if both models are available. You might spend some $ for some months to try it out, then you decide to buy it. But what they really want is for you to never ever stop paying, because you have a bunch of files and works you did that you "just might" have to open soon so you might as well keep the sub running...
Yes. The software will not receive updates forever. The Ipad will not receive updates forever. One day, this software will force the user to buy more Apple devices to continue using it.
Adobe subscriptions are nice examples of bad management, no long standing significant bug was fixed and they mostly seem to add toys around the fringes (cloud based neural filters for example)
Adobe can't ever change any of their old filters for compatibility reasons (or because they believe they're "not really broken".)
Approximately all the math in Photoshop is wrong because it's not done in linear colorspace, the image resizing algorithms were bad for 1980, etc, but they can't change them.
Lightroom introduced a new better ML demosaic for raw photos, but they can't just replace the old one, instead it's a different "enhance photo" option.
Well, I can still use my old polycarbonate MacBook from 2008 with the old version of Aperture I bought indefinitely, at least until the hardware breaks and is no longer repairable.
If Apple decides to stop supporting the subscription based Logic Pro, I'd no longer be able to continue using it.
But why would Apple stop supporting a subscription product that brings in revenue?
You've unintentionally alluded to the reason why single-purchase software is such a flawed business model. If I buy a piece of software from a company that's using a one-time purchase business model, I basically have to expect them to go out of business or constantly be on life support because their only revenue comes from new customers. Once their market is saturated, they're done.
Persistent licenses are really still licenses, not truly buy it and keep it forever product. The time scale is just longer. Aperture was discontinued, so now it's a matter of "good luck finding a machine that still runs it." While it's great that you got to keep the software forever, that doesn't guarantee the software has value anymore.
Almost all of the purchased objects in our life degrade in some way, whether it's fast or slow.
Also, I think that Apple's persistent license professional suite was priced well below cost to attract users to the Mac platform. In contrast, these are applications that are intending to turn a profit on their own.
> now it's a matter of "good luck finding a machine that still runs it." While it's great that you got to keep the software forever, that doesn't guarantee the software has value anymore.
On a system that can be virtualized the software may very well run forever.
I can virtualize Disk Defragmenter on a Windows 98 VM, but what value does that have?
I can virtualize Visual Studio ‘97, but what value does that have?
The examples of old pay-once software that has no value to today is basically endless. Even the ones that still have value eventually get an open source competitor that surpasses them.
For example, Gimp is certainly better than some very old versions of Photoshop, and a modern Linux distribution is better than an old version of Windows (even if you believe Windows 11 to be the best OS currently available).
It's probably a bold assumption that you wouldn't be able to continue using it, Apple likely realizes that this would screw people who bought the device specifically for that purpose; should just be as simple as changing a sub expiry date to a thousand years from now if the shit does hit the fan.
Furthermore, if it shares the same codebase as the macOS version, why would it cease development now that they share a common architecture? If anything, that would likely mean Apple had gone tits-up.
I don't think Apple is comparable to any other corp, they're in a unique position of making the only hardware that officially runs the software they make and they also make industry leading software.
I'm not even an Apple user. I'm just calling it as I see it.
All corporations have things in common, at the very least legally, and more.
Nvidia, for example, meets the requirements too.
Why you would trust a company not to increase prices because they make their own hardware I am not sure.
I remember a bus company undercut by a new train service. The train was very affordable until the private bus service disappeared. Then, the price gouging started.
If we can compare that service with a SaaS I don‘t see why apple would be any different.
They're not much different, they just run on a different time scale.
Even if your same application continues to work forever, one of the following will happen:
- Complementary software evolves. E.g.: My old photo editor doesn't support new image compression formats
- Alternatives become more attractive. E.g.: I paid for a copy of Sublime Text but now I prefer VSCode because of its additional functionality, my old copy of Photoshop CS2 works fine but the new one will save me time during XYZ workflow compared to the old version.
- The utility of the application is exhausted. E.g.: I already played this single player game 10 times and it's not fun anymore, my copy of Final Cut Pro 6 can't produce 4K HDR movies that my customers demand.
I have versions of Paint Shop Pro from the 90s that can open JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, etc. files.
I have used versions of After Effects of similar vintage. Premier and AE were doing 4K back then because that’s what Hollywood needed for their productions. Illustrator and Photoshop are mostly functional.
Likewise, my Nikon camera from 2011 doesn’t stop working just because it’s old. The tools in my garage are no less effective because home additive manufacturing exists.
If there's anyone who may take issue with your assertion that the software will continue to get updates and new features and bug fixes, I think it would coincidentally be Logic MacOS users. FCPX still gets some good attention, but Logic; the good things you could say about it are that it still works how it has, and you don't have to pay a subscription fee.
If a subscription fee is what it takes to get some attention then so be it; $5/mo is certainly reasonable. But I wouldn't assert it as a foregone conclusion.
Who cares about top-of-the-line updates. Adobe Photoshop features from 10 years ago is all I need for my use case, and probably anyone who's not using it every day. That's why they force subscriptions now.
In my experience browser based apps are sooooo slow compared to native ones.
Also no offline support at all.
And they have access to all of my data because I have to upload it.
I just want to use lightroom to edit my vacation photos, I don't want to upload all of my photos over my slow internet connection just to edit them in a high-latency browser app. Also I'm likely traveling in a vehicle without stable internet.
Although I understand the reasoning, I’m sad to see the move to subscription pricing.
I bought Final Cut and Logic a long time ago in the Mac App Store, and now my kids get to use them through Family Sharing. One of them has written hundreds of songs in Logic and published an album.
The one-time purchase of Final Cut and Logic with Family Sharing and a lifetime of upgrades has been such an unbelievable value for such powerful software.
It’s not. I bought FCP X in 2011 for $299. If you are just counting my own usage, that is $25/yr over the last 12 years, but I get to keep using for many more years, and both my kids use it through family sharing as well, so we are down to $5/year per person or less, without having to mess with yet another subscription.
I used to work on a competing product, and subscription pricing will work better for most people who are in this market, so my personal use case is an outlier I know.
Edit: all that said, I’m excited to be the first person to subscribe to Logic on the iPad. I hope that subscription is Family Sharing enabled as well!
The cost may be cheaper over $time_period (debatable), but in one case you have fully functional software and in the other you have nothing.
I know Adobe has “proven” pros will take subscription software and like it, but for every day users who like to mess around now and then, I have no interest in a perpetual subscription.
Hm.. I have had Logic (OSX) for a while. It wasn't cheap but it was fairly priced. And they supported all you can eat upgrades (admittedly, not very many major versions). Sort of a bummer that it's a subscription model on iOS.
That said, it's totally worth $49/yr if it's part of your workflow.
For me, I'll just continue use a MacBook, until I can't.
I'm still a bit skeptical about Logic's ability to be a full-featured DAW on the iPad. The move is great, but we need to tackle several challenges to make it suitable for final editing rather than just a work support tool:
- It needs to have open and comprehensive plugin support
- The workflow for uploading and exporting content needs to be seamless, and the iPad OS is still limited in this regard
- Screen size and real estate are still a concern
- Ready-to-use ecosystems for operating with the iPad, such as interfaces, audio monitors, etc., need to be developed.
I love the idea of being able to record, create, edit, and mix on the go, but I've kind of moved away from the DAW paradigm on tablets. Today, I focus my workflow on a Dawless idea, with the M8, Digitakt, Organelle, OP-1, and several other devices. More expensive? Definitely! But it fits my creative mode.
> It needs to have open and comprehensive plugin support
iOS has a thriving plugin scene, using the AUv3 (Audio Unit) format. Search the App Store for "AUv3" and check out the huge range of synths, effects, etc. In addition to smaller devs, there are some big players who have ported their flagship plugins (FabFilter, Eventide etc.)
> The workflow for uploading and exporting content needs to be seamless, and the iPad OS is still limited in this regard
It is much better since Files was added to iOS, though still a bit clunky. Their page (https://www.apple.com/logic-pro-for-ipad/) advertises "roundtrip compatibility" so hopefully they've made this easy
> Screen size and real estate are still a concern
Definitely a valid point, maybe this is the catalyst for a 15" iPad!
> Ready-to-use ecosystems for operating with the iPad, such as interfaces, audio monitors, etc., need to be developed.
Any class-compliant USB device will work with an iPad (or iPhone), so most audio interfaces, MIDI keyboards, etc. should be good to go. It only won't work if it requires a custom driver
Plugin vendors should get on board pretty quickly.
However, I expect them all to follow suit and use a subscription model. But this may be preferable than shelling out a couple hundred up front for each one. Vendors that have lots of virtual instruments will likely have attractive bundle subscription prices.
> skeptical about Logic's ability to be a full-featured DAW
It won't be full-featured - it doesn't have to be to make a huge impact. For example, as a new platform for live performances, it will be pretty awesome.
Holy f**… how on earth will any other DAW vendor compete with that price? Logic already was crazy cheap, but now the price really just seems to be to boost iPad sales.
It’s amazing what you get for $5/month here. But I’m a bit worried about innovation if everyone gets used to these prices.
Yeah, but Reaper is nowhere as comprehensive as other DAWs in the field.
I just haven’t seen much new lately. Of course, nobody needs 10 more compressor plugins, but I also haven’t really seen any innovation in Logic either.
I’d like to see more competition. And I think it’s tricky at this price.
This is great, but why not just have Garage Band work the same / be the same on both platforms?
I'm a PC user; few years ago I realized how great iPad GarageBand was for playing around. Like an idiot, I literally purchased a used MacBook so I can edit my iPad travelling doodles at home with big screen as well, only to realize that they are different software with different capabilities and you cannot seamlessly copy projects from one to another.
I openly admit I'm an idiot for jumping in like that, but for all the discussion on how user friendly and seamless Apple ecosystem is, I still don't think it was a ridiculous assumption to make :-/
Logic Pro is required to do what you’re asking. (If you wrote the initial track on iOS then you need to import the iOS GarageBand file to Logic first) [1]
However, it works great and I’ve enjoyed tweaking my (desktop Mac) Logic projects on iOS GarageBand for years.
You cannot? Huh I am an Apple ecosystem guy and the assumption that GarageBand on iPadOS and GarageBand on macOS will be compatible is really a reasonable one; I would think it’s the case!!
It really says a lot about the future of editing. Everyone doing it on their phones is growing up showing us what editing packages are going to look like… and it’s something like this. Big screen, touch interface, more fluid work flow, definitely going to be ai assisted… it’s interesting timing.
I feel like Apple is going to do the magic they did for spell checking with the iPhone keyboard for professional video editing. Might take them a while but this fcp finally evolving to the iPad feels like the bellwhether.
Anyone else see the trend? 3-4 generations down the line probably. But do you see it?
Can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or not? Apple products have been used to write articles / produce videos for decades, not sure why this is different on an iPad?
Logic will do for now, but I really want MainStage for the iPad. MainStage is one of the best collections of synths you can get, much less for $29, and being able to gig with it small touch-screen hardware like an iPad mini would be incredible. I'm all in on Android, but would but an iPad just for music.
I read that it works on >= M1 processor. It is at the end of [1] before the footer:
"Final Cut Pro for iPad is available on the App Store. Requires an iPad with Apple M1 chip or later and iPadOS 16.4 or later. Downloading apps requires an Apple ID. To subscribe to Final Cut Pro for iPad you must have an internet connection."
That is currently iPad Pro and iPad Air (10.9" display).
According to the product pages[1][2], no for Final Cut but yes for Logic.
> You can install Final Cut Pro for iPad on your 12.9-inch iPad Pro (5th or 6th generation), 11‑inch iPad Pro (3rd or 4th generation), or iPad Air (5th generation) with iPadOS 16.4 or later.
> You can install Logic Pro for iPad on any iPad with the A12 Bionic chip or later and iPadOS 16.4 or later.
BTW, what is a good online course to learn about video editing and music for using these apps? Not looking for being Mozart or Steven Spielberg though... just to play with some extra knowledge.
Echoing other comments explaining why this release is a good development … If you need headphones or a speaker to hear sounds you create, you are not the target demographic.
His point (that you and the other commenters are intentionally ignoring) is that he could be the target demographic, if Apple had made their mobile platform a little more flexible/"pro".
As the years go by, the entirely different OS for tablets vs laptops which at first seemed like the only route to get a quality experience seems like a huge misstep now the tablets all have keyboards and trackpads stuck to them when used for work.
Allegedly this supports audio interfaces, so I presume it's supposed to able to be used for recording. What kind of latency can be achieved by ipad hardware? This announcement is mysteriously quiet about that.
When I have a bit of time later this evening I'll plug my presonus into the my ipad and see if any of the daws I have on there can measure it. It's not an m1 ipad though - 2018 pro.
There are a few reasons that I am excited for this, none of which have to do with actually using logic pro or final cut on an ipad.
1. This is an excellent signal that iPads can get "real" software now, hopefully more companies start porting their desktop mac software to iPadOS
2. Apple will continute to keep MacOS and iPadOS separate rather than trying to combine them like a lot of people on the internet think they want, which is good.
3. WWDC is going to be an absolute banger this year if they are announcing something like this in a press release.
> Even assuming all the required horse power is there, I still don't get it...
Looks like the latest generation of iPad Pro and MacBook Air have comparable CPU benchmarks.[^1][^2]
I'm with you in not getting it, though. Editing video on an iPad seems like it'd be a frustratingly constrained affair due to the UI. But I might just be getting old too.
There is a great app for iPad called LumaFusion, which is very similar to Final Cut. I tried using an iPad Pro for a couple of weeks when it came out, to see if it can replace a laptop or desktop.
Biggest problem was ergonomics. So incredibly bad ergonomics to work on an iPad, even with the pen. Impossible to work without strain in neck and arm.
So I'm back to Macbook and I will never again attempt to edit video on an iPad.
I'd love it if they opened the iPad up to tools like Rogue Amoeba's Loopback[1], because a tool that allows audio capture from the device is critical for any sampling workflow.
I'm not holding my breath, but that would complete the dream, for me.
A subscription for Logic is nuts. It's already $300 software for the Mac. I would be fine paying another one-time fee if it meant I had it forever on my iPad. It really is stellar software, as evidenced by it's two-decade presence in the industry, but to move to subscription feels very... un-Apple (at least in this Professional Media Software context).
It's $199. It's only ever been $499 until 2013, when the price suddently dropped to $199, and it has been that ever since.
Logic Pro is ridiculously cheap compared to most other DAW out there. There aren't tiers, there's no upsell to unlock basic features like unlimited tracks, it's just a full featured DAW, the end. Heack, a license for the "full feature, but not bundle-padded, version of X" costs:
- Renoise: $75 (and is the only tracker-style DAW)
- Tracktion Waveform: $149
- FL Studio: $199 (thankfully)
- Reaper: $225 (unlimited commercial license, by the time you need this, you already have seven other DAW already, too)
- Cubase: $329
- Studio One: $399
- Bitwig Studio: $399
- Ableton: $449
- Reason: $499
- Pro Tools: $499
So it's a great deal!
...
...but...
...$199 is also extreme expensive for people who bought a second hand mac, or have a hand-me-down ipad, and don't have two hundred dollars to casually spend on something they never played with because it's been out of reach due to a sky-high price. A subscription for Logic is the complete opposite of nuts. At $5 a month, someone can use Logic for 40 months before it would have been cheaper to buy it up front. That's more than three years, but which time you either know this is what you love, or you stopped using it already and moved on to another hobby. Heck, at $45 a year, that's four or even five years. Plenty of time to get your priorities straight and start saving if audio work brings you joy.
The audio crowd got used to incredibly high prices for software, $100+ for an app or even plugin is considered "normal", and has made it completely impossible for kids or just people without disposable income to get into. Everyone knows this, which is why everyone who actually cares to get those folks into their ecosystem either dropped their prices, or now offers a subscription model in addition to buying a perpetual license for a specific version.
And in an ecosystem where subscriptions are $9.99/mo (which they pretty much all are), $5/mo is a power move.
I've been poor before and $200 one-time is WAY less expensive than $5/mo recurring. If I can't afford to save $200 I sure can't afford to pay $5 recurring. Recurring subscriptions are for the wealthy, not the poor, the poor can do just fine with freeware or some 10 year old version of whatever.
Paying a recurring monthly subscription isn't the only way to get a trial.
Sounds like you're not a kid to me. I didn't have $200 to spend until I was halfway through college. But I sure as hell would have been able to afford $5 a month.
I participated in the long and storied tradition of child labour to buy things I wanted.
If you didn't have any money to spend until halfway though college other than a surplus of $5/month, than by saving for $200 you likely would have doubled your disposable income and you would have left school with a Final Cut Pro license on top of that. I'm sure kids will buy it, and they're going to be worse for it than when they paid $200 for a license.
In any case, I can't emphasise enough how much paying a monthly subscription over a one time fee does not help the poor in general, at best it allows for you to shift expenses a few years down the road with low interest if you're some sort of temporarily embarrassed millionaire, which isn't the same thing as helping poor kids other than maybe some small niche. Being poor doesn't mean you should do more $5/month subscriptions, it means you can't get away with them nearly as much without getting punished by economic reality.
iPads have an archival problem already, and this just exacerbated it.
If I’m a studio and want to throw a project into a vault somewhere with hopes of retrieving it in a decade, the iPadOS/iOS software model makes it impossible to get back to a specific configuration without freezing a specific device.
Now throwing a subscriptionmm no on top of it, this is at best good for throw away projects that are done, pushed out, and never looked at again (from an editing perspective).
Film and TV scores in Logic from the early '00s regularly get opened for sequels, prequels, interquels, reboots, remasters et al. I don't use Logic anymore, but when I did, that's one of the things that impressed me.
Logic on iOS? Could be an entirely different story as it relies on other apps as plugins that may change. Just to err on the side of caution, assume that if it isn't saved as audio or MIDI, you'll probably be screwed.
I wanted to go iPad only for live music for a while, but found the supporting hardware to be lacking. (This was like five years ago.)
I spent money on a dock that would allow me two audio inputs (microphone and guitar for example) and a USB jack for plugging in an external MIDI keyboard. The experience was somewhat janky and unreliable. I wonder if that has changed.
Now one of the hardware companies needs to make a 2+/in/out digital audio interface _and_ usb c hub. Who needs this? The pro amateurs like me. I have a MiniFuse2 attached to a dongle with a synth and sometimes drum machine in there and it’s getting kind of wirey. It’s not as backpack friendly as it could be.
My money is on a larger iPad (think Microsoft Studio) that takes the place of an iMac. Likely 15” at first, larger later. I really enjoy a keyboard and trackpad with an iPad and an external monitor. This would be my only machine if I could run Xcode/Terminal on it.
I'm pretty excited about FCP and subscription model. I pay for Adobe CC and for videos, FCP always felt out of reach (couldn't justify spending $299) for me to tinker with and move past using iMovie for quick family edits.
I’m looking forward to seeing the feature set. I recently tried out a few of the iPad DAWs and wasn’t able to find anything that could even correctly record and edit MIDI and also automate tempo (like MacOS Logic Pro’s tempo track).
Davinci Resolve is arguably a better program, and is already available for the iPad. It is largely the same program as the desktop version, with a few exclusions that are actually easy to enable with a little research.
I am surprised to see these are subscriptions when the Mac versions are one-time purchases. I wonder if they will make the subscriptions work for both these new iPad versions as well as for the Mac versions of the apps.
I saw this "trend" long time ago. Switched to Resolve and Studio One.
Call me an old head, but there is something in using multiple displays and knowing that your software is platform-agnostic. :)
So is this "you buy it, you can now use it on MacOS and iOS"? Or is this one of those stupid "you buy it, and then you have to buy the for-iOS version separately a second time"?
My dream come true! but.. can't afford that at the moment. I'll just use Garageband which works well. Just don't take that away. We'll get along alright.
They just released Ableton Note for iOS, which is absolutely nothing like Live and clearly shares no code nor is meant to grow into it, so I wouldn't hold my breath that they plan anything else in that space soon.
A fun toy. Until the long list of third party pro audio interface drivers and plug-ins work on iPad, this will only be useful for the (large) prosumer market.
It would be killer if this supported Dante over Ethernet at 96khz.
Yes, but one of these was a plugin for $25/mo and the other is the whole damn tool to do your job for $5 a month on a device you couldn't run it on in the past. I expect it to not actually be bashed.
At first I was excited to see Logic pro on the Ipad but as soon as I saw subscription my excitement instantly died. I'll just stick with Garageband on the Ipad for my basic music needs.
Same thing happened with Adobe, I was a die hard Premiere pro fan and now I haven't used it in years since I moved to Davinci Resolve all because Adobe went all in on subs.
$5/mo is waaaayyyy less than I’ve paid for Ableton Live on average. It’s not in quite the same space as Logic Pro, but you can credibly lump them in as “professional music production software”.
I've been writing and recording music for 25 years. I wouldn't do it on an iPad if the app paid me. If there was ever a job that requires a mouse and multiple screens even more than coding and design, it's audio engineering. Try editing a piano roll with thousands of MIDI notes, adjusting thousands of automation points and fine tuning EQ settings on a touchscreen. The experience is terrible, and no software can fix that. A tablet is just the wrong tool for the job.
As a long time electronic music producer, I make sure once installed my primary software is never updated as a rule[0]. My flow doesn’t make bouncing everything to audio feasible and there is nothing worse than opening a project you have worked on for a few months to find that it sounds… different. Counter-intuitively, learning to predict and deal with crashes and working around known bugs on the fly is way easier than stopping everything and spending days debugging what exactly messed up your sound—you have a few hundred of interwired devices, and if it turns out that a small change in some arpeggiator timing algorithm or macro wiring, intentional or inadvertently caused by some improvement, is impossible to completely revert, lost inspiration aside you may feel some pretty dark emotions because the thing as you knew it is basically gone.
So while the App Store model of forced updates was barely acceptable in case of toys for sketching ideas like Figure, Reason Compact, iKaossilator, etc., with my primary DAW? and I have to pay for these updates, too? For as long as App Store offers no requisite controls, proper desktop software (and of course all hardware) will rule, and I know I’m not alone with such a flow.
[0] The only exception is if all tracks I started in this version were finished, and that never happens. Otherwise the new version gets installed on a new machine, I’m not in rush.
This is a reasonable concern; this would be worth raising to Apple if you have a channel to do so. Being able to pin apps to specific versions may indeed be a requirement if your livelihood depends on their stability.
Ableton on an old machine, Bitwig on a new machine. Got burned with Bitwig minor version update changing my sound, thankfully they keep links to older versions! I guess they know this may be an issue.
I agree with you but also desire a hybrid approach. I've just spent the last ten months nearly full-time doing audio post production for an independent tv/web series in Logic. I can't tell you how often I've wanted to reach into the screen and touch/drag/edit clips in a comprehensive-multitouch-kinda way.
You can take my mouse and keyboard from my cold dead hands, but a multitouch augmentation (beyond what the "magic trackpad" gets ya) could be insanely useful (hoping it's a part of the AR future).
I’m sure Apple would agree that particular workflow wouldn’t be good on an iPad. That’s why they emphasize the round trip capabilities with Logic on the Mac.
And really, the vast, vast majority of people doing recording, even “serious” recording aren’t doing what you described. There will be plenty of workflows that will be possible on the iPad that aren’t on a Mac. There are many different kinds and stages of audio production. Logic on the iPad is going to be great for some people.
But you’re not limited to the touchscreen. The iPad has excellent external mouse support. I’m using Apple’s folio keyboard/trackpad combo to type this right now, but any USB or Bluetooth mouse will work. Even gaming mice work.
If you don’t need a traditional cursor, you can just also use an Apple Pencil for precise pointing needs such as piano roll editing.
You haven't used Logic pro on the iPad yet. Maybe reserve judgement until you've tried it?
I would actually prefer to draw in automation with a touchscreen/apple pencil vs. mouse. And direct manipulation of effect/instrument knobs as well as mixers is good.
I’m sorry but not even the actors in the promo video in this announcement can sell the idea that video editing on a touch device is a good idea. No professional video editor will use Final Cut on the iPad. It’s horribly ineffcient.
It feels like Apple has no idea what to do with the iPad Pro. The product hasn’t evolved at all since 2018.
> It feels like Apple has no idea what to do with the iPad Pro.
100% this.
I have an iPad Pro. If I want to plug it into a projector via USBC or a Dock I must ALSO connect a Bluetooth speaker device as the iPad will not allow use the internal speakers on the iPad while connected to an external _display_ fucking madness.
yeah, because you want to use the internal speaker while watching the video on a projector screen ...
I understand what you are saying, and it sucks indeed, but there are other systems that have exactly the same 'problem' and in real life this is a problem for the minority of people. apple sells to the masses, and they will do what the majority of the people want/need/use. Sure, it sux if you dont fit in that group, but that has been the thing with most big vendors of things.
The internal speakers on my iPad Pro blow away any small sized Bluetooth speaker I have laying around.
What is the use case for an iPad Pro? To be used by professionals as a _portable laptop_. Presentations are probably one of the top use cases and Apple can’t even get it right.
If the iPad Pro is yet another consumption device then remove the bullshit pro moniker and just sell iPads.
Where is it written that a tablet is the same as a portable laptop?
iPad Pro not designed as portable presentation tool, it's designed to be a portable touch-enabled apple device that can be used for creative workflows.
The presentation setup, in apple's view, is an appletv connected to a tv and one or more HomePods for the audio. and you can use an iPad or iPhone or MacBook to cast to the screen+audio.
Like I said before, it sux if you dont fit into this group (which is the masses) but they are not alone in focussing just on the masses
> Where is it written that a tablet is the same as a portable laptop? iPad Pro not designed as portable presentation tool, it's designed to be a portable touch-enabled apple device that can be used for creative workflows.
Now you’re putting words in my mouth and appearing dense. I never said it was the _same_ as a laptop. I said it’s used similarly.
I have never once seen someone being “creative” on their iPad in a public setting. If you are correct and that is the use case for the masses we should see it being used as such everywhere. It is not.
The only thing I can say is that we are in different parts of the world.
Around me, a lot of people use the iPad to do drawings, animation, audio and video editing where a laptop or workstation is simply not possible because there's no desks / infrastructure to connect/power/store those products.
The macbooks are indeed used more by developers, but as soon as you get into the more 'creative' areas, the iPad + pencil for those kind of things wins big time.
As I said in another reply if you were forthcoming with the fact that you are basing your opinion in a vacuum (your environment) we most likely would have not went in circles. Instead you claimed “the masses” when in fact your area is a tiny percentage of iPad users worldwide.
It's a problem for anyone trying to give a presentation in an educational or office environment - local sound solutions on projectors in small offices and small classrooms are often (probably 70% of the time in my experience) non functional.
iPad speakers in a classroom is not going to cut it, they are nowhere near powerful enough. in an office environment you can use the tv audio, or the video conferencing unit (in my experience even a 10man shop has those). again, for the very small percentage of people that fall outside of the 'masses' it is a problem, and I totally understand that. But none of the big brands care about the use cases that are not the masses. So you can blame apple, but look around and blame all the others as well.
Small and some medium-sized classrooms it absolutely does cut it. If you're playing for a theatre-sized college classroom of course it wouldn't.
But also, why does that matter? If the speakers don't work (i.e. cannot be engaged while connected to a projector) but won't cut it for the classroom, why is that better than if they can work but aren't loud enough? At least in the latter situation the user has the option and can make a human judgment. The user is a hell of a lot more qualified in that situation than some dev/PM at Apple who thinks they always know better than the user.
You are right, and like I said, it for sure is bad that it wont work for the common use case.
Should it support your use case? YES! Does it? no. Is there some kind of fair explanation? also Yes. Wether you like it or not (and to be clear, I also dont like it, but at least I can understand why)
Yes, as I tried to make clear in my post I'm replying based on my experience, which is based on the area I live and work in.
Almost all of the places I went have Logitech video conferencing gear, which dont need a single driver or minute of setup, as they simply JustWork (either with Mac, linux or windows)
The iPad is no longer touch-only. Since Apple added support for pencil, mouse/trackpad and brought out more keyboards, the iPad is a multi-model input device.
True but it's not very good as a laptop replacement. It's much more expensive than an Air and can't run the same apps. While doing my research it seemed a lot of people either already had a laptop or preferred to have a laptop if they had to pick one.
This is coming from a Surface 5 user - I gave up eventually because it was never powerful enough, but it is a much better approach to multi-input laptop replacement since it can run anything.
It is not a laptop replacement. And apple does not design it to be one.
It's a very nice device to have next to your Mac Studio / Mac Pro to do your work while not at your desk. The creative possibilities of the iPad are spectacular. The ease of maintaining one is 100x bigger than a notebook.
it's simply another type of device, not a replacement.
> It's a very nice device to have next to your Mac Studio / Mac Pro to do your work while not at your desk.
I'm kinda curious - what does it do that my laptop can't? Am I missing out on anything by bringing a full computer with me when I have to work?
I've got an iPad (an older one) and it's just about completely useless for me. It doesn't support my file syncing app, it insists on using it's own file formats, it doesn't trust me to install apps and doesn't have enough builtin IO to charge and use a mouse at the same time. Lugging around a second Mac seems like a much more seamless experience to me.
1. Personally, an iPad for me is just another nice gadget. I'm a developer and I want my MacBook
2. The iPad has a lot of things less technical people prefer over a notebook:
2.1 - easy of / lack of - maintenance. It just works, you click the home button and it works, things are simply there
2.2 - battery life. iPad wins hands down from all other alternatives
2.3 - pencil. both for creative work as for boring office work and signing contracts
2.4 - games for the kids/pets. Roadtrip? waiting for the doctors appointment? anything? give them the iPad and have them kill time with $random thing
2.5 - support. No matter what the problem is, walk into an Apple Store and have it fixed. (I know some parts of the world have different service, but at least here in .nl its perfect)
I don't really see the iPad as a laptop replacement. My laptop (MBA) is a mobile workstation. I have a Mac Mini as a work computer, and I view my laptop as the mobile equivalent. But if I only need to consume content or do tasks like writing, drawing, or quick editing in this case, it's a suitable device. The reduced multitasking is a plus in this case, and I wish that Space and Stage Manager on the laptop were not that clunky.
N.B. I have the iPad Air 4, and it's quite light compared to the MBA. And I can use a smaller bag when going out.
This is basically the "no true Scotsman" argument. Your definition of professional video editor seems to not include people like YouTube/TikTok/Instagram content creators who are already "professionally editing" videos on their phones and iPads and making good money I might add.
From what I understand a large number of video people are wedding/event people...which makes sense, because there aren't that many TV shows. While I doubt they'll be editing on-site, now they can with their IPP instead of their MBP.
People work where they want to and jow they want to. If the tool works for you, go for it.
The promise has been there since stuff like 8tracks on the iPhone 3G, and various Audio Units already on iOS. But I’ve always found the workflow very limiting or clunky. (Edit: I’m a Logic Pro user on macOS so my comments reflect getting things into that specifically)
The divide from putting down an idea when it hits, to working it into something, has always been really high.
Having something where I can potentially work out an idea with just my iPad , and then take it to my desktop is really exciting to me.
FCPX seems neat as well. I doubt it’ll be something people use in touch mode, but I can see some folks using it for quick on the go edits for things like social media stings. Go to an event, shoot, edit and upload. I don’t see it being used for more than that level of work.
But also, as much as both the things I mentioned are very spur of the moment things, I think the real value here is having a step ladder through the ecosystem.
A lot of people, especially youths, only need an iPad for more of their computing use. Having more pro apps on the iPad signals to them that they can shift more of their computer life to it. A lot may just even need to add a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Conversely, the people who do want to use it more seriously after whetting their teeth on the mobile platform, will then see the Mac as the next logical stepping point.
It’s a smart way imho to get people on either side of the fence to consider the other side.