Sibelius for iPad

[Deleted User]

https://apps.apple.com/au/app/sibelius/id1503221259

Sibelius brings professional music notation to iPad. Use innovative touch and Apple Pencil gestures to write and edit music notation.

Sibelius brings professional music notation to iPad, putting the workflows used by countless composers, orchestrators, and arrangers at your fingertips. Seamlessly move between iPad and desktop, and from studio to coffeeshop to scoring stage, and write anywhere inspiration strikes.

Work on scores anywhere

Sibelius for mobile puts the #1 selling music notation program at your fingertips—literally. Work with the same tools and features used by countless composers and production houses every day on your iPad. Whether writing down ideas, creating full-blown compositions, or reviewing scores, you have the freedom to create wherever you’re comfortable.

Take your portfolio to go

Forget having to bring and break out your laptop when meeting with clients and collaborators. Instead, you can conveniently take the world’s most powerful notation toolset and your entire music portfolio with you wherever you go—ideal for those unexpected opportunities. And for tandemly working through last-minute revisions.

Hear your music in stunning detail

Sibelius includes a high-quality sample library filled with a variety of musical instrumentation, so you can hear what your music will sound like when performed by real musicians. The Espressivo advanced notation interpretation even lets you adjust rhythm and swing to create a more humanistic feel.

Speed your workflow

Sibelius for mobile is designed to take full advantage of Apple Pencil and iPad touch capabilities. Its elegant, streamlined interface provides the most intuitive and efficient workflows possible while supporting the same keyboard shortcuts you know and love from working on the desktop version, so you’ll feel right at home.

Get innovative note entry

Experience the pen and paper workflow reimagined. Enter notes with the onscreen Keypad or a keyboard, and Sibelius takes care of all note layout. Touch a note and drag up or down to change its value, or drag left or right to add a flat or sharp. With an Apple Pencil, tap a note and tilt up or down to add a flat or sharp, or tilt left or right to choose the note value.

Have everything you need

In addition to the Keypad, Sibelius for mobile features a Create menu that’s optimized for iOS, making it easy to add clefs, key signatures, time signatures, barlines, symbols, text styles, and more to your score from searchable galleries. You can also quickly search through all Sibelius commands using the Command Search, putting the entire app at your fingertips.

Move tiers to meet needs

Sibelius is designed to grow with you to support your creative aspirations and project needs. From the introductory (and free) Sibelius | First to the industry-standard Sibelius | Ultimate, you can add more notation capabilities and instrument parts to take on more creative opportunities by simply upgrading your subscription tier.

Have everything on one creative platform

Seamlessly move from desktop to tablet and back without ever having to import or export files. That’s because whether on mobile or desktop, you’re always in Sibelius. With files saved to iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, or other iOS-supported cloud service, you have easy anywhere access to all your ideas and scores.

Enable a hybrid workflow

While Sibelius for mobile is fully featured, providing many of the same tools as its desktop counterpart, there are some notation and layout features only available in the desktop version, making it an integral part of a complete workflow (compare versions). Plus, the mobile version comes free with the desktop version, enabling you to work where and how you want.

[Deleted User]

Suddenly, it’s now a very crowded space: Notion, StaffPad, Dorico, Sibelius
Looking forward to some comparison videos

wim

Subscription.

Philandering_Bastard

Quite a bit more expensive than Dorico. No Midi out, no Midi export. Plus I’m on a lifetime no Avid ever again policy.

LinearLineman

Too many notes, Too little, Too late.

yaosichen

@LinearLineman said:
Too many notes, Too little, Too late.

Too late is a strong massage to those BIG software companies. please come quick

MisplacedDevelopment

I’d love to know if this was just a coincidence or if they saw that Dorico had shipped and that forced their hand. If that was the case then I wonder if this is a “marketing says just ship it” build or something they have had in their pockets for a while but had chosen not to release yet.

I don’t have Sibelius on the desktop but I do have a very large investment in StaffPad so at some point I will have to dig in to the feature list to see what this offers over Dorico + StaffPad + Notion.

MadGav

I do wonder if Steinberg have forced the issue, I have a suspicion that education sales may be a big deal for these products.

Paulo164

Yeah, quite puzzling what’s going on here with notation apps !! 😅
But we knew with the M1 chip that Mac desktop softwares would come some day to iOS. Prices are going to rise (subscriptions ?) but probably quality and features also.

ervin

@Paulo164 said:
Prices are going to rise (subscriptions ?) but probably quality and features also.

Well, they may TRY to raise prices and steer users towards subscription. Whether they will be successful is another question.

Looking at the current crop of apps on my ipad, I would struggle to name (m)any that I would be willing to pay for again and again in the form of a sub.

My anecdotal opinion is obviously not statistically relevant though.

SevenSystems

If you guys want to see a very entertaining video "review" of Sibelius for Windows, look here:

Basically, even their desktop UI / UX is a pretty mixed bag, I really would hope they've upped their game for the iPad version ☺️

Artj

I haven't updated Finale (desktop) for years. Someone please tell me that it's not going to go the subscription route!

ervin

@SevenSystems said:
If you guys want to see a very entertaining video "review" of Sibelius for Windows, look here:

Basically, even their desktop UI / UX is a pretty mixed bag, I really would hope they've upped their game for the iPad version ☺️

Ouch! 😢

dspreadbury

I'm far from an impartial observer, since I'm the product manager for Dorico (and indeed I was the product manager for Sibelius and intimately involved in its design from Sibelius 2 back in 2001 until Sibelius 7 in 2011, so many of the things that Martin Keary rips into in that video are things that I had a hand in) so take that into consideration, but I think it's pretty clear that Avid are going for something entirely different to StaffPad, Notion and even our own Dorico with their Sibelius iPad app.

It's of very limited use to somebody who doesn't have an active subscription to the desktop version, and I think that's entirely by design.

I shared a few more thoughts about this on our own forum here.

MisplacedDevelopment

@dspreadbury said:
I'm far from an impartial observer, since I'm the product manager for Dorico (and indeed I was the product manager for Sibelius and intimately involved in its design from Sibelius 2 back in 2001 until Sibelius 7 in 2011, so many of the things that Martin Keary rips into in that video are things that I had a hand in) so take that into consideration, but I think it's pretty clear that Avid are going for something entirely different to StaffPad, Notion and even our own Dorico with their Sibelius iPad app.

It's of very limited use to somebody who doesn't have an active subscription to the desktop version, and I think that's entirely by design.

I shared a few more thoughts about this on our own forum here.

I did notice that the spiel goes from “ Work with the same tools and features used by countless composers and production houses every day on your iPad.”, to (final paragraph, of course): “ While Sibelius for mobile is fully featured, providing many of the same tools as its desktop counterpart, there are some notation and layout features only available in the desktop version, making it an integral part of a complete workflow (compare versions)”.

I appreciate your take on it and as someone who does not have it on desktop I cannot see what it might offer me over the existing options. I need to set some time aside at some point to do a deep dive with Dorico as it does seem to tick a lot of boxes for me and looks like it would serve a purpose alongside StaffPad, possibly replacing Notion if I compare features.

Edward_Alexander

@LinearLineman said:
Too many notes, Too little, Too late.

This. Exactly this!

@yaosichen said:

@LinearLineman said:
Too many notes, Too little, Too late.

Too late is a strong massage to those BIG >software companies. please come quick

Can we use both hands? 🙌

I’ll see myself out

espiegel123

@ervin said:

@Paulo164 said:
Prices are going to rise (subscriptions ?) but probably quality and features also.

Well, they may TRY to raise prices and steer users towards subscription. Whether they will be successful is another question.

Looking at the current crop of apps on my ipad, I would struggle to name (m)any that I would be willing to pay for again and again in the form of a sub.

My anecdotal opinion is obviously not statistically relevant though.

And therein lies the rub. Folks want professional level apps on iOS but developers can't actually generate the revenue to provide such tools. Most desktop apps use a semi-subscription model (outright purchase plus paid upgrades on a recurring basis). iOS doesn't permit that sort of model...and to make things worse iOS customers won't even pay base prices that cover the cost of development.

ervin

@espiegel123 said:

@ervin said:

@Paulo164 said:
Prices are going to rise (subscriptions ?) but probably quality and features also.

Well, they may TRY to raise prices and steer users towards subscription. Whether they will be successful is another question.

Looking at the current crop of apps on my ipad, I would struggle to name (m)any that I would be willing to pay for again and again in the form of a sub.

My anecdotal opinion is obviously not statistically relevant though.

And therein lies the rub. Folks want professional level apps on iOS but developers can't actually generate the revenue to provide such tools. Most desktop apps use a semi-subscription model (outright purchase plus paid upgrades on a recurring basis). iOS doesn't permit that sort of model...and to make things worse iOS customers won't even pay base prices that cover the cost of development.

I totally agree with you. Every once in a while I look at all these brilliant apps on my ipad and can't believe how they are even possible. And I bought them for almost nothing, in most cases. They may not (all) be pro grade, but they are definitely more professional than I am.

The lack of paid upgrades on ios is a huge problem. I hate the subscription model on any platform, but I'm fine with paid upgrades, which I find a completely different, and much better, proposition.

sharifkerbage

That is something that I cannot still understand.. in cases when the plugin also exists for desktop, and apparently there're exactly the same, Why the huge difference in price between platforms? (no complaining at all though 😆)

MobileMusic

@sharifkerbage said:
That is something that I cannot still understand.. in cases when the plugin also exists for desktop, and apparently there're exactly the same, Why the huge difference in price between platforms? (no complaining at all though 😆)

That’s because the AppStore started off with cheap dollar apps, some devs quickly made millions working out of their bedroom/kitchen/basement/garage, AppStore grew astronomically (like a planet within a planet) doing business in BILLIONS and users were spoilt and continued to expect the apps to be cheaper. Lower pricing model, IAPs, family sharing, etc. contributed to AppStore’s success with more revenues year over year and more new devs flocking to and embracing iOS and abandoning other platforms. Dollar stores do make a big business.

The wild success of AppStore (and also AWS) could have easily belonged to Microsoft due to the extent of their market penetration but a few things worked against them - 1) First-to-the-market advantage, 2) Steve Balmer, a tech misfit who mocked iPhone when it was launched at $600 and it took him beyond his retirement to understand iPhone’s success admitting that he was wrong about iPhone. No wonder Windows Phone was a fiasco. The top guy in an organization makes all the difference. After Balmer left, Microsoft’s market value went up by many billions!

sharifkerbage

@MobileMusic said:

@sharifkerbage said:
That is something that I cannot still understand.. in cases when the plugin also exists for desktop, and apparently there're exactly the same, Why the huge difference in price between platforms? (no complaining at all though 😆)

That’s because the AppStore started off with cheap dollar apps, some devs quickly made millions working out of their bedroom/kitchen/basement/garage, AppStore grew astronomically (like a planet within a planet) doing business in BILLIONS and users were spoilt and continued to expect the apps to be cheaper. Lower pricing model, IAPs, family sharing, etc. contributed to AppStore’s success with more revenues year over year and more new devs embracing it and abandoning other platforms. Dollar stores do make a big business.

The wild success of AppStore could have easily belonged to Microsoft due to the extent of their market penetration but a few things worked against them - 1) first to the market advantage, 2) Steve Balmer a misfit who mocked iPhone when it was launched at $600 and it took him beyond his retirement to understand and admit iPhone’s success saying he was wrong. Windows Phone was a fiasco. The top guy in an organization makes all the difference. After Balmer left, Microsoft’s market value went up in billions.

Well, that make sense then, thanks.

ksound

@sharifkerbage said:
That is something that I cannot still understand.. in cases when the plugin also exists for desktop, and apparently there're exactly the same, Why the huge difference in price between platforms? (no complaining at all though 😆)

Other factors are Apple setting a low bar by releasing GarageBand for free, and warez/cracks being insignificant on iOS.