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What are the hardships that Devs have to go through into making IOS Apps
What kind of hardships and challenges do iOS music production developers have to face when creating and updating apps for us. I would think they have more hardships than anything. Maybe it’s difficult financially as well in addition to everything else they have to do.
Comments
I will open with the obvious.
There so many version of iPad and iPhone to the your product. But nothing like android.
All those device have different screen resolution that the app gui must be tested to look properly.
Their many version of iOS to test on. Some people are on older version of iOS. Per choice or because of availability.
Then their is Apple cycle of update, breaking and fixing iOS.
Also their is the split is iOS and iPados.
The removal of port and button to replace them by gestures and dongle.
The multiple port 15pin/lightning/usb c
The M1+ only available features.
All those can have impact on your app depending the type of app being developed.
I didn’t realize that different devices means individual attention for each of them. I always thought they need to attend to smaller screens like iPhones and bigger screens like Windows, Mac, IPad join together. I guess you can’t work on one projects and spread them to devices. So N-track, Zenbeats has iPad, iphone, desktop, android. That means they need to work on each one separately
Not each and every one - and only for the UI but that can still be significant work to keep up with, and you never know when changes are going to need to be accomodated. You get things showing up like the infamous "notch" on some devices, or the changes to iPadOS where they stuck the three-dot multi tasking thingy smack dab in the middle of the top of the screen where apps had controls. You get new features like Stage Manager.
For iOS/iPadOS developers there's the abysmal official documentation for the AUv3 plugin specification. It's absurd. It's getting a bit better thanks to generous third party open-source examples we have now, but before there was almost nothing to go on. Only the very talented could figure it out. Lesser mortals (like me) just gave up.
The worst problem is pricing. The App Store model introduced unsustainably low pricing expectations. Prices are typically 10% - 30% of desktop equivalents, yet development cost is at least as much. There doesn't seem to be a way out of this. People, myself included, are vehemently against subscription pricing for what would amount to managing dozens of individual subscriptions. There's no practical mechanism for charging for upgrades, only some workarounds such as IAPs that aren't very workable.
Most independent iOS music developers do not make enough from their apps to make a living. That leaves development to their "spare time" while they work regular jobs to put food on the table.
It’s already created a bit of entitlement with some iOS producers who think they deserve the world in an app for $5.
The four or five Audiobus users who think that all their needs to make 4 unlistenable noises are completely necessary features for the world of music production
Yeah there’s undoubtedly been a decent bit of entitlement bred in the iOS music making world. It’s frustrating for just reading it. I can’t imagine if I was a dev. I wouldn’t be able to constantly bite my tongue.
Dealing with the bullshit and general complaints from users.
Sometimes we can be way too harsh and not appreciative enough when things aren’t exactly how we would like them to be.
Users who can’t read a manual and then leave a bad review because they are clueless.
This is a strange subject for a thread.
There are a host of reasons why developers might spend their time learning to program and then sell their creations to others, but it's not a punishment, it's a personal choice and a perfectly rational one.
They can’t quit their day jobs because there’s never enough return on their investment of time. But they seem to keep trying in a few cases. Some just wander away to take up another art form or engineering activity.
Well, economically, it definitely is a punishment except if you're somehow very lucky or happen to find a very rare lucrative niche in the already-niche iOS audio app market.
Given that iOS audio app development, especially AUv3, is an objectively extremely technically demanding field with a very small talent pool and thus should be paid absolutely top rates (realisteically around $100 / hour), the real-world pay is probably closer to $20 / hour and thus... punishment 😄
What? How does the subject imply anything about it being fair or not, a choice or not, or imply victimhood? It's an informational question asking for details about the challenges. The assumption about the motivation behind the thread is your own.
Haha. But seriously, things are worth whatever people are willing to pay for them. That is why the market looks like it does today.
Yes. I wish we could reply to App Store reviews sometimes to tell these people RTFM!! So frustrating. I have screenshots on my phone of some of the most ridiculous app reviews I’ve ever seen lol
confirming this, absolutely worst API documentation i ever saw in my life - and i went throught tenths and tenths of API docs.. shame on Apple ..
in some countries $20/h is pretty decent income :-))) way above standards.. just sayin'
but yes, in most cases ios music app devs needs second job to fund their ios coding hobby.. i am too old to code whole day in my job and then code at evening again in my free time - so i postponed my iOS app coder carrer to phase i will finally stop needing to work for money 🤣 current plan is after next Bitcoin bullrun 2024/25, curious if i manage to fullfil this plan 🤣
Cem Olcay works on apps full time, I think Igor Vasiliev does, 4pockets Paul must surely work full time on app design, pretty sure Bleass must be full time, and there are doubtless others I've not mentioned
This is not to throw this thread completely off track, but have you seen how many large “institutions” are close to coming out with their own BTC ETF’s? It’s going to get crazy again soon.
Almost back to break even with BTC. Then I’m out. I made a reasonable profit from ETH by getting out when my gut told me to. Hung on to BTC just for giggles. It’s been a long road back. 😂
I’m done with that shit. It’s too hard to get a read on. 😎
Well, i am confident this is market stage where we are now ... But don't listen my advices, i am not financial advisor, i know shit. LOL
During last two months i started to scale about 40% of my multi years BTC stack (+ 30-40% of my monthly fiat income) into altcoins (mixed bag of old coins like sol, link, avax plus few new lowcap coins - mostly AI and privacy related narrative casue it looks this will be main topic in upcoming bullrun + some meme coins of course lol) for EOY 2024
Well, BlackRock, VanEck, .. those aren't small names
.. plus halvening next year. It will be a hell of wild ride in Q3/4 2024 
Yes only viable way is to put out many smaller plugins at more or less constant rate .. if you develop your own UI framework (which is exatly Cem and Paul's case) so you can save siginificant time on UI by just reusing compoents you have already done and concentrante just on feature / DSP part of code, then it can be profitable. Estepcially if you are country with not too high living expenses.
this!
also, the user desire to completely miss the original design of an app and push the dev to turn it into a full-blown DAW.
Yep. This happens fairly often with Koala. Lots of people asking for a timeline and to me that takes away from what makes koala so great in the first place.
You can. It's in App Store Connect -> Ratings & Reviews.
(edit: I suspect you might have meant "as a user" 😄)
Yes, the fact that I live in the most expensive country in the EU doesn't help 😄
Exactly. Soooo many reviews I see have simple solutions. The one that gets me is people reviewing midi controllers and saying IT MAKES NO SOUND 😂 someone commented on one of Doug’s videos recently disparaging the new Cem app because it doesn’t make any sound. 🤦🏻♂️
Well, this is still nothing. When Matt uploaded first version of NS2 into appstore, he got rejected with reason that app stops making sound when minimalised.
Thing is - back then there was specifically in Apple rules mentioned that App must be installed with background audio turned off, and user should be just able to turn it on in settings :-))
Obviously even Apple approval reviewers doesn't have too much understanding of what they are reviewing and what are rules :-))):
Oh sorry for the confusion, I’m specifically talking about user reviews, as a customer. I’ve seen some really…ignorant reviews in the App Store before.
But yes the actual app reviewers seem completely out of the loop at times as well based on what I’ve read.