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.
Comments
Desktop apps are a lot more expensive AND sell a lot more. Sort of goes against market logic, really.
Loopy Pro 1, Loopy Pro 2, Loopy Pro 3… sounds fine to me. Less hassle. If you’re ok with the current functionality you don’t need to upgrade. Might be a hassle to keep updating all those for new iOS versions, though.
When it comes to subscriptions my main motivation for signing up is where I see value as a portfolio of benefits or distinct aggregate value. SettApp is a great example of this. For a relatively small monthly fee you get access to well over 100 applications/apps from the macOS/iOS/iPadOS ecosytem. And the applications are decent, well respected ones (in a good many cases), many of which I used to purchase outright and pay upgrade fees for ongoing support.
Amongst Apples subscription options, taking the all you can eat option and sharing the benefits through the family is great value. I’d never subscribe to Apple TV/Apple Music/Apple News etc, etc individually, but Apple One for up to five family members makes perfect sense.
The aggregate value story is the same with Adobe for me. Subscribing to the full suite doesn’t cost much more than Photoshop and Lighroom alone.
As someone else mentioned, the majority of audio app developers are individuals (or part of a very small team). Something like SetApp, but strictly for apps in the audio ecosytem could be a compelling offer for developers and customers alike. Paying e.g $15 per month to gain access to a portflo of audio apps is a far more attractive option then having to pay a bunch of individual developers $8 per month.
I imagine there wouldn't be very many updates to older versions. If at all. That seems like the purpose of the new versions and not going subscription. You pay for up to date software and new features. The old version would essentially be deprecated.
IMO, I think established developers selling to the small, loyal iOS music creator community are better off not offering an introductory price. Save the sales for the plebeians, and maybe give a timeline of upcoming discounts in the forums to head off complaints about price drops.
I kinda like what Bleass is doing with their apps offering a pre-order period and once the app is out the price is bumped up to the regular price. This could also give an indication if the 'hype' created around an app is real or not?
If we take Loopy Pro as an example it's quite 'hyped' already and the number of pre-orders could give an indication of the real interest of potential customers?
(Ie. start the 'hype machinery' with 'teasers' about one month prior to release...).
Those are just my thoughts...
Cheers!
I just read this in Ariel of AppFigures' weekly newsletter:
The music app category specifically has about 36k apps (which is only 1.6% of all apps), and within that category, about 5k (14%) are paid.
So that's interesting.
Note that I'm not at all convinced this has anything to say about complex desktop-class apps like Loopy Pro, though.
Wow, that sucks, if it is true at all. How are subscriptions going to work if this should become the norm? How am I, as a "consumer", supposed to keep track of all my subscriptions and not feel stressed, constantly thinking about what subs to keep? I already have subscriptions in my life, like rent, electricity ... but apps, software? No way. I rather not partake and/or find a free/one time payment option.
(I gladly pay for substantial updates/IAPs)
@Michael perhaps offering the app at a certain price point ($29.99+) and then offering a subscription for au hosting would be a suitable tradeoff. Or some feature that isn't absolutely crucial but is appealing for enough people to subscribe.
Like I said, I don’t think it has anything to do with Loopy, just posting it here for interest
I’ve seen some developers have a subscription and a lifetime unlock:
4.95 USD / month
39.00 USD / year
120.00 USD / lifetime
There's that. Also, I wonder how useful it is to come at it from that perspective at all. Most of the "music apps" I come across in the store are indeed free to download, but they are completely useless (for me) as well, so free is a fair price.
BUT if I look at the music apps on my ipad, that is to say the apps that I as a customer actually want, an overwhelming majority of them was paid for up front*. I have no idea if this is representative or not, but I find it a much more meaningful stat than talking about the totality of music apps, most of which are music apps in name only.
(*The one thing I do hate about paying up front is if there's no free trial version, which makes it a leap of faith. That really sucks in ios. But that's a different topic.)
So what about a splashscreen with a “buy me a coffee”-button, which appears when the app was updated.
I think most iPad Musicians are loyal to the developers.
That sounds like begging tbh. (It's also rather annoying: if you are selling a product, ask to be paid for the product, not for a hypothetical "coffee". Noone should expect you to work for free.)
In which case, they can simply decide not to expect upgrades for free. 🤷
While this analysis is interesting (and a little depressing to be honest), it reflects the wider app market, but not necessarily the specialist music app market that the Audiobus forum caters to.
This niche is very much its own thing, and so those statistics don't really apply to us. I would say the percentage of paid apps in this market is closer to 80%. That doesn't mean that the current model is viable for developers, just that the advice in that newsletter doesn't necessarily translate to this particular market.
(I do think inevitably some apps, especially the more complex ones such as DAWs, will have to move to a subscription-based model.)
iPads and AppStore was designed for carefree consumption. It’s inevitable we’re seeing these symptoms because imo Apple failed to come up with a viable strategy. Today we’re seeing gimmicks in each iteration, expected to pay insane prices (device) and commit to a product (app)... anything but carefree. Nothing here was meant to be for work, but got twisted to justify the costs.
If my goal on iPad were to find an alternative for general computing, I would be all over these updates. But from my perspective these devices are moving further and further from what made them interesting in the first place. There is not a single app I use I would consider for subscription and it’s not the dev who I wouldn’t commit to, it’s Apple.
I’m sure this market segment struggles everywhere. But while on desktop prices and overall cost is going down (while offering real value for production) here prices and cost going up (while everyone is still in denial - the model Apple proposes here is just another way of consumption, not to sustain development).
This is why I’m hesitant to update... I own a device, few apps... it works now and I want to freeze that, because I’m sceptical about what’s on offer.
If paid apps are dead, imo AppStore will follow soon - at least in its current form, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Maybe it’s time for devs to put pressure on Apple (if at all possible)?
I read on the other forum that this will hopefully be out pre Black Friday.
If it comes out before and then a Black Friday discount is offered, there will be the crowd that gets outraged that they paid full price not long before. If no Black Friday discount is offered, there will be the crowd that gets upset that there is no discount.
Ironically, I think the latter group will be fewer and less vocal. Personally, I think not offering a BF sale is the best route.
A simple solution would be to announce a special introductory price that would end after the typical Black Friday sales expire.
Why would it not be true at all?
The information is going to be basically true, but it doesn't mean that it has much impact on pricing models for many types of applications. The Epic vs. Apple trial indicated that something like 70% of app store revenue comes from games. Of the 30% that's left, much of the revenue is going to come from content delivery type apps. Then there is the whole add supported type app question that won't work in any sort of professional tool. Looking at what an average app does to make money on the App store is going to be heavily skewed away from what's useful for entire categories of applications.
Comparing the economics of all apps in all sectors as if their user bases all make decisions based on identical considerations isn't very helpful for sectors that have underlying differences. And even in a sector, there can be sub-categories where different factors are relevant.
The one thing that is clear is that we are in a period of change and the app store economics are a bit messed up and in flux.
I still don't get or understand people who pay real money to get a new outfits for their virtual avatars...
...but apparently it's a huuuuuge market?!
@Michael
I haven’t used it yet so this is solely based on Mike’s video, and some of the thread talk, but The absolute minimum should be $20, there’s no doubt it’s at least worth that. Financially, for me, I’m hoping it’s $29.99 or $24.99, that’s an insta buy. I could see it realistically being as much as $40, maybe $45 in the current app market, but I think $25-$30 would be a reasonable request. Maybe $25 Intro price, $35, $40 after that. This is all hypothetical.
While I personally would love a special introductory price, you have to carefully assess as an app developer whether you’re throwing away revenue with that approach. I wouldn’t be surprised if a very significant percentage of total lifetime sales happens during the initial introductory price period, purchased by people who would have paid full price anyway.
If this app is the solid game-changer it appears to be, it seems worthy of a single, unchanging price, like Drambo.
I have to imagine operating this site is no small expense, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a bit higher eventually.
Nah it’s not that much. Fifty bucks a month or so.
Surely you must be kidding! That’s impressive for as much traffic and posted material as you get here.
Yep. CloudFlare takes about half a TB per month of load off the server for free, which helps. But it's surprisingly light.
Frankly iOS and it’s hardware and software ‘subscription’ model, with it’s instability every time you upgrade has only pushed me closer to an hardware only model.
So that's about £25 in real money. A fortune to all you struggling devs, surely!?
"Dear diary, so it has come to this. Eat or put a quid in the meter for leccy and write some code."