i'm not arguing there aren't compromises to be made, but how that translates into everyday use is not as clear cut.chk071 wrote:@ el-bo: But taking a look at what's actually ported, it's often year old plugins which shouldn't take much processing power. Or it's newly developed stuff like Waldorf's Nave, which is probably highly optimized. If you want to run a reasonable amount of instances (don't know what's possible on the iPad, i remember there was limitations in the audiobus stuff too?), you got to have stuff which doesn't use up all your processing power, which is way limited with portable devices, as you want to have a good battery span. Processors which are optimized for energy saving will always be rather limited in processing power. E.g. Intel Atom processors with 1.6 GHz were on par with Intel Pentium 1 GHz CPU's.
we're not going to see 'idiva' anytime soon, but the age/optimisation argument doesn't mean a thing if the real-world experience is as good as it is. 'thor' is no spring-chicken, but it is an excellent sounding ios synth. propellerheads are among a good few developers who have improved the performance aspects of their products to take advantage of the touch aspects of ios. as for opimisation ?? not tried nave, but i am guessing moog's animoog is as optimised as it needs to be. i have it running on a 3 year-old ipad (way underpowered compared to todays ipad), and it is as smooth as butter, sounds fantastic, and is the most expressive synth instrument i have ever played
the mistake is to compare on-paper specs (an argument that is often used in android vs ios debates), but it really has no bearing on real-world usage. i get more battery hours than i need, even with a few intensive apps running at the same time. besides, in most critical situations, you won't be far from a power outlet. you can even get mobile chargers should you find 9 hours of field recording insufficient
the other aspect of this argument that seems a little pointless is to not look to apps that play to the strengths of the touch screen; apps that have been designed from the ground up that have no equal in the world of the desktop/laptop. apps like tc-11, gestrument, samplr, thumbjam, and many more