PPG Infinite (by Wolfgang palm)

[fmr]

The potential user base is larger but I'm not sure about the actual user base. I don't have the figures.

After the campaign a small number of us IOS musicians had to mount to convince Apple there was something seriously wrong with audio latency on the latest iPad Pros and get it fixed (now successfully) I got the impression that the IOS user base of audio apps is pretty small (and certainly nothing more than an annoying buzzing fly in the next room for Apple).

Here's a wild idea ... try selling a VST equivalent for the same price and see what happens to sales. Again, I don't have the figures, but I think there are many more desktop musicians.

The thing with IOS is that so many things come up in the sub £10 range that I, and others, just buy them and take a punt on them. There are quite a few misses but there you go. Nobody died. £20 I certainly think about more but if the dev's pedigree is good I may well buy it. There is definitely a culture of purchasing cheap apps.

Why wouldn't/doesn't that translate to the desktop? Genuine, economically naive question.

Exactly what I think.

And I rest my case, since I don't want to derail the thread.

[BiancaNeve]

I think it doesn’t translate to desktop because the AppStore has some advantages for developers
It simplifies handling all the small payments and tax payments
Piracy on iOS is pretty hard and Apple work hard to keep it that way
Being on the AppStore gives users a level of confidence that the app is unlikely to contain any viruses and that refunds are available if the app clearly doesn’t perform as claimed

Also I think a lot of developers use/ hope to use mobile as a gateway drug to lead people to the desktop versions of their products.

[Cinebient]

The potential user base is larger but I'm not sure about the actual user base. I don't have the figures.

After the campaign a small number of us IOS musicians had to mount to convince Apple there was something seriously wrong with audio latency on the latest iPad Pros and get it fixed (now successfully) I got the impression that the IOS user base of audio apps is pretty small (and certainly nothing more than an annoying buzzing fly in the next room for Apple).

Here's a wild idea ... try selling a VST equivalent for the same price and see what happens to sales. Again, I don't have the figures, but I think there are many more desktop musicians.

The thing with IOS is that so many things come up in the sub £10 range that I, and others, just buy them and take a punt on them. There are quite a few misses but there you go. Nobody died. £20 I certainly think about more but if the dev's pedigree is good I may well buy it. There is definitely a culture of purchasing cheap apps.

Why wouldn't/doesn't that translate to the desktop? Genuine, economically naive question.

Exactly what I think.

And I rest my case, since I don't want to derail the thread.

No problem. I even agree with you in some points.
But there is really the "problem" that iOS in general started with one dollar apps and people there never would pay that much for an app. A kind of pro app store would be needed for people willing to pay more for complex apps.
Then some developers even said it´s O.K. since the distribution and all the things around that is handled by Apple. They offer good API´s and it´s a lot less cost intense to develop on iOS due to less fragmented soft- and hardware etc.
Mostly there isn´t much marketing and tutorials etc. and more a mouth to mouth spreading.
And not all iOS apps are cheap. F.e. Gadget....might be a cheap entree but with all the in app purchases it will cost more than Logic and i get just a fraction of the content for that.
A thing like N.I. Komplete is also a bargain for what you all get. You would need 1000 apps for that.
But at the end i really agree with you that it´s hard to justify to pay that much more for the same plug-in. Because of that some developers just offers "lite" apps or they add some more features to their desktop stuff.
In some cases you get the same tools for 1/10 of the price like Fabfilter plug-ins, Audio Damage FX and synths, PPG (but the desktop tools mostly has some extras), Waldorf Nave and so on.
But i guess the developers are not dumb and made a kind of market research.
Sometime i also think iOS is a good platform for a first version to see if people like it.
But back to the topic there is a "pro" in the GUI where it isn´t in the iOS version and i hope that this isn´t just a marketing gag

[pdxindy]

The thing with IOS is that so many things come up in the sub £10 range that I, and others, just buy them and take a punt on them. There are quite a few misses but there you go. Nobody died. £20 I certainly think about more but if the dev's pedigree is good I may well buy it. There is definitely a culture of purchasing cheap apps.

Why wouldn't/doesn't that translate to the desktop? Genuine, economically naive question.

On the desktop you have AU, VST 2/3, AAX, Mac and PC... and numerous different versions of operating systems. Re-sizable GUI's are becoming mandatory.

You also have lots of different DAW's with differing ways of doing things so that also adds to a developers workload.

You also have a more demanding set of expectations including support and expectations of resale.

on iOS, people expect less... no need to develop demos, sophisticated copy protection, often no manuals and they are more willing to make impulse buys and then essentially throw it away.

If the top desktop plugin developers sold their plugins for $20 they would all go out of business.

[lnikj]

The thing with IOS is that so many things come up in the sub £10 range that I, and others, just buy them and take a punt on them. There are quite a few misses but there you go. Nobody died. £20 I certainly think about more but if the dev's pedigree is good I may well buy it. There is definitely a culture of purchasing cheap apps.

Why wouldn't/doesn't that translate to the desktop? Genuine, economically naive question.

On the desktop you have AU, VST 2/3, AAX, Mac and PC... and numerous different versions of operating systems. Re-sizable GUI's are becoming mandatory.

You also have lots of different DAW's with differing ways of doing things so that also adds to a developers workload.

You also have a more demanding set of expectations including support and expectations of resale.

on iOS, people expect less... no need to develop demos, sophisticated copy protection, often no manuals and they are more willing to make impulse buys and then essentially throw it away.

If the top desktop plugin developers sold their plugins for $20 they would all go out of business.

I get all that but is the last line tested? Is it beyond the bounds of imagination that five times as many of a $100 plugin would be sold if it was sold at $20? That $20 plugins would be impulse buys? That there might be (marginally) less piracy?

I appreciate that support costs would go up.

Just a thought experiment -I am sure that those who sell these things know far better than me how to price things and maximise their return.

[pdxindy]

On the desktop you have AU, VST 2/3, AAX, Mac and PC... and numerous different versions of operating systems. Re-sizable GUI's are becoming mandatory.

You also have lots of different DAW's with differing ways of doing things so that also adds to a developers workload.

You also have a more demanding set of expectations including support and expectations of resale.

on iOS, people expect less... no need to develop demos, sophisticated copy protection, often no manuals and they are more willing to make impulse buys and then essentially throw it away.

If the top desktop plugin developers sold their plugins for $20 they would all go out of business.

I get all that but is the last line tested? Is it beyond the bounds of imagination that five times as many of a $100 plugin would be sold if it was sold at $20? That $20 plugins would be impulse buys? That there might be (marginally) less piracy?

I appreciate that support costs would go up.

Just a thought experiment -I am sure that those who sell these things know far better than me how to price things and maximise their return.

Support costs go up a lot... impulse buys means unhappy customers... Also 1/5 the cost does not mean 5x the sales. And in this field, I am very doubtful there is a large untapped userbase out there. Complex synthesizers are not something the average person out there is interested in.

What it all boils down to is this... users want cheaper prices so there is an endless stream of rationalizations 'explaining' to developers why they will benefit from selling something to them cheaper

[Cinebient]

On the desktop you have AU, VST 2/3, AAX, Mac and PC... and numerous different versions of operating systems. Re-sizable GUI's are becoming mandatory.

You also have lots of different DAW's with differing ways of doing things so that also adds to a developers workload.

You also have a more demanding set of expectations including support and expectations of resale.

on iOS, people expect less... no need to develop demos, sophisticated copy protection, often no manuals and they are more willing to make impulse buys and then essentially throw it away.

If the top desktop plugin developers sold their plugins for $20 they would all go out of business.

I get all that but is the last line tested? Is it beyond the bounds of imagination that five times as many of a $100 plugin would be sold if it was sold at $20? That $20 plugins would be impulse buys? That there might be (marginally) less piracy?

I appreciate that support costs would go up.

Just a thought experiment -I am sure that those who sell these things know far better than me how to price things and maximise their return.

Support costs go up a lot... impulse buys means unhappy customers... Also 1/5 the cost does not mean 5x the sales. And in this field, I am very doubtful there is a large untapped userbase out there. Complex synthesizers are not something the average person out there is interested in.

What it all boils down to is this... users want cheaper prices so there is an endless stream of rationalizations 'explaining' to developers why they will benefit from selling something to them cheaper

But it's true for me. For €50 i would buy most synths...for €100-150 it must be outstanding in some ways.
But it's a good thing iOS developers don't have such a mess of fragmentated bloat and don't need to support a million screen resolutions, AAX, VST, AU, whatever. If i only need an AU why should i pay for all of it at the end.

[pdxindy]

But it's true for me. For €50 i would buy most synths...for €100-150 it must be outstanding in some ways.

It's true for most users... They want to be able to endlessly buy stuff at cheap prices while simultaneously making a high wage themselves.

[Cinebient]

But it's true for me. For €50 i would buy most synths...for €100-150 it must be outstanding in some ways.

It's true for most users... They want to be able to endlessly buy stuff at cheap prices while simultaneously making a high wage themselves.

It is like it is. Why pay more for a meal if it doesn't taste better

[pdxindy]

But it's true for me. For €50 i would buy most synths...for €100-150 it must be outstanding in some ways.

It's true for most users... They want to be able to endlessly buy stuff at cheap prices while simultaneously making a high wage themselves.

It is like it is. Why pay more for a meal if it doesn't taste better

That's the thing... it does taste better... and of course you know it and that is why you went back to Mac...

[masterhiggins]

But it's true for me. For €50 i would buy most synths...for €100-150 it must be outstanding in some ways.

It's true for most users... They want to be able to endlessly buy stuff at cheap prices while simultaneously making a high wage themselves.

It is like it is. Why pay more for a meal if it doesn't taste better

In my experience the price difference is negligible as when it comes time to selling my old Macs I always get a significant portion of it back, even years later. I just sold my wife's old MacBook Pro (which I bought for $1000 about 6 years ago for $550 cash. That's pretty good.

[lnikj]

But it's true for me. For €50 i would buy most synths...for €100-150 it must be outstanding in some ways.

It's true for most users... They want to be able to endlessly buy stuff at cheap prices while simultaneously making a high wage themselves.

The thing is, all those £5-£10 IOS purchases do actually accumulate to a sizeable outlay, as Cinebient noted wrt Gadget.

My question was more an academic exercise than a plea to devs to lower their prices. I was simply curious to know whether anybody had any genuine figures for these things - size of user bases etc, and whether anybody knew of whether any dev had actually carried out the exercise of radically dropping prices and quantifying if volume outweighed that.

I do recall many years ago Fxpansion selling Etch at a silly price and lots of people bought it. I doubt I would ever have bought it at full price or anything approaching it. I wonder how many they sold.

[Cinebient]

But it's true for me. For €50 i would buy most synths...for €100-150 it must be outstanding in some ways.

It's true for most users... They want to be able to endlessly buy stuff at cheap prices while simultaneously making a high wage themselves.

It is like it is. Why pay more for a meal if it doesn't taste better

That's the thing... it does taste better... and of course you know it and that is why you went back to Mac...

Well, that point goes to you.
But that might change again....

[telebunke]

But it's true for me. For €50 i would buy most synths...for €100-150 it must be outstanding in some ways.

It's true for most users... They want to be able to endlessly buy stuff at cheap prices while simultaneously making a high wage themselves.

It is like it is. Why pay more for a meal if it doesn't taste better

That's the thing... it does taste better... and of course you know it and that is why you went back to Mac...

Well, that point goes to you.
But that might change again....

I am in the same boat, actually, but the other way round. After upgrading from iPad Air to iPad2017, the iPad keeps me busy creating. Almost didn't turn on my Mac for 5 months.
Surely that will change. But GarageBand with its Alchemy and drummers plus Noise already offer so many good sounds plus this super easy workflow, it supports my creative flow by its simplicity. With Logic and its trillion options I tend to get stuck, which is not a good thing during the initial creative process.

[Cinebient]

But it's true for me. For €50 i would buy most synths...for €100-150 it must be outstanding in some ways.

It's true for most users... They want to be able to endlessly buy stuff at cheap prices while simultaneously making a high wage themselves.

It is like it is. Why pay more for a meal if it doesn't taste better

That's the thing... it does taste better... and of course you know it and that is why you went back to Mac...

Well, that point goes to you.
But that might change again....

I am in the same boat, actually, but the other way round. After upgrading from iPad Air to iPad2017, the iPad keeps me busy creating. Almost didn't turn on my Mac for 5 months.
Surely that will change. But GarageBand with its Alchemy and drummers plus Noise already offer so many good sounds plus this super easy workflow, it supports my creative flow by its simplicity. With Logic and its trillion options I tend to get stuck, which is not a good thing during the initial creative process.

If i had still the workflow and would make the same sounds i made for some years i would still be 100% iOS but i changed a lot and like to make soundtrack or electronic with orchestrial parts and also experiment with different tunigs/microtuning. Here isn´t much on iOS and also FX are still mainly mediocre while synths are on par.
There are no good solo instruments for cello or violin etc. available.
I loved the plug and play thing with iOS devices but then i bought a new macbook (in 2014) and it was the same but at the same time i have everything in one DAW. On iOS it still doesn´t work if i try to connect a lot apps together, save that, recall that or copy that etc.
Then i use mostly open studio headphones like the Beyerdynamic DT-990 f.e. with 250 Ohm or the AKG-702 (which i damaged yesterday, doh´) and i can just plug them into my macbook pro, it drives them just fine. My iPhone or any iPad can´t drive them really without an extern audio card and/or headphone amplifier. It´s night and day.
But iOS is still great for some single apps/synths or multi-touch optimzed DAW´s like NanoStudio for some great inspiration where limitations can help to stay focused.
I did 200+ tracks on iPhones and iPad Air alone and it was great but then i wanted more and now there is no way back really since i can´t do the things i want now on an iPad.
But there are still many things i can´t do on my mac and which works better and/or are cheaper on iOS devices.
At the end i use both together but if i had to choose it would be clearly the mac at this moment.
Like i said this could be change anytime depending on software and hardware available.
I often take a fresh breath when i do some things iOS only but after a while i want to go back.
Sometimes less is more but sometimes it´s just more is more
I´m still amazed by 10 dollar apps like Zeeon which sounds good like Diva but often they are limited inside iOS and i would prefer them on my mac inside Logic.
I mean after some years i learned Logic really well and i can´t live without it anymore.
The workflow on my notebook is now what i had at the beginning with my iPhone and iPad while things on iOS get more complicated and there is always an app don´t playing well with the others. At the end these are all computers....we just have different needs and workflows.
Important is if we like what we use and if we get inspiration and can be creative with it.
I still wished the freaking Apple would allow me to use iOS apps on my mac. I don´t really need a touch screen since i also experienced that it´s not useful mostly with the tools i use but iOS is still the only platform where really well optimzed multi-touch tools for music production exist.