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.
Beta versions
I see people beta testing apps. Is there a simple way to do this or is it by arrangement with developers only?
Comments
By arrangement with the developer except in relatively rare cases when a developer offers a public beta.
If it's a public beta where would you see that for iPad?
The developer would share a link.
Word of mouth. Here, social media, etc. There’s no centralized announcement mechanism.
I would just like to add that beta-testing is a pretty tough job, if done well.
I'm not suggesting the OP thinks the following (at all!), but I have known users who view beta-testing as some kind of ego-boosting elitist luxury - when in actual fact it's mostly about very thorough quality-assurance, clear documentation of issues, and testing of niche use cases.
It's like a job you don't get paid for - but helps the community and iOS music scene
What? No ego boost? I'm out.
Yeah.. speaking as a developer: if you're going to beta test, please do some testing and reporting. It's a bit cringy to see people do "hint dropping" on forums about having something new and exciting but not actually doing any testing.
As a rule: if you "see people beta testing", they're doing it wrong. It's not something you do for publicity and you generally aren't supposed to talk about it.
(Thankfully, I have also experienced the opposite, with people doing extremely thorough testing and reporting exotic quirks - with steps on how to reproduce - I never would have found on my own. And I'm exceedingly grateful for the effort these kind folks put in.)
I've beta tested for about 10-15 companies over the years on desktop. Just thought about doing it on the iPad. I've never asked to do it, only ever been asked. Wasn't sure how it worked in the iOS world as the relationship between developer and user seems a bit different in iPad world. I'm new to the iPad though so don't shoot me for that comment.
Well, that would really depend on the arrangement with the dev. Sometimes those ‘leaks’ help creating a buzz around the app and might lead to contributions from end user in terms of feature set. I agree though, it can be difficult to control and sometimes having a trusted bunch of testers is the best way to go.
I like the experience of being a beta tester but I think liking the concept and having the need for the end product is the essential ingredient for me.
Agreed. If I didn't have any interest in using the product I'm not sure I'd consider beta testing a product.
This.. plus most people really don't want to get beta for real testing and helping to developer catch all bugs or improve not-finished feature, but just to get early access to app .. that is, very politely speaking, a bit selfish.
It depends on agreement ... we had (or we still have, to be exact) with Matt very strict agreement to not talk about anything which wasn't mentioned publicly by Matt himself before - sometimes it was very tough but i don't remember single one case breaking this rule ...
But there are other devs, which don't care or they are even happy and reshare if beta tester shares some showcase of new tested features (like miRack) ... So - i would say, it depends on developer... What is important, beta tester should strictly hold on rules set by developer, without exception. Beta tester should consider dev as his boss
Mos devs are using Apple's TestFlight ... so it works liek you get agreement with dev, you provide him your apple account e-mail.. then he adds you to TestFlight, so you are immediately notified by TestFlight app when new beta version is dropped, and you can dowload it to your device via TestFlight app .. also this app serves for reporting bugs ..
There area also other ways how to distribute beta version to testers - for example Diawi, but i think most devs are usting TestFligh
Thanks. I've used Testflight to beta test for 2 developers so far. Just wasn't sure if that was the only method.