Apple announced Logic Pro coming to iPad.. time for BIG rethink of KK and other NI products

Kubrak

Only huge amount of money may speed things up....

Companies probably try with few plugins first. And if it brings money more will follow. Eventide made one NKS plugin. It probably did not increase sales, so no more plugins got NKS. Eventide has few plugins (more fancy ones, than 'serious' ones) for iPad. If it brings money, more will come. If not, no more plugins.

So, it mostly depends on customers, if they will be willing to bring additional cash to plugin producer.

I doubt, serious plugins will be ported to iPad anytime soon. I guess, that developer may guess what the demand might be using user data from Win. They know, how many customers use their plugins on computers similar to iPad. And what plugins.

I guess, one day people will move to 'tablets' as well they have moved from PCs to laptops years ago. But it will take time... My guess is 10 more years in my country, in US it might be few years sooner.

But in case of US it massively depends on Apple. If they will remove artificial limits of iPadOS or unify iPadOS and MacOS than it may happen soon. But it would cut down sales of Apple HW.... So, .....

Maciej Repetowski

One can easily mix commercial quality track with just stock Logic plugins. There’s no limitation or the need to wait for other vendors to port anything.

Virtual instruments, not so much but just for mixing and recording - Logic doesn’t really need any external vendors to step in.

Kubrak

OK, but mixing is probably the worst thing to do on tiny display and without controller/surface. And loudspeakers. For sure, it is doable.

As well as one may travel between Warsaw and Paris on bicycle. For sure, it is doable. And few folks would even love it.

LostInFoundation

This applies also to computer. Mixing with a mouse with single input point? Surely even with a computer is better to have controller/surface and loudspeakers. The difference is that, if you are on the go, an iPad screen gives you up to ten input points at your fingertips. And also the speakers, although not even barely sufficient, are better than monitors/laptops ones (I always laugh at laptops advertising “we mount Harman Kardon/Bose speakers” and then…the sound is ****** anyway 😂😂😂)

And the 12.9 iPad screen, since you tend to use it closer to your eyes, often seems to me bigger than any laptop screen I have. Sometimes even watching a movie with the iPad close to me gives me the impression to have a bigger screen than my 60’ television down there in the living room 😂😂😂

Sidenote: wow…you can’ t even say c r appy sound in this forum without it being censored 😂

LostInFoundation

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/70605#Comment_70605

In facts, there’s no need to wait for anything anyway. Fabfilter is already on iPad, Audiothing is already porting now, as many other companies. And other indie developers make a really good job on iPad, not cutting a poor figure towards their computer counterparts.

Reference based mastering solutions, vocal tune plugins ala Melodyne,… Everything is already there on iPads. And for a fragment of the price

If there is a field where iPad is not left behind, is surely fxs (even the very experimenting and innovating ones)

It’s quite sad how many musicians don’t have a clue of all the things that can ALREADY be done on an iPad…hopefully the advent of Logic Pro will change that (not meaning IT will change that, but that it will show what is already doable). And it will also help to improve the quality of what is already there (even if by raising the prices…but it will be ok…if I have to pay 50 instead of 10 for better quality I’m all in. Even because the same 50 thing costs 200 or more on desktop. If we are lucky, even price on desktop will lower, once people understand they can have the same thing spending less somewhere else 🤞🏼)

The only risk is that people used to spend 10-20 till now will not accept to spend 50-60. And therefore companies will stop to develop for it. As someone said, up to the consumers to show there is interest in the platform (with their wallets)

And another risk (so it wasn’t the only one in the end 😂) is that the pricing structure of AppStore don’t allow for easy update/upgrade strategies. Therefore, or the pricing structure will change, or we will see A LOT of subscriptions, or companies will not be interested in the platform anyway. I do fear the second will be the winning one. And, even if I know that this is a delicate matter, I’m not a fan of subscriptions. Specially because now I own hundreds of music apps and AuV3 on iPad, and I’m surely not able to afford to pay monthly subscriptions for even 1/8 of them 😂

Maciej Repetowski

As always, it also depends on the part of the world one is living in. In UK, I see tablets everywhere, not PC convertible laptops (Windows tablets). Mostly iPads, Samsung Galaxy tablets and other Android ones. I’ve seen Microsoft Surface tablets occasionally, too. Property agencies, shops, restaurants, banks - everyone is approaching you with a tablet. To show you something, to take order, to pay for goods. Also in healthcare, especially to gather medical history, etc.

There’s huge potential for deployment of music and video/photo apps. Heck, even Adobe has several apps for iPad, including simplified Photoshop. So there is definitely a market there. Basic iPad or Android tablet is cheaper than a laptop, I see many families buying them for children as their “first computer”.

LostInFoundation

Tablets have a big advantage: immediacy. You need to open that thing THERE? You push THERE. You need to use it? You take it in your hands and you use it. No need to turn on anything, sitting at a desk… you just use it

I tried to make my mother use computers my whole life. No success

But as soon a I gifted her an iPad, when I go to visit them and my father says “Your son is here” she answer with a “ Son? Do I have a son?” continuing staring at her iPad 😂

Kubrak

Tablets and smartphones do not have tactile response. It does cripple people in some way. It already makes problems in surgery, it takes much longer to teach, as students do not have micro motorics well developed....

One should avoid kids from using such devices as long as possible. My son is not allowed to use tablet or smartpone. He may use only notebook.

It also seems to me that Pros still prefer hardware control surfaces to touch ones. And that HW is probably still prefered to touch by users may be seen on NI keyboards. Inovative touchstripes were replaced by classical HW in MK2....

LostInFoundation

Pros? EVERYBODY prefers hardwares to touch in music (and not only). Is not a matter of one OR the other. Both are welcome. This is the point: is not about “hey, let’s use iPads and throw all our hardwares in garbage” (I even use many HW with iPad, as I do with computer. The only difference is with touch screen I can “play” a keyboard EVEN without an HW. With computer…not (unless I play one note at the time with mouse click 😂)) . It’s about “cool, I have the choice. And when I’m out (or on the couch) with only my iPad, I can make some music anyway”

Don’t watch at the iPad merely as a standalone device. Watch at it as your computer. If you want, you can plug anything you desire to it (as you do with your computer). But in some occasions, it can also be a standalone device. This is its plus. And when apps are well developed with touch in mind, you can even do things you can’t do with any computer or hardware (see Samplr, an app I mentioned in another thread that was so well designed for touch that Apple hired is developer and now we have Sample Alchemy in Logic Pro derived from this app).

As I said, is not one OR the other. It’s like an instrument player who can say “Cool…I can play music by pushing a keyboard keys AND also strumming some guitar chords AND also beating on a drum”. Now we can say “Cool…I can push keys AND strum chords AND beat drums….AND touch a screen”. The more different things we can do, the better it is 👍🏼

LostInFoundation

Some videos about Samplr (if someone is interested) shorts to longs, to show what you can do with a well designed app for touch screens:

2 short videos about Samplr play styles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQUrXaDIZNo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeIxCeJPEkw

A video integrating Samplr with a live band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy2hLyrH6L8

Cuckoo’s take on Samplr:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dLP1Ckm7ek

BTW: Samplr was disponible also for Macs touchbars (if you really hate iPads ☺️):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMlmzTBF_LE

And this is what possible 10 years ago on an iPad. Imagine what it is become now 😉

(well…in fact…I’m l lying… In my opinion we made 2 step backwards nowadays, exactly because developers started to try to mimic what we already have on computers, instead of continuing developing on iPad peculiarities… But the power M processors iPads have combined with the right developers could give a lot of nice results)

just_jump

can “play” a keyboard EVEN without an HW. With computer…not (unless I play one note at the time with mouse click

Most daws have a midi keyboard across the letters - which I use occasionally and more successfully than touch keyboards on iPad. Neither are great though. I can draw in midi faster than either option on computer or give up on the clunkiness of Garage band midi editing. If Logic for iPad doesn’t get a total UI rethink I don’t see it being any better than GarageBand on the go - I’ll stick with Ableton Note for $7? (even on my phone).

I’m not sure I understand people that seem to be advocating for $200/year subscriptions (iPad or otherwise). I had so many subs piling up in web services, and entertainment, etc I cut almost all of it out by end of last year. They add up (mine were largely adding add up in about the same 2 month span - many want that annual lump payment). Lots of people use more than one vendor and juggle what to update which year for budgeting.

Also people were pretty sour when Waves tried to go sub only and they reversed course.

As someone that does use iPad for different things I’ve just found music to largely be clunkier and slower and more annoying.

Kubrak

@LostInFoundation I agree that tablet like HW may be nice thing when on move. For sketching or more or less simple tasks or tasks that do not need external HW (big screen, controller/kb, control surface, monitors, ...) much. For example designing synth patches.

You may connect iPad to screen and different HW, but you still have limitations that iPadOS has. For example, limit on RAM allocation. And I read somewhere, that it does not support external discs/sticks. If that is true.....

Maciej Repetowski

Of course it does support external storage:

https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/external-storage-devices-ipad75b7b23f/ipados

LostInFoundation

Different uses, different opinions 👍🏼

As I said, I want to use iPads for its strengths. I probably will never plug an external monitor to it. Having a touch device to use it as a computer…at this point I use a computer. My iPad is for when I want to do iPad things. Trying to make it mimic something else is 2 steps backward as I already said. But I do understand that different users have different needs, so I tried to show that in any case an iPad IS a powerful computer, albeit, as you say, with iPadOS. Which in my opinion could also be its strength: a dedicated OS for dedicated tablet tasks. If they will try to adapt a computer OS for a tablet, they have not understood what a tablet is (fact that the new Apple management is largely proving. I think Steve Jobs is not resting in peace at all, since the vision he had for his iPhones and iPads has been turned upside down).

I can confirm what Marciej showed with a link with direct experience: I constantly use iPads with external storage. Some apps with large libraries sound even have direct streaming, allowing sound banks to be installed on external drives

Kubrak

Thanks. It seemed to me so hard to believe it, that it might even be true....