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Secret iPad

thinkfractional.blog

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Re: Secret iPad

#11

Post by saagarjha »

freehunter wrote: post #8
_bxg1 wrote: post #5

Even now, hearing about this app I think "Wow! That's so novel and cool! ( magical , even)". I've said it before, but I dearly miss the creativity people had in the first few years of iOS. We have much better devices now; we should have better apps! I should be so desensitized by how interesting the new apps are that a skeuomorphic guitar tuner sounds banal and obvious! Instead today's apps are boring. They've been r…

There really is no excuse for the lack of "real" software on the iPad (using "real" as in desktop quality). Only a small amount can be blamed on the system itself, appealing to a very niche audience (like XCode). Arbitrary Javascript code written on the iPad can run, as evidenced by Play.js. Arbitrary Python code written on the iPad can run as evidenced by Pythonista. Arbitrary Swift code can run as evidenced by Swif…

> Arbitrary Swift code can run as evidenced by Swift Playgrounds.

Arbitrary Swift code which can only run because Apple grants themselves private entitlements that let it work.

Re: Secret iPad

#12

Post by rhinoceraptor »

freehunter wrote: post #8
_bxg1 wrote: post #5

Even now, hearing about this app I think "Wow! That's so novel and cool! ( magical , even)". I've said it before, but I dearly miss the creativity people had in the first few years of iOS. We have much better devices now; we should have better apps! I should be so desensitized by how interesting the new apps are that a skeuomorphic guitar tuner sounds banal and obvious! Instead today's apps are boring. They've been r…

There really is no excuse for the lack of "real" software on the iPad (using "real" as in desktop quality). Only a small amount can be blamed on the system itself, appealing to a very niche audience (like XCode). Arbitrary Javascript code written on the iPad can run, as evidenced by Play.js. Arbitrary Python code written on the iPad can run as evidenced by Pythonista. Arbitrary Swift code can run as evidenced by Swif…

There are a ton of great desktop quality apps on the iPad, I think the thing is that prosumer users don't know about them, and also people have been conditioned to think that any iOS app over $5 is expensive.

As one example, the music ecosystem is really good. There's Garageband and several great 3rd party DAWs, and a ton of apps which provide audio units that you can plug into, such as Model D for synths, or Stark for guitar amp modeling.

For photo/video, there are a few really great options: Affinity Photo is comparable to Photoshop, and LumaFusion is comparable to Final Cut or Premiere.

Re: Secret iPad

#13

Post by fxtentacle »

freehunter wrote: post #8
_bxg1 wrote: post #5

Even now, hearing about this app I think "Wow! That's so novel and cool! ( magical , even)". I've said it before, but I dearly miss the creativity people had in the first few years of iOS. We have much better devices now; we should have better apps! I should be so desensitized by how interesting the new apps are that a skeuomorphic guitar tuner sounds banal and obvious! Instead today's apps are boring. They've been r…

There really is no excuse for the lack of "real" software on the iPad (using "real" as in desktop quality). Only a small amount can be blamed on the system itself, appealing to a very niche audience (like XCode). Arbitrary Javascript code written on the iPad can run, as evidenced by Play.js. Arbitrary Python code written on the iPad can run as evidenced by Pythonista. Arbitrary Swift code can run as evidenced by Swif…

I believe this is simply because people doing serious coding work always want to have a proper permanently attached keyboard. So they would use a MacBook Air with ARM CPU, but not a tablet.

Re: Secret iPad

#14

Post by criddell »

_bxg1 wrote: post #5

Even now, hearing about this app I think "Wow! That's so novel and cool! ( magical , even)". I've said it before, but I dearly miss the creativity people had in the first few years of iOS. We have much better devices now; we should have better apps! I should be so desensitized by how interesting the new apps are that a skeuomorphic guitar tuner sounds banal and obvious! Instead today's apps are boring. They've been r…

There are some fantastic iPad apps. Procreate and GoodNotes are two of my favorites. They are also insanely inexpensive.

I can't imagine making something as good as Procreate and then only charging $10 for it. If I had an idea for something complex on the iPad I would have serious reservations about developing it. You can't charge reasonable prices for software unless you do it in $0.99 chunks.

Re: Secret iPad

#15

Post by chronogram »

criddell wrote: post #14
_bxg1 wrote: post #5

Even now, hearing about this app I think "Wow! That's so novel and cool! ( magical , even)". I've said it before, but I dearly miss the creativity people had in the first few years of iOS. We have much better devices now; we should have better apps! I should be so desensitized by how interesting the new apps are that a skeuomorphic guitar tuner sounds banal and obvious! Instead today's apps are boring. They've been r…

There are some fantastic iPad apps. Procreate and GoodNotes are two of my favorites. They are also insanely inexpensive. I can't imagine making something as good as Procreate and then only charging $10 for it. If I had an idea for something complex on the iPad I would have serious reservations about developing it. You can't charge reasonable prices for software unless you do it in $0.99 chunks.

Procreate is the killer app of the Apple pencil and maybe even the iPad Pro. The pricing is indeed strange. There are people paying $999 for a tablet, $129 for the pencil, just to run a $10 app.

Re: Secret iPad

#17

Post by freehunter »

fxtentacle wrote: post #13
freehunter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really is no excuse for the lack of "real" software on the iPad (using "real" as in desktop quality). Only a small amount can be blamed on the system itself, appealing to a very niche audience (like XCode). Arbitrary Javascript code written on the iPad can run, as evidenced by Play.js. Arbitrary Python code written on the iPad can run as evidenced by Pythonista. Arbitrary Swift code can run as evidenced by Swif…

I believe this is simply because people doing serious coding work always want to have a proper permanently attached keyboard. So they would use a MacBook Air with ARM CPU, but not a tablet.

If that was the case no one would write code on a Surface, a laptop with an external keyboard, or even a desktop tower.

Re: Secret iPad

#18

Post by jedberg »

I wasn't there but I heard from the folks at Netflix who were there that they had a very similar experience getting Netflix to work on a pre-release iPad. Secret dark rooms, bulky cases so you couldn't tell the exact dimensions, cagey Apple reps with NDAs, very little time with the device, etc.

Re: Secret iPad

#20

Post by _bxg1 »

sneak wrote: post #7
_bxg1 wrote: post #5

Even now, hearing about this app I think "Wow! That's so novel and cool! ( magical , even)". I've said it before, but I dearly miss the creativity people had in the first few years of iOS. We have much better devices now; we should have better apps! I should be so desensitized by how interesting the new apps are that a skeuomorphic guitar tuner sounds banal and obvious! Instead today's apps are boring. They've been r…

It turns out you can make more money repeatedly selling $0.99 token packs for simple dot puzzle game powerups than one-time $1.99 or even $2.99 whole-app purchases. There are also more people who play silly puzzle games in waiting rooms around the world than people who play guitar. There is still tons of innovation in the App Store. It’s just on Skinner Box mechanics now.

Yes, I think you've hit on the crux of it. Content streams, accessory apps to larger services, and games with micro-transactions all have one thing in common: they make way more money than you can typically hope to make off of a standalone, novel app that costs $1-$3.
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