The iOS audio and music app landscape has evolved tremendously over the course of 10 years. Back when creating apps meant “jailbreaking” iPhones and installing heavily modified compilers and development tools, and today’s motivation of Apple to unify iOS & macOS, it is clear that the impact on audio apps will be massive.
Today we can browse thousands of music apps on the App Store, with the major names of the audio industry showing a growing interest in the mobile app landscape.
Back in 2008, BeatMaker was one of the first music apps available on iOS, right during the App Store launch. After three iterations, it was shaped around a moving industry, which started attracting different user profiles, from plain newcomers to renowned music producers. It took dedication and time to prove that tablets and smartphones were viable platforms to sketch musical ideas or compose full albums.
The talk will cover insights on the challenges, key moments, and share tips, and show how music apps impacted the music production world.
We will go through the evolution of the industry following this timeline:
- The early days (2007-2008)
- The rise of the App Store and Music Apps (2008 - 2019)
- The mobile music production movement today
- Future of music production
The talk will start with a clear comparison of the industry now and then, and how it evolved. Technical challenges will be exposed, and how they were overcome while keeping the innovation the main drive. We will then follow-up on how Apple and, more broadly, the industry, started recognizing iOS as a viable platform for music production. We will then review the challenges apps are facing nowadays, especially in an overcrowded marketplace like the App Store, and how we should prepare to adapt for the future.
