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 Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

OT: Subscription strikes again

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Comments

  • @InfoCheck said:
    Microsoft Word has been offered as a subscription including for their app for many users now.> @mistercharlie said:

    Ulysses is about the same cost. MS has an incredibly huge pile of know-how, as does Adobe. Copy their line of apps? Good luck!
    An app like Ulysses anyone can code. Give me a break.

  • @neinneinnein said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    Microsoft Word has been offered as a subscription including for their app for many users now.> @mistercharlie said:

    Ulysses is about the same cost. MS has an incredibly huge pile of know-how, as does Adobe. Copy their line of apps? Good luck!
    An app like Ulysses anyone can code. Give me a break.

    I'm not starting a word processing or app business, so I have no idea or opinion on how viable their business model will be-- time will tell.

  • edited August 2017

    I'm not happy about the switch to subscription, and I'm still debating upgrading.

    However Ulysses is a fantastic app. I have Scrivener on both my Mac and PC, and it is a powerful, feature-rich app. Many love the abundance of features, but for some, working in it has all the charm of writing in Excel. For me, doing creative work in Markdown, especially when you can so finely tune the appearance of things like you can in Ulysses, is beautiful. Lightning quick, clean, powerful. The word-count tools and tracking are fantastic. I have no issues whatsoever with either iCloud or DropBox syncing. The abundance of export styles (which are almost endlessly customizable) is powerful and flexible. For me it is an almost perfect writing app. (And I know many professional writers who feel the same).

    So like some others, I'm actively looking at alternatives... I'll complain like crazy... and I'll likely end up upgrading in the end.

    (But I've reached my 'carrying limit' for subscription apps... so when I add a new one I have to drop something off the bottom of the list). Our little app world will fundamentally change if the majority of excellent apps go subscription. At least I'll have less space issues. :)

  • tjatja
    edited August 2017

    I think, a different view about this topic may help:

    You pay, what, 30 euro for total telecommunication per month?
    9 euro for Netflix or Amazon Prime.
    That´s 40 to 50 euro.

    Want to pay the same for your iPhone / iPad per month?
    I think, sure not!

    You MAYYYYY be ready to pay 20 for this per month, but i dont think much more.

    So, the total of subscription should not exceed this sum.

    And this very well means, there is only room for about 4 to 5 subscriptions. For some few core-apps. And that´s it.

    Now go and calculate again.

  • And about Ulysses:

    Whatever they do with their payment model, they cannot throw out their old customers!

    Those who have the App still installed are able to use it as before and as long as it works for them.

    But if you de-installed, you LOST it!
    And this is not acceptable, it is the same as stealing!

    I, as a customer would sure complain or do more.

  • @neinneinnein said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    Microsoft Word has been offered as a subscription including for their app for many users now.> @mistercharlie said:

    Ulysses is about the same cost. MS has an incredibly huge pile of know-how, as does Adobe. Copy their line of apps? Good luck!
    An app like Ulysses anyone can code. Give me a break.

    granted...
    both companies may have this pile of know-how, but their main virtue is bloating things up.
    The MS approach to software engineering is the most dumb thing that ever crossed my way.
    Nothing in there that hasn't been done better decades (!) ago ;)

  • edited August 2017

    @tja said:
    And about Ulysses:

    Whatever they do with their payment model, they cannot throw out their old customers!

    Those who have the App still installed are able to use it as before and as long as it works for them.

    But if you de-installed, you LOST it!
    And this is not acceptable, it is the same as stealing!

    I, as a customer would sure complain or do more.

    As has been pointed out, this isn't true. The old version is available in your purchased tab, and in fact, they've already updated the classic app for iOS 11 compatibility... you should be able to continue using it for years to come.

    (To test this, I just deleted the app from my iPhone, found it in my purchased tab, and re-installed without issue).

  • tjatja
    edited August 2017

    @Tovokas said:
    As has been pointed out, this isn't true. The old version is available in your purchased tab, and in fact, they've already updated the classic app for iOS 11 compatibility... you should be able to continue using it for years to come.

    Ah, OK - sorry, did not real through everything after seeing those screenshots. And was upset :)

    But still better would be a different App version, so that you even now could buy the regular version as before this change.

  • @Zen210507 said:

    @Noirflux said:

    I am a copywriter for work and in my personal life. Not happy abou this at all. I use the app religiously every day.

    >

    FWIW, Scrivener has many more features, and is far better in every day use. So maybe worth you looking into, even though changing would be a wrench.

    :'( :'( but I'm not ready to move on lol

  • @Zen210507 said:

    @lovadamusic said:
    Choose what works best for you.

    Why would I, or anyone, do anything else?

    Ulysses has broken App Store convention by showing a restore previous purchase option, then having that lead only to a pay us more money option. There is no access to the previous purchase. This is effectively preventing customers from using a legitimately owned app, and demanding money before access is restored. Robbery.

    As for Adobe, I gave up on them several years ago, when they became a rental company. The last Photoshop version before that still serves my needs perfectly well. Alongside my Xara products, which are excellent. As for Lightroom, I never did get on with that, finding it overrated, and much prefer the alternatives, both paid and free models.

    I wasn't referring to your specific problem, but to subscriptions in general. The subscription model works fine for many people and some apps. I doubt it becomes universal. Nor do I see it going away. So those who just don't like it in any case are entitled to their opinion, and can speak for themselves.

  • I bought Ulysses Mac, then Daedalus (the initial limited iOS version of Ulysses) and finally paid again for Ulysses iOS. I don't have a problem paying for updates, but I absolutely refuse to pay a subscription fee for software, so I'll be moving on ASAP.

    Currently looking at Scrivener, are there any other good alternatives?

  • edited August 2017

    @busker said:
    Currently looking at Scrivener, are there any other good alternatives?

    Depends what you want to do.

    1Writer
    Pretty good for light writing tasks.

    Notability
    Excellent for notes including visual.

    Permanote
    The king for plain text files and Dropbox sync

    Scrivener
    Highly versatile, unbeatable for long form writing. Syncs across platforms.

  • @Noirflux said:

    :'( :'( but I'm not ready to move on lol

    Then you pretty much have a vampire, siphoning money from your account to Ulysses.

  • edited August 2017

    @Zen210507 said:

    @Noirflux said:

    :'( :'( but I'm not ready to move on lol

    Then you pretty much have a vampire, siphoning money from your account to Ulysses.

    If writing is important to you (and/or you are doing so professionally), and Ulysses is an important part of that process, then the idea that $2.50 a month is somehow predatory is a bit ridiculous. I believe users like Noirflux and I are troubled by the ramifications of all our favorite apps going subscription, and our distaste for 'renting' software... not that the app isn't obviously worth more than a couple bucks a month to us.

    And really, my main hangup with subscription software: losing the ability to work on my files if I stop paying, (like with my Creative Cloud files) doesn't really apply to an app like Ulysses. The files are all in plain text markdown, and easily moved elsewhere if and when I decide to move on.

  • @Tovokas said:
    If writing is important to you (and/or you are doing so professionally), and Ulysses is an important part of that process, then the idea that $2.50 a month is somehow predatory is a bit ridiculous.

    Writing is very important to me, under another name I write novels.

    This subscription thing is about principle, for me. I gave up on MS Word when it became stupidly complex and subscription based. Pages, is a joke. I went through at least a dozen alternatives, finding the excellent Atlantis for the PC. In the Mac world I came across both Ulysses and Scrivener, bought both, and really took to the latter. On IOS I also bought both, and again Scrivener worked best for me, at least for long form writing. Other apps listed in my recent post did the job for different writing tasks.

    But if any if them went to rentalware, I'd stick with the last version before the change, and begin my search anew.

  • edited August 2017

    @neinneinnein said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    Microsoft Word has been offered as a subscription including for their app for many users now.> @mistercharlie said:

    MS has an incredibly huge pile of know-how, as does Adobe. Copy their line of apps? Good luck!

    Depends how much of it is custom or unique, and what's been protected. Affinity have made a pretty good stab at slaying the Photoshop and Illustrator giants - in some cases improving on the originals.

  • @Zen210507 said:

    Writing is very important to me, under another name I write novels.

    This subscription thing is about principle, for me.

    I understand and respect the principle issue completely. I'm just disappointed that when any app goes subscription, many who are opposed to the concept brutally attack the offending app's capabilities, I guess to scare folks away, out of fear that if the model is successful, it might encourage other developers to go down that route. :)

    And I get it... at most I could support a dozen sub apps. I have hundreds on my devices, so obviously that math wouldn't work! And yet for my most important and beloved apps, I'll do the sub thing if it means the app will remain strong and active for many years to come. It's the apps I sort of need that are the problem. (TextExpander, Enlight, Day One, Terminology... which I liked, but I've deleted since they went subscription).

  • @Tovokas said:

    It's the apps I sort of need that are the problem. (TextExpander, Enlight, Day One, Terminology... which I liked, but I've deleted since they went subscription).

    Terminology? I have that, and it appears to be working well enough with no sign of subscription. Unless the 'go pro' advert is PA?

    Ulysses, in pay once format, is an app I want to like. I see how stylus it is, and that others such as yourself have a fine time with it. I just can't get it to work as I want it to work. Whereas, Scrivener I 'got' straight away, and find its system much more useful.

  • edited August 2017

    @MonzoPro said:

    @neinneinnein said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    Microsoft Word has been offered as a subscription including for their app for many users now.> @mistercharlie said:

    MS has an incredibly huge pile of know-how, as does Adobe. Copy their line of apps? Good luck!

    Depends how much of it is custom or unique, and what's been protected. Affinity have made a pretty good stab at slaying the Photoshop and Illustrator giants - in some cases improving on the originals.

    I know the Adobe apps from their day one in classic MacOS, my favorite PS version being number 3. Been in Creative Suite and Cloud.
    It's bloated into infinity, any functional clone isn't rocket science at all.

    What is a bit more demanding is the workflow aspects of the suite.
    In fact that isn't particularily difficult either, but hard to establish for any 'newcomer' as the big name (and suggested reliability) of Adobe is a mental thing that's hard to fight.
    You'll always need some degree of compatbility to Adobe's data formats and they've been quite clever to use a dynamic format instead of fixed structures.

    There's an app called IDML supposed to show/edit Indesign data on IOS devices.
    A first class example how effectively Adobe's approch works.
    This app did fail in each and every example I fed to it from real world publication data.

  • @MonzoPro said:

    @neinneinnein said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    Microsoft Word has been offered as a subscription including for their app for many users now.> @mistercharlie said:

    MS has an incredibly huge pile of know-how, as does Adobe. Copy their line of apps? Good luck!

    Depends how much of it is custom or unique, and what's been protected. Affinity have made a pretty good stab at slaying the Photoshop and Illustrator giants - in some cases improving on the originals.

    Does slaying mean giving some number of users an alternative to those Adobe apps, or the print and graphics design industries, and many photographers, abandoning the Adobe apps in favor of Affinity and forcing Adobe to change?

  • @lovadamusic said:

    @MonzoPro said:

    @neinneinnein said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    Microsoft Word has been offered as a subscription including for their app for many users now.> @mistercharlie said:

    MS has an incredibly huge pile of know-how, as does Adobe. Copy their line of apps? Good luck!

    Depends how much of it is custom or unique, and what's been protected. Affinity have made a pretty good stab at slaying the Photoshop and Illustrator giants - in some cases improving on the originals.

    Does slaying mean giving some number of users an alternative to those Adobe apps, or the print and graphics design industries, and many photographers, abandoning the Adobe apps in favor of Affinity and forcing Adobe to change?

    I doubt Adobe will change, but from my experience within the industry they've certainly lost a lot of pro users, particularly the ones who's incomes are shrinking and costs rising.

    The intro price for Affinity Designer and Photo was £59.98, both cover pretty much all of a designers pixel and vector requirements. And Designer provides a bit of basic DTP too, though Affinity is providing fuller support when Publisher comes out.

    Compared to £50 per month for Adobe, it's a no-brainier for those of us on a tight budget.

  • They are unable so far helping existing customers to activate their "free use" period.

    I always strongly disliked the combination og hype and bugs/ problems, but this time they really show how deficient their service is, only the price tag is premium.
    Unbelievable how they did this.

  • @MonzoPro said:
    Compared to £50 per month for Adobe, it's a no-brainier for those of us on a tight budget.

    And those who just object to big business squeezing blood from stones. ;)

  • I will stay at my Photoshop CS3 until my Windows 7 PC dies - which is hopefully in 10 years earliest ;-)

  • @tja said:
    I will stay at my Photoshop CS3 until my Windows 7 PC dies - which is hopefully in 10 years earliest ;-)

    Yes, I too have an old Photoshop and Windows 7 64-bit.

  • @Zen210507 said:

    @MonzoPro said:
    Compared to £50 per month for Adobe, it's a no-brainier for those of us on a tight budget.

    And those who just object to big business squeezing blood from stones. ;)

    I'm a big fan of Affinity Photo and Designer but let's give credit where it's due. Neither would exist without Adobe pumping years of R&D into their products. Affinity effectively only copied Adobe's products without innovating or improving much. In that sense they're not that different from those Chinese goods on Alibaba.

  • @brambos said:
    I'm a big fan of Affinity Photo and Designer but let's give credit where it's due. Neither would exist without Adobe pumping years of R&D into their products. Affinity effectively only copied Adobe's products without innovating or improving much. In that sense they're not that different from those Chinese goods on Alibaba.

    By that criteria we all might as well give up, and stop buying apps, 'cause we're all influenced by what has gone before and the millions invested by recording companies....the very same companies still charging £15 or more for fifty year-old Beatles music on CD.

    Adobe did innovate. But then they got to a point where the product was perfected, and began to stagnate. Few wanted to pay out hundreds of pounds/ dollars each iteration for a product that wasn't much different. And so they became a rental company.

  • edited August 2017

    @brambos said:

    @Zen210507 said:

    @MonzoPro said:
    Compared to £50 per month for Adobe, it's a no-brainier for those of us on a tight budget.

    And those who just object to big business squeezing blood from stones. ;)

    I'm a big fan of Affinity Photo and Designer but let's give credit where it's due. Neither would exist without Adobe pumping years of R&D into their products. Affinity effectively only copied Adobe's products without innovating or improving much. In that sense they're not that different from those Chinese goods on Alibaba.

    Harsh, and inaccurate.

    Photoshop benefitted from Quantel Paintbox development, Illustrator from advances with Freehand, and technology advances provided by Microsoft and Apple blah blah.

    I remember using Freehand donkeys years ago, when Illustrator was lagging behind in features and usability, and then as if by magic Illustrator stepped up its game.

    Affinity Photo actually works quite differently in a lot of ways to Photoshop - it looks almost the same, but there are a whole bunch of things it does in a completely different way. And anyway Serif have been developing photo editing software for at least 20 years, so it's not like they just nicked it.

  • @MonzoPro said:

    @lovadamusic said:

    @MonzoPro said:

    @neinneinnein said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    Microsoft Word has been offered as a subscription including for their app for many users now.> @mistercharlie said:

    MS has an incredibly huge pile of know-how, as does Adobe. Copy their line of apps? Good luck!

    Depends how much of it is custom or unique, and what's been protected. Affinity have made a pretty good stab at slaying the Photoshop and Illustrator giants - in some cases improving on the originals.

    Does slaying mean giving some number of users an alternative to those Adobe apps, or the print and graphics design industries, and many photographers, abandoning the Adobe apps in favor of Affinity and forcing Adobe to change?

    I doubt Adobe will change, but from my experience within the industry they've certainly lost a lot of pro users, particularly the ones who's incomes are shrinking and costs rising.

    The intro price for Affinity Designer and Photo was £59.98, both cover pretty much all of a designers pixel and vector requirements. And Designer provides a bit of basic DTP too, though Affinity is providing fuller support when Publisher comes out.

    Compared to £50 per month for Adobe, it's a no-brainier for those of us on a tight budget.

    I got Affinity on iOS, but just starting to use it. Looks nice. I'd have to really spend a lot of time with the Mac version to know if I'd use it over PS. I'm too comfortable with the status quo, and I'm not even a power user who relies on the full Adobe suite. It's good that people have choices, so I never quite get all the antagonism towards the company that leads the industry, especially if inexpensive alternatives are available.

  • @lovadamusic said:

    @MonzoPro said:

    @lovadamusic said:

    @MonzoPro said:

    @neinneinnein said:

    @InfoCheck said:
    Microsoft Word has been offered as a subscription including for their app for many users now.> @mistercharlie said:

    MS has an incredibly huge pile of know-how, as does Adobe. Copy their line of apps? Good luck!

    Depends how much of it is custom or unique, and what's been protected. Affinity have made a pretty good stab at slaying the Photoshop and Illustrator giants - in some cases improving on the originals.

    Does slaying mean giving some number of users an alternative to those Adobe apps, or the print and graphics design industries, and many photographers, abandoning the Adobe apps in favor of Affinity and forcing Adobe to change?

    I doubt Adobe will change, but from my experience within the industry they've certainly lost a lot of pro users, particularly the ones who's incomes are shrinking and costs rising.

    The intro price for Affinity Designer and Photo was £59.98, both cover pretty much all of a designers pixel and vector requirements. And Designer provides a bit of basic DTP too, though Affinity is providing fuller support when Publisher comes out.

    Compared to £50 per month for Adobe, it's a no-brainier for those of us on a tight budget.

    I got Affinity on iOS, but just starting to use it. Looks nice. I'd have to really spend a lot of time with the Mac version to know if I'd use it over PS. I'm too comfortable with the status quo, and I'm not even a power user who relies on the full Adobe suite. It's good that people have choices, so I never quite get all the antagonism towards the company that leads the industry, especially if inexpensive alternatives are available.

    I don't have an issue with Adobe, ive used their products for nearly 30 years, but I'm delighted I don't have to give a massive chunk of my meagre earnings to them any more. Looking forward to dumping Quark too.

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