Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
What is Loopy Pro? — Loopy Pro is a powerful, flexible, and intuitive live looper, sampler, clip launcher and DAW for iPhone and iPad. At its core, it allows you to record and layer sounds in real-time to create complex musical arrangements. But it doesn’t stop there—Loopy Pro offers advanced tools to customize your workflow, build dynamic performance setups, and create a seamless connection between instruments, effects, and external gear.
Use it for live looping, sequencing, arranging, mixing, and much more. Whether you're a live performer, a producer, or just experimenting with sound, Loopy Pro helps you take control of your creative process.
Download on the App StoreLoopy Pro is your all-in-one musical toolkit. Try it for free today.
Is Subscription Fair to Developers and Users alike?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
At the end of the day, the question is: can a developer realize what they consider a reasonable return on the time and money they put into developing a tool.
For a lot of developers, the answer has been increasingly no.
So, they are exploring how to change that. Once upon a time, there was a hope that volume would overcome the race-to-the-bottom pricing of the App Store. To whatever extent that was true in early years that ceased being a thing as more developers entered the fray.
There have been enough conscientious developers who have said that without something like subscription that they can’t make a living that I believe them. That does not mean subscription actually will work…but it may mean that the current model is broken, too.
The Loopy Pro/Working Copy model is intriguing and will hopefully work, but that doesn't mean that it would work for all developers and it is still a work in progress.
It is likely that any strategy that works for more than a few lucky developers will leave some people angry because it will price them out.
The whole "is it fair" framing (as some others have pointed out) seems like the wrong framing. People seem largely to confuse "fairness" with "what I like".
No solution is going to be liked by everyone. It is probably the case that a solution that works out for mature full-time developers in a reasonable way will mean that we will be able to afford fewer apps and have to be more selective as consumers.
…until sales come along to GAS into spending more, but less than “regular” prices 🤣
I’m not actually so sure that it is wrong to ask if it is ‘fair’? Seems like a perfectly legitimate avenue to explore. In this context, asking if the subscription model is ‘fair’ is just another way of saying, ‘Does it offer good value?’.
If an app is genuinely offering new features or content on a regular and frequent basis then it seems to me it can (at least try to) justify a subscription. If it doesn’t then it’s surely disingenuous to try to implement a subscription model. I’m not convinced that creative apps are able to be developed with new features at such a consistent pace that they can really justify a subscription - is a massive entity like Adobe really introducing genuinely new features at a greater rate than they used to now they’re subscription based? Well, if they can’t manage it then what hope do smaller development teams have to offer good value for a subscription?
The thing which seems sad to me is that slowly but surely the subscription model is creeping into areas it shouldn’t be and it’s worrying to think that it’s being normalized as being present for things which can’t really justify it.
Are subscription models for music making apps fair then? In my opinion, no, because development times are too long for the developer to be able to deliver that fairness, that value, to the customer.
The answer? As many here have said, the working copy, Loopy Pro model seems perfectly fair for both customer and developer. Alternatively, in app purchases for new features and new purchases for full version upgrades are perfectly legitimate options as far as I can see. It doesn’t need to be either a ‘pay once and get everything new forever’ or an ‘ongoing subscription and own nothing at the end’ choice for customers and developers - these other ways are available which are fair to both.
Well said!
Those are not all subscriptions though - the first two are secured loans for items that you own outright but are used as collateral against the loan.
I agree on the other items - not sure they have much second hand value…
I'd be kind of happy if I could get a fixed price subscription for the wife. That one is variable and wildly unpredictable.
Who wouldn't be tempted to let the subscription lapse every now and then though? 😂😬
The family plan is predictable enough though. Variable rate equal to the total amount you have in the bank each month.
Subscription is most fair to developers. Open source is most fair to users. Most software is somewhere in the middle.
Valid points 🙏🏻
@Stuntman_mike About your initial “we get paid every 2 weeks” statement: in a “normal” work case, you are not getting paid in a “subscription model”
The reason why you are constantly getting paid is because you are constantly giving new work time to your company. And if you have done something “wrong” in your previous work, is up to you to fix your mistakes. In the app field, this should mean that if a developer programmed something wrong is up to him to fix the bugs, since he sold you the app stating “you can do this”, not “you can do this if I made my work well, otherwise it won’t work cause it’s buggy”.
Would you pay twice just because a windows installer came to you, installed the window wrongly and so the day after it fell out? No, it’s his mistake, so it’s up to him to fix it.
Another question is if the installer propose you an upgrading of your window, or a new window model. In this case is correct to pay him, cause he is doing a new work and he is giving you something new.
And in my opinion, charging upfront because “maybe next year I can install you a new window model” isn’t fair. Make me pay NOW for the window I chose, then next year if I’m interested in the new window, I will pay you again. But maybe I will still be okay with the window I have, and so I won’t buy the new one. (and this will lead to make them propose you something REALLY interesting, while subscriptions will never force them to work hard to convince you…they just can put a little something (interesting or not) just to say “hey…we DID put something new, don’t complain…”)
Practically subscription models are FORCING you to pay for something that it’s not sure you are interested to…or even worst: making you pay constantly for a window “otherwise if you stop paying I’ll come and I’ll remove the window”…
So…how could developers have a sustainable work life cycle? Very easy: by doing good apps and making you pay the right price for it, so that when they will do a NEW app you will be inclined to buy the new one too. And probably you will also find new customers for them, advertising how good their apps are.
Something that has always worked this way, until recent days where they want us to believe that it is correct to charge you again and again for the same work.
If you know of a job were you can say “I already worked yesterday, so now you have to continue paying me (or…pay me to come another day, even if my work today is to fix my mistakes of yesterday) because otherwise I can’t eat in the next days and it’s not sustainable” let me know…I would be very interested in applying for a place there 😉
We are musicians, and I think all of us are more than happy to buy our favorite band new album to listen to it and to reward their new work. But if my favorite band will come and tell me “you have to pay us again cause 3 years ago we made an album you liked but there were 2 notes out of tune and now we fixed them”…probably they would stop being my favorite band 😏
Blender 3d has found the sweet spot where the code is open but the coders get either hired or contracted by the foundation, which is mostly funded through voluntary donations both from individuals and industry…
I've avoided subscription for using software/hardware. Already I pay monthly for internet/phone, utilities. I can extend the concept to lunch, coffee, etc. too. But I think of all these as things that's been used and gone, therefore the necessity to "rebuy" them next month. Well, phone/internet bills are grey area, but you get the idea 🙂. I don't feel the same with Adobe subscription or if Logic goes the subscription route. It just seems like a "finished" base product when I bought it that I should be able to use it perpetually as long as I don't want new features. If I need those, then I'm happy to pay again for the upgrades, but not on a monthly basis. Just my personal thought here. Incidentally I think Loopy Pro idea is very fair and probably the best. I don't think of it as subscription at all. 👍
Yeah, I get what you mean but, to point out how complicated things always are, musicians do get paid royalties for radio play etc. which is, after a certain amount of time, getting paid for work they did long ago and have already (sometimes) been richly rewarded for. They get a type of ongoing income from a hit single - is that kind of ‘subscription’, paid by radio stations and others, fair?
Plus, you can be absolutely sure that the record labels will try to sell the same album to you again, multiple times in different formats or as a remastered version!
Fair points.
But for sure if they would tell me “there is a remastered version, if you don’t buy it we’ll come at your house and remove even the older version you bought from your collection” I would stop buying albums from them 😂
This is an interesting discussion but it also borders on the ridiculous. As mentioned much earlier on, there are just too many apps and too many devs. If I was paying subscription for the apps I have, I would definitely get rid of the vast majority as this market is far more about 'want' than 'need', and if we were paying every month or year for stuff, you can bet the vast majority would get chucked in the bin. Harsh but true 😁
For me, iOS subscriptions fail because of consumer behaviour in terms of their app purchasing volume. This market has 'worked' (and I put the term in quotation marks because of how few music app devs can actually make a full living here) because users buy a load of apps at cheaper prices than you would find on desktop. We (as in iOS users on the Audiobus forum) are mostly hobbyist musicians who don't actually make money from our music. We have tens if not hundreds of apps on our devices at this point. If every app introduces a subscription, it cripples the theory behind the market immediately. And this ship has sailed - the market progressed in one way, and turning it around is like moving an oil tanker. We are now seeing a correction in terms of music apps starting to cost more, heading in the general direction of the far-off desktop pricing. But still, users are accustomed to buying loads of apps at a relatively cheap price. Sure, the likes of Drambo or Cubasis might be able to sustain a subscription model (although I much prefer the Loopy Pro model). But asking someone to pay even $5 a year to keep access to a synth or EQ app, when they have 50 of these apps on their device, is clearly a plan that will never work.
The problem is the volume thing I mentioned at the top of my post. One developer asking for one subscription is fine, but a hundred developers doing the same obliterates the market and nobody wins. So is it 'fair'? Sure, fair to ask, but also fair when plans don't work and come crashing down. Devs have to consider their place in the market - there are only a select few that could ever succeed with subscriptions. One thing that would be interesting would be if it there was a way for a dev's entire app lineup to be included in a subscription. I wouldn't want to subscribe to one synth or FX app, but what if Bram Bos was able to charge £5 a month for ALL his apps, including new ones yet to be released? I might want a piece of that action. But as I intimated above, this would only work for well known devs with excellent reputations in the market.
Not to mention the people who have 700+ apps on their device.
Definitely - we need to stop putting straw man arguments into the discussion - some of the things that people are suggesting as subscriptions in our day to day lives are very far from that.
£5 a month is extremely unrealistic. Much as I love Bram's apps, I wouldn't pay that. Switching to desktop with all the free apps and the paid apps that are often massively discounted would be much more appealing. I've already had private discussions with friends who are using both iOS and desktop on this topic. desktop is often a cheaper option, long term. Then we add in the fact that ios apps are increasingly not using the touchscreen ability in any meaningful way. Devs need to make ios apps that take advantage of the capabilities of ios, otherwise this platform is on a long train to oblivion.
The problem is that a high percentage of iOS music apps (including some pretty popular apps ) never really generate the revenue to reasonably compensate the developer. An awful lot of developers make a fraction of what they would make working their day job.
There aren’t enough users willing to pay the real cost. So, developers are trying to figure out a way to earn a reasonable income.
True. This is why I said “making you pay the right price for it”
But ios is a strange world, where apps cost little and many developers try to jump on the wagon. And a lot of them are not full time developers, so they don’t even put the same amount of work a professional developer does ( I mean they don’t work on it 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the whole year, not that they don’t put enough work on it)
Probably making pay the right price will bring to a lower number of developers and a lower number of apps. This is the natural way things work: many can try, only the good ones will succeed.
But I’m scared that trying to introduce subscriptions as a reasonable income will just lead to a big failure: customers used to low price will not accept it, therefore it will be even worst for developers: they put their time in building a good app just to see it fail cause customers will not be inclined to pay it.
And we will see an increasing number of apps disappear…maybe apps that we could have continue using if we paid the full price for them. Maybe without new and shiny functionalities added, but at least we could continue using them
Take as an example Korg’s synths: did they add anything new to them (or even made them “modern” with AU)? No. But we paid what for the time was a higher price compared to the many 1-5 bucks apps we had in those days…and we still can use them.
Subscription model not indulged by users will probably make more apps disappear (no monthly payment for the app -> no ability to use it)
Maybe a partial solution will be the birth (as it is on desktop) of companies paying developers for a daily work. This is the way economy goes: if you work constantly, you make enough money. Hoping that developers work can be seen as in the world of art, where, if you are lucky and good enough, a single achievement can make you earn enough to live for some years (a particularly successful album, a masterpiece painting,…) is not the case.
But developing (sadly or not) is not art…you have to work constantly (as we all do) to earn enough, not hoping that ONE single achievement will grant you an easy life.
But…will we be happy with this? I don’t think so, cause specially here we like the mythological figure of the “independent developer” not bending to big companies and to the capitalism rules.
Well…sadly these are exactly the figures that risk more. And this is valid also in the world of art: for every famous painter, for every successful musician, there are hundreds of people starving or accepting a lower income, living of music, but having to perform concerts every single night in little seedy taverns and not being internationally famous and with a lot of money in the bank after a single, lucky achievement
Even the mythical Don Quixote De La Mancha fighting against the windmills was in the end a failed man. Do I part for him? Sure! But it doesn’t change the fact that he had to struggle his entire life
Great feedback, everyone!
I agree with most who say subscription doesn’t make sense for most apps. At this point, it only makes sense for mostly big companies who provide consistent content, at least monthly and at best, daily like Arcade by Output. I feel for most apps/plugins a larger one-time charge definitely adds value for both sides. Developers get more, users have less GAS. I do realize less GAS hurts some developers because users will be more choosy. At the same time there are a lot plug-in redundancies, with many developers making the same stuff just putting their own paint job on them.
Oh great - blame the users!
How about...don't set up a mega mall in a town with 20 people.
Maybe they shouldn't be making iOS music apps until the market is bigger?
We have too many music apps & too many developers for such a small market.
not into subscription models in general. A few sort-of work like cloud storage or language courses come to mind.
No way i use a music software subscription, i want to own my music gear.
ios apps are already suspect due to the fact i don't really own them without the apple store. lost a few really good ios app due to them disappearing from the apple store. It's only the low cost of these ios music apps that make me turn the other way when they disappear.
It's not an acronym, but the imagined sound it might make when they slap you with the update fee i.e getting WUP'd upside your head
Some believe it stands for Waves Update Plan. Don't believe them!
I think subscriptions suck. Subscriptions feel predatory in a way. There is evidence that consumers forget about subscriptions they have (particularly older people). Developers are now capitalizing on this fact. I think iOS developers have priced their apps too low to begin with. I think devs should raise the base price for their apps (ie. 9.99 —>19.99+). Charging an in-app-purchase for new features and content seems more reasonable. But a subscription is not in my budget for me as an end user.
Yeah I pretty much agree with all of this. I don't want to have to pay a monthly maintenance fee to have access to my older projects.
Good point about the low cost of iOS apps offsetting the fact that apps can just kind of disappear. The reality of course is that apps can be obsoleted by OS/hardware updates on any platform, but the app stores introduced the concept of apps just going away because Apple or the developer decided they shouldn't be available anymore for some arbitrary reason. That thought somewhat dampens my enthusiasm for paying more for iOS plugins, but I suppose maybe in a couple years when the EU or somebody forces Apple to allow 3rd party app sources, that might help. I used to think this would never happen, but now I think it's a matter of when, not if.
Until you consider that the low price of the apps, and the commensurate low income generated from such a low price-tag, might be the very reason that developers decide to drop the apps.