Apps and stuff

[The Elf]

but ultimately it'll probably be a £10 app for anything serious and then perhaps pay for some online training and support

I think you are seriously underestimating how much it costs to write, develop and support a piece of software, such as Logic, or Cubase. The number of paying users at £10 would simply not support the hundreds of man-years required to deliver such software.

[Pete Kaine]

Why does he want Photoshop when Gimp can do everything that a consumer user would ever require in a simplified user front end and it's free?

Ummm because he's never heard of GIMP - where would he get that information?

My point exactly!

Why has he heard of Photoshop? Because Adobe has spent millions & millions over the last 20 years in promoting it and everyone accepts it as the defacto standard thanks to promtion and pushing of the product through various channels.

You assume far too much savvy in the average user.

I assume the same as you do. That he won't know about it unless he's told about it. That will be either through word of mouth or more likely via some company spending a wad load of cash to make him aware of it.

Although funnily enough my mum uses OpenOffice - but then she's a secretary and has been online longer than me (Compuserve - those were the days).

I recall using Openoffice when I was at school and it was still called Star Office and pretty much the going standard! If she's worked as a secretary for a good number of years I'm not supprised she's got a good grounding in it. I was always a bit suprised when it went open source.

But then they couldn't compete with the M.S. juggernaught of branding that is M.S. Office when it was paid for, or even now it's free!

And a very large chunk of those sky high software fee's is what pays for it. If everything suddenly became worth £5 as an app then you'd have a generation of apps that are well known and everyone would buy them. But then without the funding they couldn't continue to expand the product line and maintain the marketing so either their popularity starts to wain or more disturbingly (and I fear more likely) they'll become dominant with all of the cash flow for that market sector going to them, and then they'll stagnate and other applications won't be able to surpass them in sales (no marketing) and it becomes bad for progression of the market itself.

But this is exactly what i'm trying to get across. Sell 5 copies at £1000 is the same as selling 500 copies at £10.

So say M.S. office or Adobe is now priced at £30 or you have Open Office or GIMP priced at £4.00.

They both do the same job, and acheive the same thing.

Which are people going to want?

I'd say the £30 one's because of perceived value due to past and current advertising. The £3.00 app's can't match this level of product pushing so they continue to not make money and the developers go out of business.

On the other hand the piracy of the £30 continues to take place, because "Hey, we're not paying money out to these rip off merchants..."

So all the small talented developers undersell themselves and go out of business because they can't compete with the giants and their big budget adverts. It then get's to the point where no one can compete with the established No.1 in the market place and they give up. Long term that firm sits on it's hands and then fails to increase development and it leads to the stagnetation of the market place as it then fails to develop.

For an example of this I'd say look at the history of IE6 and all the B.S. current web developers continue to deal with due to that dark period in the net's development.

What iApps have demonstrated is that many more people are prepared to pay small amounts of money for software (when it's done right as you say).

What it's proven is that Apples market share is mostly none techincal end users without the ability to jailbreak their phones...

Music is a good example here - music is now essentially worthless - it costs pennies but still people are reluctant to buy it.

That proves my point above and disproves your "smalls amounts" theory. We've reached a stage now where a lot of people (I hesitate to simply point the finger at the under 25 age bracket) take it as granted that you can get pretty much anything you want for free media wise if you know what your doing. Apple's done a great job at keeping it's phones locked down and preventing piracy, but other firms using a Microsoft/Google O.S. as it's desktop won't have the same Orwellian control over the code being run on it.

It's become so widespread and legitimate as free (spotify.com) that artists are having to find other ways of making money - gigs, special editions, HD, merchandising etc. Software will go the same way. Artists are still making money and making music - software houses will do the same if their model changes. I don't imagine my kids will ever have to pay hundreds of pounds for software - they may subscribe to something, pay for an entertaining game experience, but ultimately it'll probably be a £10 app for anything serious and then perhaps pay for some online training and support

Ahhh... I think our points just kind of merged

I agree. But then no one has currently worked out just what and how they are going to manage to do this.

The world of GOO guys sold their game through at under £7. They did this to encourage people to pay for what would otherwise have been a £20 game. It has been one of the biggest selling indie games of all time and yet they still estimate that 90% of players are on pirated versions.

Cost will not beat piracy. That genie is well out of the bottle.

So if an application has a market place of half a million users world wide and half of those pay a tenner (the other half pirate it) then the might be the market there to support one product being developed, but is the, the market there to support more than one?

If the isn't then I don't feel that this would be good for the market place due to the lack of inovation I fear would follow.

The other saviour here is the long touted cloud computing angle and it's the one that the guys with the real money are going after (Google/Microsoft/Sun)

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/microsoft-cloud/

In all honesty I don't buy into that either (and I've spent the best part of a decade following it) but it's the only model that would enable them to control software use via subscription 100%. Personally through I don't fancy having my software all stored and accessed remotely not for security reasons but for network capability reasons, although I'm sure business's will look at that in reverse.

I don't believe things will stay as they are in terms of the relationship between software, computers and perceived value - i think apps demonstrate that and IK demonstrate that by moving from small Italian music tech software house to (almost) house hold name with a £3.99 app and £20 interface for the iphone. All those months spent crafting the Miroslav Orchestra and all they needed to do was pretty up a jack plug - they will make tons of money.

I would love to see their sales figures and then see how much it contributes to the overall value vs development time over the years it took to get to that point.

I just went and looked for a stock listing for IK acturly to see if the was any end of year finances I could have checked but to no avail.

Put it this way though, if it was a public limited company I wouldn't add it to my portfolio...

Back to your point above about Miroslav Orchestra. What about the users who want to buy that software and not some £3.99 budget guitar rig. If IK tomorrow turned into a company that wrote nothing but guitar amp sims for the iphone because it made them a load of money, that would put more speclist products like Miroslav on the back burning or in the bin as it does take the time and money to develop. Do we really want that?

[Carillon Audio Systems]

In all honesty I don't buy into that either (and I've spent the best part of a decade following it) but it's the only model that would enable them to control software use via subscription 100%.

This is definitely where I see the future of software going, but how far in the future we are looking I'm not sure.

[Pete Kaine]

One of the best peices I've read on M.S. and it's cloud strategy is a old Wired piece interviewing Ray Ozzie who is lead on the project. I was trying to find it to post this morning, but I've only just remembered who the focus of the artical was.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-12/ff_ozzie?currentPage=all

Worth a read it your interested in where they want to take the desktop.

[robinv]

Anyway, sod the touch screen, why not just control your DAW with Glove gestures

Oh my aching arms!

[robinv]

I think you are seriously underestimating how much it costs to write, develop and support a piece of software, such as Logic, or Cubase. The number of paying users at £10 would simply not support the hundreds of man-years required to deliver such software.

I would be if i believed that the 50 people who bought the software at £1000 would be replaced by 50 people buying it at £10. What i believe apps have shown is that with a keenly priced bit of software through decent delivery technology you can pick up 100 times or 1000 times more sales. I'm therefore suggesting that the income would be at least the same but probably more. You seem to be saying that dropping the price would not result in more sales, just less revenue - i'm suggesting otherwise

[robinv]

So all the small talented developers undersell themselves and go out of business because they can't compete with the giants and their big budget adverts. It then get's to the point where no one can compete with the established No.1 in the market place and they give up. Long term that firm sits on it's hands and then fails to increase development and it leads to the stagnetation of the market place as it then fails to develop.

.... nations fall, earthquakes, mass hysteria!

I get all of that i do. I'm not trying to make some kind of point here or win anyone over to anything. I'm looking at iPad apps and thinking geez, these are good, these are fabulously priced, people are buying, people are making money from their products. It's funny how i am now more likely to be able to make money by selling an app that will play my album rather than selling the album itself.

You mention indie games - through Steam i've spent a few quid on indie games some of which are amazing. I never would have done that without the Steam delivery system and i never would have heard about them without browsing through their library and trying some demos. I imagine that Steam has revitalised the fortunes of a few indie programmers. And i'd rather pay a fiver for something real than waste half a day searching for a bittorrent or crack somewhere and go through the potential horror of downloading something nasty etc etc. iTunes also shows that there's a section of the market who dont want to fanny about finding cracks and free downloads, they just want the real thing and dont mind paying a few quid for it.

So... some people pay, some don't, but what i've seen is that far more people are happy to pay a quid for a simple add-on to their phone than i would have believed. The success of the app store came from nowhere - it's a completely new market, a new stream of revenue that simply didnt exist before except perhaps in ringtones - and who would have believed people would pay for that? But they do.

Back to your point above about Miroslav Orchestra. What about the users who want to buy that software and not some £3.99 budget guitar rig. If IK tomorrow turned into a company that wrote nothing but guitar amp sims for the iphone because it made them a load of money, that would put more speclist products like Miroslav on the back burning or in the bin as it does take the time and money to develop. Do we really want that?

I dont think so but i dont think music software is developed purely from a business point of view - the same as a hand built guitar is not about the money, it's about the craftmanship. I would say that the iRig is going to enable IK to create even more fabulous things because they have a new revenue stream to fund it.

The cloud stuff - nice idea but as i dont even have a mobile phone reception in my village i doubt the viability of a flawless network available everywhere to enable me to use my dumb terminal. Same with email - i like it local to my machine - but that's just me, for the average user i'm sure they'd love it.

[The Elf]

I think you are seriously underestimating how much it costs to write, develop and support a piece of software, such as Logic, or Cubase. The number of paying users at £10 would simply not support the hundreds of man-years required to deliver such software.

I would be if i believed that the 50 people who bought the software at £1000 would be replaced by 50 people buying it at £10. What i believe apps have shown is that with a keenly priced bit of software through decent delivery technology you can pick up 100 times or 1000 times more sales. I'm therefore suggesting that the income would be at least the same but probably more. You seem to be saying that dropping the price would not result in more sales, just less revenue - i'm suggesting otherwise

I just can't see it happening. Maybe those 50 sales are all that would happen, no matter what the price. OK, I'm exaggerating a little, but you see my point.

If a piece of lathe-control software is going for a tenner would I buy it? No, because I have no idea what to do with it, no interest in using it and would need other things to make it of any practical use. I believe it's the same for something as specialised as a DAW.

In the tight-knit audo-centric technical world that you and I inhabit we tend to imagine that everyone shares our interest - in reality the number is tiny.

[Carillon Audio Systems]

There is also the point that when you get to the £10 mark you aren't investing any real money so you don't invest as much time learning an application. It becomes too throw away and so the depth that would be in an application such a full DAW wouldn't be found by most of it's users so although it might have a killer feature is wouldn't stand out over a basic option at the same sort of price.

If you have decided to pay £300-1000 on software your going to take your time and learn it.

[Pete Kaine]

So all the small talented developers undersell themselves and go out of business because they can't compete with the giants and their big budget adverts. It then get's to the point where no one can compete with the established No.1 in the market place and they give up. Long term that firm sits on it's hands and then fails to increase development and it leads to the stagnetation of the market place as it then fails to develop.

.... nations fall, earthquakes, mass hysteria!

I get all of that i do. I'm not trying to make some kind of point here or win anyone over to anything. I'm looking at iPad apps and thinking geez, these are good, these are fabulously priced, people are buying, people are making money from their products. It's funny how i am now more likely to be able to make money by selling an app that will play my album rather than selling the album itself.

And I do agree with all that. I've just playing the counter arguement

The's only a finite amount of cash kicking around the ecomony and taking ringtones as an example they worked and made money, because your average joe couldn't download, sideload or write them in a midi editor free of charge. At the same time singles plummited because you could do those first two to your hearts content, and as more and more mainstream offer the ability to use audio as your ringtone, those crazy frog slinging firms are slowly making less and less money.

You mention indie games - through Steam i've spent a few quid on indie games some of which are amazing. I never would have done that without the Steam delivery system and i never would have heard about them without browsing through their library and trying some demos. I imagine that Steam has revitalised the fortunes of a few indie programmers. And i'd rather pay a fiver for something real than waste half a day searching for a bittorrent or crack somewhere and go through the potential horror of downloading something nasty etc etc. iTunes also shows that there's a section of the market who dont want to fanny about finding cracks and free downloads, they just want the real thing and dont mind paying a few quid for it.

And I agree with all that whole heartedly. I'm the same, I've spent many hours playing Audiosurf, which I'm sure I'd never have bought otherwise and my client is full of games I've bought on impulse when they've been in a sale that I've never even downloaded after paying!

I can't help the inital enthusiasm for Apps is the same as this, and as it all becomes old news those million copy sucess stories will slowly dry up.

Hell we're already at a point where those apps that are not in the top 10 are selling many, many times less than those who are. Your only going to make your fortune if you can get an app to the top of the store, and this is a risk that would be pretty huge for a proper development firm that has to pay wages.

So... some people pay, some don't, but what i've seen is that far more people are happy to pay a quid for a simple add-on to their phone than i would have believed. The success of the app store came from nowhere - it's a completely new market, a new stream of revenue that simply didnt exist before except perhaps in ringtones - and who would have believed people would pay for that? But they do.

See above!

I dont think so but i dont think music software is developed purely from a business point of view - the same as a hand built guitar is not about the money, it's about the craftmanship. I would say that the iRig is going to enable IK to create even more fabulous things because they have a new revenue stream to fund it.

It's an interesting counter arguement and one I agree would stand for the more boutique developers. Those that have a business driven focus through I'm not so sure.

The cloud stuff - nice idea but as i dont even have a mobile phone reception in my village i doubt the viability of a flawless network available everywhere to enable me to use my dumb terminal. Same with email - i like it local to my machine - but that's just me, for the average user i'm sure they'd love it.

That's why I don't buy into it as well. I want things local that I can control, although long term if the big boys get their way I can't help but feel they don't really want to give us a choice in the matter. Apple is the only firm in a postion to acturly pull this off through at this point, and they are not exactly forging ahead with it.... think we're safe for a couple of years yet!

[onesecondglance]

the reason you're not going to see Cubase or Photoshop sold for £10 a pop to 50,000,000 customers instead of £500 a go to 100,000 customers is because there aren't 50,000,000 people who want the full features of those programs.

there is no difference between an iPhone app and a full-blown PC program except complexity and the language it's written in. "app" means application, same as the applications you have all over your computer. it's just that, to be able to run on a small device without a lot of power, they generally only do one thing and focus on doing it well. that's it. full stop. no difference.

if you want simple in terms of features, that can be developed cheaply and sold at those low price points. simple features - single use apps. even if that single feature is technically complex - e.g. the iRig app - it's still only one thing. one thing can be sold for a low price point and lots of people who want just one thing will buy it.

apps like Cubase and Photoshop are vastly more complicated and have many, many more features. they have these features because the main audience for these apps use them in depth - they are designed to appeal to power users. power users are generally willing to pay more for the product if it does all the things they want.

casual users, on the other hand, don't want so many features and certainly won't be willing to shell out so much for an app. but even if you were to strip out the feature set down to the very basics so you could market it to casual users, i doubt you'd be able to get enough of them on board to pay back the development cost. music, video, serious photo editing - like it or not, these are niche areas and there aren't that many interested people, not when compared to fart apps and LOL FUNNY JOKEZ 4 U apps.

so we're not going to see proper music applications being sold for less than they currently are just because Apple decided they'd tell us something that already exists is an innovation (Nokia had apps well before iPhone, as did RIM...).

what we might see is actually a shift away from limited feature set apps with cloud computing, as Pete was saying. mobile apps are limited because there's only so much you can do with a little processor and not very much memory - but if all the hard work is being done on a remote server, all your mobile device has to do is display what's going on. that means you can have a much lower powered CPU, less memory, and instead put the hardware focus on a good GPU and a great display. without changing your price point for your mobile device you can suddenly have it do a lot more, and look a lot better when it does it. cool! your mobile device isn't running Cubase, Sibelius and Amplitube, the servers are, and you're just controlling and reviewing them.

so... whether they're on tablets or mobile devices, apps will remain priced according to their feature set and development cost. but cloud processing might mean you don't have to spend so much on hardware to use them.

[robinv]

In the tight-knit audo-centric technical world that you and I inhabit we tend to imagine that everyone shares our interest - in reality the number is tiny.

It is and it isn't. Sales of guitars and other instruments are huge. Sales of Rock Band and other music based games are huge. A large proportion of guitarists also but effects, amps and recorders. It's not that the interest isn't there, it's that the computer is still a barrier to most people. The iphone has bypassed all that by essentially cutting the computer out of the equation - no extra interface or soundcard, no configuration, just download and it works - same largely with GarageBand. The inverse argument is that Cubase appears out of reach to most people because it's expensive and therefore complicated to use - which it isn't. How many copies of Fruity Loops get sold these days? Lots i think. But who knows - i'm only commenting and musing on what i see happening at the moment.

[robinv]

There is also the point that when you get to the £10 mark you aren't investing any real money so you don't invest as much time learning an application. It becomes too throw away and so the depth that would be in an application such a full DAW wouldn't be found by most of it's users so although it might have a killer feature is wouldn't stand out over a basic option at the same sort of price.

If you have decided to pay £300-1000 on software your going to take your time and learn it.

I think that's an illusion. You and I who get given our SRC dongles and NFR's have a hard time understanding the value and cost of software. I use Cubase all the time and have never had to pay for it. I agree that if you are paying hundreds of pounds then that's not a casual purchase - the flip side is that if it's a tenner then you might well buy 5 DAW's rather than one or simply buy an effect that you'll only use once. I can understand the value issue but it's self-imposed. I get as much enjoyment out of music i ripped off a friend as i do from a CD i purchased myself - but then i'm evil.
I'm working with Adobe at the moment and have just been given CS5 - i have spent hours and hours training myself in it and will spend weeks more i'm sure - and yet it has cost me nothing, instead i'm aware of its value as a creative tool rather than its monetary price. All good points though

[robinv]

so... whether they're on tablets or mobile devices, apps will remain priced according to their feature set and development cost. but cloud processing might mean you don't have to spend so much on hardware to use them.

Boo, hiss, you will pay for your lack of vision

there is no difference between an iPhone app and a full-blown PC program except complexity and the language it's written in. "app" means application, same as the applications you have all over your computer. it's just that, to be able to run on a small device without a lot of power, they generally only do one thing and focus on doing it well. that's it. full stop. no difference.

I don't agree - my initial question was about these "apps" (and we all know what it means, but it has become a term in it's own right and is helpful in this discussion because we all understand what we are referring to - yes?) and their availability outside the iPad closed system. There's stuff coming out that isn't available elsewhere. The Amplitube app is far more complex than the Amplitube Live software and yet is £94.01 cheaper. So there is a difference, both in software, in market and in pricing model. Something new has happened here - whether there were apps on previous phones or not nothing has had this kind of impact before. Maybe this is the honeymoon period but i (and only i by the look of it) find it interested and am wondering (against a lot of opposition) what sort of impact this could have on our industry and software in general.

music, video, serious photo editing - like it or not, these are niche areas and there aren't that many interested people, not when compared to fart apps and LOL FUNNY JOKEZ 4 U apps.

Too true, although i again find that almost every person i meet wants to edit video, fiddle with music and pictures on their computer... people are interested but we like to keep ourselves to ourselves.

[robinv]

And I agree with all that whole heartedly. I'm the same, I've spent many hours playing Audiosurf, which I'm sure I'd never have bought otherwise and my client is full of games I've bought on impulse when they've been in a sale that I've never even downloaded after paying!

I'll check that out - i've lost days to Chime recently - fabulous.

[Carillon Audio Systems]

I think that's an illusion.

It sure is but perceived value relating to price pays a big part in commerce and consumers attitude (just ask Apple users!!!)

So I think that Apps will remain fun throw away items but where they could be interesting is ones that interact with your main software, say a Cubase app for tracking live gigs, no other features just track and set levels, this when plugged into your main Cubase DAW expands to allow you to mix and finish the project and the app turns in to a control surface, these are the ways I see music software developing.

Cloud computing will be driven by games and gamers I reckon, what happened to that Cloud Xbox rival that was big news a couple of years ago?

[onesecondglance]

So there is a difference, both in software, in market and in pricing model. Something new has happened here - whether there were apps on previous phones or not nothing has had this kind of impact before. Maybe this is the honeymoon period but i (and only i by the look of it) find it interested and am wondering (against a lot of opposition) what sort of impact this could have on our industry and software in general.

software - it's a different programming language. that's it.
market - that is a difference, yes. having a single shopfront to sell these things isn't something we really had before.
pricing model - is a function of the market.

the only difference is the shopfront - how these things are sold. the underlying programs are not any different. shareware, freeware, donationware - they're all out there and being used by millions of people, on windows machines, macs, and on linux boxes. all that's different is the gathering of them together in one place and Apple / Google / whoever taking a nice little cut of whatever money changes hands...

so all that's changed is the distribution model. not the time or expertise it takes to make the software.

the bottom line is still the numbers. let's revisit the example from my earlier post. Cubase 5 retails for £417 - call it £400 for roundness. Steinberg's website says they have 1.5 million users worldwise. for the purposes of this let's say that only 10% of those users have Cubase (and all the others are using Nuendo, Wavelab, or other things). so that 150,000 people.

150,000 people paying £400 = £60,000,000

if Cubase were £10 a go, though:

£60,000,000 / £10 = 6,000,000 people

they would have to increase their userbase by 4000% to make the same as they do now. 4000%. that's just not gonna happen. sure, you may well get a few more sales if it were only £10 - although some people would actually leave, because they equate cheap software with bad software - but i seriously doubt that many more.

even if we were to say that, of that £400, 75% is all profit for a greedy corporation, you'd still need to sell 10 times as many copies at £10 a go to break even.

so if you want to sell it for £10 a go, you need to cut development costs so you don't need as many users. that means you cut features. where else are you going to cut costs? if you do less testing your software becomes unstable and no one will want it. if you do less UI design your software will be unusable and ugly and no one will want it. if you do less innovation your software will be obsolete and no one will want it.

where exactly are you going to make the savings?

[onesecondglance]

So I think that Apps will remain fun throw away items but where they could be interesting is ones that interact with your main software, say a Cubase app for tracking live gigs, no other features just track and set levels, this when plugged into your main Cubase DAW expands to allow you to mix and finish the project and the app turns in to a control surface, these are the ways I see music software developing.

this seems like a realistic future! free controller apps, low cost single feature apps, all designed to plug into a full-blown system further down the line.

Cloud computing will be driven by games and gamers I reckon, what happened to that Cloud Xbox rival that was big news a couple of years ago?

the media made a big deal out of a service that wasn't actually that great. cloud processing relies upon having a great network connection, and the infrastructure for that isn't around yet. once it is more widespread this sort of idea might take off.

personally i like the idea of using a big server's computing power but not the idea of also storing all my save files on that server. i suspect the vast majority of musicians would feel the same about their projects!

[robinv]

software - it's a different programming language. that's it.

No, not really. I can't pickup my 24" LCD screen and pretend to drink a pint of guinness with it, i can't rock my keyboard from side to side in order to move items on the screen, i can't bump my tower into another computer in order to exchange a file. It's not just "software" - the software in my washing machine isn't the same as the software in my car - it's all just "software" but it's very different, how it's being used, how it's being sold, what it enables you to do, taking advantage of unique hardware functionality that's no very portable to other platforms - lots and lots of differences.

Cubase - well, y'know, it's all just guess work and future predictions. My suggestion is that it will happen anyway. Through an iPad style device, through a flawless iApp type experience is how software will be sold. If you look at the NAMM figures for sales http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/namm/2009musicusa/#/4 fretted instruments sell three times more than computer based products and considering that a computer based person would buy lots of things and an instrument based person just a couple then the difference in potential users if you were to tap into that market is huge. Maybe it wouldnt be Cubase, maybe it would be something else, but the potential is there with the right delivery system to bypass the computer and reach non-techy people - that's what the iphone and ipad has done - the Mac isnt bad at and but the PC really struggles with it beyond surfing and email.

Modular products - that is interesting. You could have difference devices running on different... devices, and have them all networked together. Rather than spending a grand on a roland synth, i buy the Roland "device" onto which i can add whatever sounds or synthesis i need at the time.... i dunno, just musing

I just dont think things will stay as they are, i believe the model is changing and the days of high priced software are numbered (possibly a long number - who knows). That may have an impact on revenue so i hope that software houses are already working how that's going to work out. Insisting that it's not going to happen didn't turn out well for the music industry. All we need is GooglePhoto and GoogleMusic and it's game over

[onesecondglance]

software - it's a different programming language. that's it.

No, not really. I can't pickup my 24" LCD screen and pretend to drink a pint of guinness with it, i can't rock my keyboard from side to side in order to move items on the screen, i can't bump my tower into another computer in order to exchange a file. It's not just "software" - the software in my washing machine isn't the same as the software in my car - it's all just "software" but it's very different, how it's being used, how it's being sold, what it enables you to do, taking advantage of unique hardware functionality that's no very portable to other platforms - lots and lots of differences.

no, i disagree. it's exactly the same software - there are microwaves and washing machines running on Android, after all. the hardware might have been unusual at the time of the original iPhone - no longer - but that's not what made the app store a success.

all the gestures, touchscreens, accelerometers, and associated other stuff - it's all just different control mechanisms. excellent stuff, too. different from keyboard and mouse. but music tech has had different control mechanisms for ages. MIDI keyboards. control surfaces with faders, potentiometers, rotary encoders. it's just methods of getting information into your device. the control mechanisms aren't what's special about the app store market model. the low-on-features, high-on-gloss, does-one-thing-but-does-it-really-well approach combined with low unit pricing is what's special about it.

good software will always take advantage of the hardware and control options available - just like the apps on your iPad / iPhone / competing tablet or touchscreen phone do. apps existed before those things and made best use of the control options they had (like phone keypads, etc.)

will future devices change form factor? almost certainly. will future applications take advantage of different control systems? count on it. will either of these two things have a direct effect on pricing of applications? not as much as you might think.

[robinv]

no, i disagree. it's exactly the same software - there are microwaves and washing machines running on Android, after all.

Although factually true - it IS just software, it's like saying we're the same because we're both made of carbon. Our experience of software, in the application of it, is vastly different and surely that's what software is about - in the using, not in the coding, in what it does rather than what it's made of. So for me, with something like the iPad and associated apps something different has occurred - something that didn't exist now exists and at this time it appears good and powerful and persuasive - but yes, it's all just software

the low-on-features, high-on-gloss, does-one-thing-but-does-it-really-well approach combined with low unit pricing is what's special about it.

I would agree if it was all fart jokes and cool little apps for identifying music or telling you where the nearest curry house is. I keep coming back to the Amplitube app. It has more features than the regular software Amplitube Live and is £90 cheaper. I don't have any figures but going by the coverage the iRig has received i imagine it will sell quite a few units - partly because of the uniqueness of the ipad/iphone and partly due to price point - you get the whole lot for the price of an Xbox game.

will either of these two things have a direct effect on pricing of applications? not as much as you might think.

Well, i feel that IK have proved otherwise, or are at least having a go. But it's early days, the iPad is underpowered, underconnected and mono-tasking. As better devices come along maybe better, more fully fledged apps will too. Who knows.

[Mixedup]

I keep coming back to the Amplitube app. It has more features than the regular software Amplitube Live and is £90 cheaper.

Amplitube Live is a cut-down version of the 'regular' Amplitube. And that is only one part of the X-Gear suite, with Ampeg SVX, Amplitube Jimi Hendrix, Amplitube Fender... etc etc. It is still great value, and better value than Amplitube Live, but it's misleading to say that it is more fully featured than the full retail version of Amplitube.

I don't have any figures but going by the coverage the iRig has received i imagine it will sell quite a few units - partly because of the uniqueness of the ipad/iphone and partly due to price point - you get the whole lot for the price of an Xbox game.

Well, as I've pointed out before, the market for guitarists is considerably larger than the market for DAW users. And bear in mind also that IK have been first to market with what is quite a mature product. That alone will guarantee them many sales. Would there be as many sales if every other amp sim manufacturer went the same way? Maybe, maybe not - it's too early to say. But I'd hazard a guess that the manufacturers' market share on iPad apps would be similar in terms of ratio to that on Mac/PC. Bear in mind also that there are far better products in development which require more processing power than an iAnything or AnythingDroid can currently offer.

[robinv]

Amplitube Live is a cut-down version of the 'regular' Amplitube. And that is only one part of the X-Gear suite, with Ampeg SVX, Amplitube Jimi Hendrix, Amplitube Fender... etc etc. It is still great value, and better value than Amplitube Live, but it's misleading to say that it is more fully featured than the full retail version of Amplitube.

I am obviously going out of my mind I've never mentioned the full retail Amplitube. Let me try to be as clear as i can before we all die from exhaustion.
From the IK website:
Amplitube for iPad -
• 11 Stomps
• 5 Amps
• 5 Cabinets
• 2 Microphones
• Tuner/Metronome
Mixedup9.99

Amplitube 2 Live (which is the only version i've been referring to):
• 3 Guitar and Bass Amp Models
• 5 Cabinets
• 9 Stomp models, plus Spring Reverb and Gate
• 2 Microphone models with selection/position controls
• Built-in Tuner
$99.99

The iPad version has more amps and more stomps which for my little brain makes me think it has "more" than Amp Live but is $80 cheaper (my pricing has been a little random i admit). What it does lack is MIDI control and integration into a larger system but that's due to limits in the hardware it's running on. I'm sure IK consider them to be of equal value but perhaps the low price is forced because of the nature of the app economic model - to be viable as an app it has to be low cost. It's interesting to see how well this works out for IK - whether that greater coverage, larger market results in them making as much or more money that they do selling similar products for more to regular computer users. If it is a success then, i'm suggesting, that this may well have an impact on the way software is priced and delivered in the future. I'm happy to accept that it may have no impact whatsoever but that's far less interesting to talk about.

I'm honestly not trying to mislead anyone - i've got no vested interest, i'm a bit mystified as to why everyone seems to think i'm talking nonsense. I just wanted to chat about the possibilities. It's as if i'm a liberal who has accidentally walked into a conservative pub and started an innocent chat about welfare.

Bear in mind also that there are far better products in development which require more processing power than an iAnything or AnythingDroid can currently offer.

Sure, far better products already exist on normal computers - we know this - the iPad is not the answer, it simply points the way forward. I'm also interested to see interesting things only available on the iPad - like the TC polytune and Reactable - they seem really really, very very fabulously good - not toys as such. I'd like to see those on regular computers but perhaps the attraction of the closed system and huge user base isn't there on regular computers. So what about the future?

[onesecondglance]

see, even with all those options, i'd still say the iRig app only does one thing - it takes an incoming audio signal, applies processing, and outputs the processed signal in near realtime. it does it really well (according to your experience, i can't say i've had the pleasure yet) but it's just one thing.

going back to the Cubase example, Cubase has to be able to do that. it also has to be able to record the incoming audio signal. record and playback MIDI. playback multiple audio and / or MIDI streams. allow editing of those streams, in multiple different visual types (score editing, wave editing, list editing, etc. etc.). keep an edit history and allow undoing. allow saving of not just individual track or FX settings but also entire projects. allow automation of various parameters per track. maintain a timebase for the whole project. allow and manage changes to that timebase. allow looping between markers on that timebase.

it also does a helluva lot more, but without even just one of those things above people would be complaining that it's a crippled program.

like i said though, i don't think there's any inherent difference between, to re-use your example, iRig on an iPhone and a standalone instance of Amplitube on a PC in terms of architecture. it's all very similar software wise. sure, the control mechanism is different for iRig but that's not why it costs a tenth of the price. they can do that because of the reduced feature set and the fact that it's a port of pre-existing code, so the development costs aren't as much as writing it from scratch.

[onesecondglance]

I'm honestly not trying to mislead anyone - i've got no vested interest, i'm a bit mystified as to why everyone seems to think i'm talking nonsense. I just wanted to chat about the possibilities. It's as if i'm a liberal who has accidentally walked into a conservative pub and started an innocent chat about welfare.

i hope i've not come across as dismissing your arguments out of hand - i just see things a bit differently. i've found the discussion quite fun and i hope you have too