Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
How much % does Apple take from Developers? Do any of them make a living on apps?
Not talking about the big companies here - Korg, Moog, Novation etc.. I heard Apple takes 30% which is crazy, is this true?
Comments
it's rather humble given they provide the SDK (literally) for free and all worldwide business handling in their store
30% is not huge considering all the largest marketing platform, ecosystem, userbase and the exposure you get for your apps and quick sales if your app has substance. You upload your app and Apple takes care of the rest. Plus, reviews, ratings, etc. Other app stores have lower commissions but they hardly have any users and traffic. For instance, some popular developers gave up development of their apps on Windows app store making a statement that it is hard to make any money on those platforms! If you have to host a website to sell your apps on your own, setup payment gateways, support headaches, etc. that would take your time and focus away from doing what you are good at - developing apps - and developers are usually not good at marketing. I think in 2016, Apple reduced its cut to 15% on subscription products if the customer sticks to a subscription for a year or more. What is bad is the App Store fees ($99 a year) when you are starting out or if you have lower sales. Its the reason why many small developers have abandoned their apps to stop paying apple annual fees.
Creating a career out of App Store or YouTube is risky and unwise. Your account could get disabled by these companies one fine morning for some silly reason (click bomb, etc) and your career would go kaput! It has happened before to some and it could happen to anybody.
While the percentage is thoughtfully validated in the above comments - yes, Apple takes a 30% bump of every app purchase.
And while I don’t presume to know, I think most of “our” developers create apps as a side job - more out of the creative challenge of making something cool than thinking about paying the mortgage.
From what I understand devs can do better on iOS than on Android. The amount of work is far less and totally worth the 30% cut. All the same, I have no doubt that Apple doesn't need to take 30% and the iOS AppStore community would be much stronger if small-scale developers could earn more from their work.
What worries me more than the 30% share is the $99 every developer has to pay before even being able to learn to develop and use apps on their own iDevices.
$99 every year.
I wonder how many young and/or talented coders don't touch iOS development just because of the money asked.
Offering a free provisioning profile that is not only limited to 7 days but also won't allow for any publishing on the app store doesn't sound too exciting either.
Adding to this fact that quality audio apps only take a fractional percentage of all iOS apps, I can imagine that things would be different without this entry hurdle, but that's only my guess because I know two developers by chance who fall into this category.
The most successful and beautiful apps need a team of multiple specialists to create - coder, graphics designer, UI/UX designer, QA tester, database guy, etc. That's because generalists create mediocre apps that offer mediocre quality and experience which Apple is not about. If Apple removed the annual fees and allowed to publish apps for free, there would be a plethora of apps of all kinds, sizes, purposes and quality - that are not serious enough to make much sense. If a developer is experienced and serious, he will find a way to pay up $99. I said in my previous comment the $99 part was bad but this is one of their reasons.
There is an app called Yo - all it does it yell "Yo" on your friend's device
You can develop iOS apps and install them to your own iOS device without paying a $99 fee.
$99 a year is a problem? Reality check, folks. A junior dev makes 50k a year. A senior dev makes six figures. A goddamned laptop to do the dev is two grand minimum. $99 per year is mice nuts to a dev company, or even a single dev. The problem is the ridiculously low prices we all expect to pay, and the difficulty with charging for upgrades through the App Store; they can only happen as in app purchases. And 99 percent of users scream blue murder at the thought.
In addition, just learning to code in swift or objective c is completely free. Not a nickel needs to be spent. It’s only when you want to distribute something that it costs money.
I may be misinformed but last time I tried the app expired after 7 days so that's not an option.
Are you sure? The ones I know (devs of audio apps) mostly had to continue with their other job that pays for their living.
Given @rickwaugh meant pre-tax I second his figures for industry/business grade developement with a certain amount of 'creativity'.
That's why I never got into audio stuff. It's too time consuming for the amount of revenues to be expected (knowing a couple of quality and very affordable plugins that simply failed because there was no big famous label on them.
As mentioned the pro-audio segment is too small to comply with iTune's typical price scheme.
But it's a literal gold mine for stylish lifestyle and game stuff with low content.
In early days there was this ocarina thing for 99 cent (it played a sample in various pitches by tapping spots on the surface while you blew at the internal mic).
Estimated developement time for a beginner 14 days - it sold 50k copies in it's first month after release and went kind of viral. It was a gimmick (look what my iPhone can do), didn't need any support whatsoever, but returned 35k in just 1 month. Go figure...
Dunno if Angry Birds started on IOS, but it's an even more impressive example: given away for free (cross platform) it became the most downloaded app worldwide.
The established brand became worth millions within a couple of years.
50K per year is what some US devs maybe have. The countries are very different.
- all my effects have the same UI so it is made once and I can focus just on the sound features.
Also audio apps are not for the average developer. To be innovative in sound processing takes a good understanding of physics, mathematics and music. Also I had to make and support 70 apps (some on Android, some on iOS / Mac OS and few on Windows ) - to do this a lot of coding experience is needed. My guitar tabs editor alone is more than 80k lines of code so without experience it will be hard to remember your own work after 6 months of effects development. I also have to use optimisation tricks
I see the iOS as a chance to offer quality apps on a very affortable prices as the algorithms behind Protools plugins is not different or better than these inside AU but the price is bigger by factor of 10 or more. Of course protools have very limmited user base because of these prices. The iOS community is bigger but also limited - the problem here is that the apps end up inside a market with millions other apps and are lost.
I see a potential here as there are very much guitar players using my guitar editor and tuner apps but they do not look for AU effects. In fact most of these players do not know that they can play the guitar using the iPhone as an audio effect processor. And the companies behind the devices as iRig are not huge enough to make the change...
Time will show but for the moment the sales count is not enough to support such low prices as a sustainable model.
As customer in both markets i agree and disagree here. IOS is not really much cheaper. The thing is just developers have (or choose) to sell smaller apps and IAP to add on. With most (not all) desktop tools you get much more in the package......also you can demo, resell, upgrade prices etc.
I said it often and repeat....it´s mostly you get what you pay for.
But the entree price might look cheap. Also as great iOS apps are they are often not so useful and versatile if you try to integrate them in a certain workflow. In relation for what i get in terms of content, presets, support, upgrades etc. i didn´t pay more for my plug-ins at the end. I think that people really interested in music production knows that of course.
I also don´t believe the iOS market is as close as so big (if you only count music production apps).
Just look what´s at the top in the apps store at the music category.
I doubt things will change much since the customers are also different. Do people even want more pro apps? I don´t think so since they seems not to understand that this would need higher prices while they would get maybe even more value in a long term.
The truth is i thought iOS is THE thing when it started and grows but after the last years it´s just another thing in the big universe people can use and the iOS community often seperate themselves for some reason with terms like "iOS music". Often it´s a bit too much hype and developers are praised to heights as well. This is of course great and true in many cases but not that iOS developers are any more talented or great as the ones in the other market which often even make a living out of it instead doing it as a hobby or side project.
In general i think iOS is not a great market for the music app industry at all.
That doesn´t mean i like it and use it but it´s all not that great after some years as i expected it to be.
Yes it is.
You can of course install Pythonista: omz-software.com/pythonista/ That's €10,99 at the app store. As far as I know one of the few apps which gives you te possibility to write software with your iPad or iPhone. Of course it's an interpreter. But that doesn't matter that much, does it?
I can tell my experience. I was one of the first developers in Italy. I made an app, called egoFITNESS, that had good success. It was featured in many newspapers in Italy in 2009. I got some good money, but I also had to invest on technology to improve my app. First 2-3 years of iOS were incredible. I don’t mean from bedroom to billions, but everybody with a good idea and able to develop could get some money. Then big software houses came. Different iOS broke compatibility. There were many devices. One person alone cannot develop and live with money he gets from apps. I had to chose to continue my activity (I M sysadmin in a big Italian university) or create my small business, with developers, artists and so on. I thought the former was better for me. Now I am working on a psychology app, but in my spare time, and It is very difficult. Apart from learning Swift (I was an objective-c man), I have to create an intuitive interface, graphics, beta test my app, and I have a life, a work, a family, a one-year old child, and I also like playing music. So I would definitely say “no, you cannot make a living with apps”.
Regards
Interesting that you're mentioning, I own both v2 and v3 and although I love it for what it can do, it cannot:
If Apple allowed an app to access such SDKs, Pythonista could be a fantastic solution indeed, because Python is usually fast enough in most areas.
So for writing games or gimmicky apps that just spit out audio samples it works, but not for doing anything serious in the shape of audio apps.
Theoretically I could write my own version of LINK by talking to UDP sockets and implementing my own pythonic LINK version, but that sounds like planning to shoot myself in the foot.
If folks are choosing to create their own work and market and sell it themselves, then they take the risk that they're not going to make much money. That's business. If they work for a studio, that's what they get paid. Being a programmer is an excellent paying job. So if they are making nothing for writing unwanted or niche software, that's a business decision they have made. Lots of people making lots of money on mobile software.
That's a pity. Are there no other ways to call those functions? Can it be done by Javascript (not saying that would be the first choice)?
Sometimes.... not always!!
If you mean as entree about non-free tools. Yes, maybe. But that‘s just one side to see it.
Otherwise it‘s not always true. Especially not if you could get most iOS apps functions as free tools.
It´s only true for exact the same tools you get on both platforms and also there are some things like more content and options for later upgrades and/or resell a license etc.
It´s all relative.
You get what you pay for again!
If all I need is a car, I no longer want to buy a space shuttle.
No question that the stuff I actually want is far cheaper on iOS than desktop. I consider my investments in Keyscape and Omnisphere and more a total and complete waste.
Maybe....but if i could get a wrecked car for free...
Do we really need more developers, or do we need better paid developers? There was a time when we usually had to pay a lot of money for access to professional tools. If we wanted it bad enough, we figured it out. So much easier today. I don't think $99 a year is much to ask for all Apple gives, and I prefer to see fewer apps created by devs serious enough to invest the money in their career. AFAIK, one can learn to develop for iOS without paying anything until they actually publish something. I'm not a dev, but I learned Basic programming before I could afford a computer.
I don't think the 30% to Apple should be a problem either. The problem is good devs not getting enough for what they produce even if Apple got nothing. As a user, I love a great app and all the free updates for an investment of 5 whole bucks, but is it a fair price? A few companies may be doing well by some clever means, I don't know... but iOS musicians rely on devs who do what they do out of love for their creations, and big companies that want to have a presence on the platform.
IMO, the 30% cut is perfectly reasonable, and the $99 fee for access to the store is no big deal. I'm a recreational developer, in the way that many folks here are recreational musicians. My day job pays the bills; the app hackery is just for fun, and it gives me the pocket change to buy toys.
I think it's possible for an independent developer to make a living writing music apps (a few do). But you have to have the right idea at the right time, implement it perfectly, and have a little bit of luck too.
@rickwaugh
depends on country.. in my country 30k a year is very much above average income of senior developer with 20 years of experience ...
before taxes, which are pretty high, around 33%
(Slovakia, Europe)
Even if you can find some stuff cheaper on another platform (likely apples and oranges), that still doesn’t make iOS “not cheap”. If you can get a high quality Moog synthesizer for a fiver and a DAW that’s more fully featured than my entire studio in late 90s for around 50 credits there’s no way anyone can argue it’s not cheap.
That is what i mean. IOS might cheap but NOT MUCH cheaper than windows or mac sometimes!
Model D costs now 15 which is still cheap but i also got U-he ACE for 15 dollar with 1000+ presets and Repro-1 plus Repro 5 for 69 but also with 1000+ presets and things like microtuning and and and.
Then Mainstage for 30 is worth 1000´s. Logic is also not expensive for what you get.
And there is not really a fully featured DAW yet on iOS. Of course not everybody needs one and that is O.K.
But if you compare the content of a 50 dollar iOS app to Logic, they are expensive like hell (i know they are not really).
Then i could get a used MacBook pro for less than a new iPad Pro which still struggle to run several apps like Model D.
I bought Auria, Cubasis and most other iOS DAW´s which cost me more than Logic.
I still say both markets can be cheap and expensive, depending on the kind of tools you want.
That has nothing to do with what we had in the past.
Okay every thing is Cheap. How’s that.
Wtf