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.
App and update descriptions -- marketing fluff vs facts
Totally different topic: Many have probably noticed that there's basically two types of language and style used in app and update descriptions:
1) basically just stating the facts in a concise manner, and trying to condense the most relevant information, often in list form.
2) "prose" style "stories" composed out of standardized marketing-speak "building blocks" that try to evoke the reader's emotions and are often lengthy, even for minor updates, and do not contain a lot of actual (technical) information.
Which type do you prefer?
- Which style do you prefer?31 votes
- Concise facts83.87%
- Emotional stories16.13%
Comments
Gee, do you have a preference?
give me the facts man, i can take it! :-)
I haven't voted yet, I leave that for later just like those presidents dropping their votes in the box on TV in the general elections
And believe me, I've already redacted the poll various times in order to make it sound more objective
Stick to the facts. Ive got enough emotional stories going on around me.
I voted facts but I also know it's not cut-and-dried. The truth is that the emotional stories often work without us really noticing, which is why marketers use them.
I used to be firmly in the anti-marketing camp, until I actually started selling stuff to the public, when I realised that not only does marketing work, but is an absolute necessity if you want to generate sales. Initially I believed that you should just have an excellent product and present it in a matter-of-fact way, let it speak for itself. But that just doesn't sell, in my experience anyway. At the very least you have to big up the benefits of your product, so the users know why they should buy what you're selling.
But not all audiences or markets are the same, so different people are going to react in different ways to how something is presented. And I believe the art is to know exactly how to pitch something so that it resonates with the target market, and this is pretty difficult to do well.
@richardyot interesting. As it's probably obvious from the poll, I'm firmly in the "facts" department as well, but so many apps have this "Love Story" vibe in their descriptions and updates that I suspect the majority of users must actually prefer that, which is incomprehensible to me. For example, when I scroll through the list of available updates in the App Store app, I immediately skip all apps where the text starts with "At <company>, we know that you love <app> and that's why we bring you [text cut off]".
And when an update doesn't really bring a lot of stuff to the table, what it brings is often overblown to "increase the psychological effect"... but I'd never do that, because I'd be afraid my customers would notice that and feel even more cheated.
I'm all in for facts for sure be it hardware or software.
My 'vomit reflex' gets always triggered when the synth demo guys try to be bad 'wine salesmen' describing stuff with superlative words and making things seem more impressive than they really are...
One of the best recent examples of 'vomit inducing' demos are those about the new Yamaha MODX no matter if it's regular Youtubers or people hired by Yamaha. It's almost like the Youtubers have gotten a list of 'buzz words' that have to be in the review/demo, YUCK!.
hihi
Facts for the descriptions and save the stories for the apps manual. An interesting reading manual is very helpful imo. Problem being we are all going visual now and video manuals are tutorials are the thing - only problem is cost and time involved to make them decent.
I love the facts, but sometimes I’m not bright enough to know whether a quadruple oscillating wave table with binary moisture evaporators is right for me. 😁
@SevenSystems have a read of this:
http://www.realityassociates.com/Articles/Art-LongCopy.htm
Everyone thinks that they are immune to advertising, but if you're truly interested in a product you will read everything about it. It doesn't necessarily have to be emotional content, but what really sells is letting the buyer know how the product is going to improve their life. With the caveat that modern consumers have a very strong bullshit meter so it's important to be totally honest, and to simply state what is so great about that thing you're trying to sell, in as many ways as possible.
I’ve a good idea what triggered this poll 😄but like Apple if you have a good product (which I think you do from what i’ve seen) you still need the emotional marketing to really sell it.
Here at the Audiobus Forum, we really love our facts.
That’s the fact, Jack.
Facts - but I also like use cases that help explain new features. E.g. ‘new feature X which means that you can now do Y and Z’. Etc.
Missing the third option:
C) Sex.
Mention the features, but sell the benefits.
That is so funny. More than a decade ago, I remember seeing an ad for the then-new Yahama DJX (a "DJ-style" keyboard) together with a friend, and it literally became the running joke for the next decade for us
just as you mention, the same totally over the top marketing blahblah. The best thing was a totally funny typo right in the LAST WORD of the ad, which we then appended to every sentence we spoke in every conversation for the next year 
I don't think I have a "target". I simply want to provide a good product to my (potential) customers, and let THEM decide if they need it or not. I don't want to manipulate people into buying something they don't need.
Yes I guess that's a good point, basic pointers at what can be done with the "facts" could be included in an app description
OK, personally I'm really, really different there. I don't really trust (appearently for good reason
) in what others write about how their products could improve my life. I analyse the features and characteristics and then check if they can benefit me. That's why I love... facts! 
(also, copywriters don't know my situation and all its details, so they can't really know if their product benefits me, for better or worse.)
Sorry!
@SevenSystems
It would be hilarious if you wrote an over-the-top, marketing style, flowery-prose update description in your next app update.
It would be an epic prank!
Game changer... Just wanted to say it.
Haha, actually I had considered just that and had the phrasing floating around in my mind while on the road today
but in the end, it's business and a certain level of professionalism has to be maintained. EVEN IF THE MULTITRACK MIDI RECORDING WILL BE AN ABSOLUTELY EPIC GAMECHANGER, OF COURSE! AND THE FOLDERS WILL BE MASSIVE!!! 
Sorry, yes, I think it all boils down to social skills and empathy, which I will admit are not my personal strength (neatly fitting into the "basement nerd" category in this regard, although in others, I'm completely "normal"
)
Concise facts can still have a tone you want to set for your brand. Most people don't read things (generalization) - those that read the app store of an app most likely want to learn about it quickly.
Depending on the app, prose might be the right choice. But typically not.