+1 for when? Why this wasnât a parallel build of all platforms is beyond me. In what magical business world does a company ignore the platform or possible customer base that is in the majority. I must applaud Apples marketing as it must be the best marketing ever. Iâd say they went 110% and that is actually impossible even though personal trainers and executive team builder tell you otherwise. Apple have managed it.
I think it will probably be released in the future as itâs very hard to make things happen in the past. Thatâs just a guess though. Though if we got Apples marketing team on it , they would be able to manage 110% into the future. This would mean that we would shoot past the future and end up at the beginning , which will allow us to come hammering up our own backsides and deliver an android and windows version. Now wouldnât that be nice.
Iâve always seen musicians as a practical bunch. Using a tablet instead of a laptop is a âpracticalâ thing: when youâre gigging, you want to get rid of as much excess baggage as you can. But until now, it came at a price: you couldnât use your regular DAW, you had to settle for something that wasnât even as good as the âliteâ version. So, it was Cubasis instead of Cubase and GarageBand instead of Logic. HUGE difference. Apple is now making a fuss about the latest GB being able to use up to a whopping 32 tracks⌠Wow. Are we back to 1985?
So, the next âpracticalâ thing would be to have a tablet thatâs just as small, light and ultraportable, but that can actually run the SAME DAW you use on your desktop/laptop every day in your studio. With the sole exception of Windows RT tablets (Iâve never understood why people would want to buy a âWindows liteâ deviceâŚ), every Win 8.1 tablet can do that, and IMHO it wonât be long before musicians start to realize that.
Routed everything out from BFD 3, Geist and Battery, so I can handle all the volumes and fx (automationâŚ) from the mix console.
Thats what the mix console is for, if you ask me. I would prefer plugins to route everything to separate outputs right from the start anyway. Iâm a lazy guy.
I think you might be overestimating the amount of people that are going top dump their Desktops, laptops and platform to go use a tablet. Not everyone is on the move with their music stuff either. Even a laptop has a larger screen to work with. Storage? connectivity? etc etc etc. If you already have a bunch of gear that you have to move then a laptop is not that much of a hassle really and it has many advantages.
Android has a long way to go before it decides Microsoft are the bees knees and turns itâs toes up.
I agree with you to the extent that there is great potential there and the points you make are relevant. I just donât think itâs going to be that fast or easy a decision for the majority of folk.
And this DAW will look and feel like Cubasis or GarageBand or it wonât work. You technically might be able to run a regular DAW on a tablet but it will be absolutely unuseable.
Simple experiment: Cut a piece of paper (A4 or letter) in half and tape it to your screen. Now resize the main window of your DAW until itâs exactly the size of the paper. Remove the paper and look at how a regular DAW will look like on a 10" tablet.
But I hear you: âModern tablets have a higher resolution than that!â. OK, another experiment. Take a screenshot of the maximized DAW window and open it in the picture viewer of your choice. Now adjust the zoom level until the image fits the size of the paper from the first experiment. Much better: You will see a lot more from the arrangement and more plugins but now try to image how you would edit this song with your fingers and note how huge even the tip of your pinkie is compared to the buttons and knobs on the screen.
Iâve no doubt that the DAW makers will improve tablet usability but this will always be a compromise. There is no way around it: Tablets need tablet DAWs.
This is Karl Ranseier on your profile picture, right?
I think that DAWs have to be reconsidered anyway. While the âbandmachineâ idea surely can act as a starting point for non linear work (like we do with Cubase et al today), I think the future will bring more âhands onâ concepts, like âcombining partial patterns into songsâ, would work like this:
You record 4 measures of acoustic guitar strumming
Actually you record 6 measures, but treat it like 4
You can combine 3x6 measures into 12 (not 18) and all that
And you will be able to work on tracks in those patterns, etcâŚ
Lots of people swear by their MBA 11" being an excellent ultraportable solution. And you think that a Surface Pro 2 or equivalent Windows 8.1 tablet wouldnât cut it? Why? Itâs the same screen size, only that the Windows tablets come with a higher resolution (i.e. more display real estate), a touch screen and a digitizer, which make handling tiny details a lot easier. Not to mention that, for example, Sonar is already multi-touch friendly and Iâm sure other DAWâs will soon follow.
Because you donât have to operate your 11" MBA with a 2.5" by 0.5" sized mouse cursor (your finger). If you move your tiny tiny mouse cursor on a high resolution screen and use a lot of keyboard shortcuts then it might work. If you start to attach mouse and keyboard to a tablet then you donât need a tablet.
Iâm not saying that a regular Windows 8 is useless. Iâm just saying that some people here overestimate the need for such a tablet by far.
What youâre saying makes absolutely no sense. Donât use your finger to move the cursor on your MBA on a MUCH SMALLER pad than the screen? And BTW, all Windows tablets have USB ports (unlike iPads), so if you want to use a mouse, you can do that too.
[Iâm not saying that a regular Windows 8 is useless.
I think thatâs precisely what youâre hinting. If OSX tablets were available, youâd probably consider them the best thing since sliced bread.
Iâm an absolute Apple hater so youâre plain wrong. But donât you think there is a reason why Apple has not released an OSX tablet yet?
If you start to attach mice and keyboards to a tablet then you donât have a tablet anymore, you have a notebook.
The finger argument was a simple test how it will look like if you want to edit 1/8" sized icons and buttons with a 2.5" sized mouse cursor. And the finger will be your mouse cursor if you start an antique DAW on a modern tablet. Again: If you use mouse and keyboard anyway for editing then then why buy a tablet?
You can buy windows tablets since the 90s (even cheap ones) and run normal desktop applications on them (even DAWs). Absolutely no problem. You donât have to wait for the surface. But nobody ever wanted these devices because desktop applications on touch screens just donât work and never did. The new surface may have longer battery life and more horse power but the usability of the desktop side is no different to the first tablets from 1995.
Iâm not talking about Metro/RT. If we see DAW for the tiled area of windows then it will of course look and feel like.Cubasis or GarageBand. But Iâll doubt that Steinberg or any other manufacturer will ever write such a software. The latency for RT apps is much worse than even the first Android phones and MIDI is officially marked as âdepreciated technology, supported in version: neverâ in MSâs developer area and there is not a single hint that this might change in the future.
Because Apple doesnât have a large R&D department like Microsoft, Google, Intel etc. and making something like Windows 8 would have been too lengthy, complicated and expensive for them. Apple is an image company that has sheep-like followers (including the tech media as a whole), so they tried the simplest, quickest and least expensive solution (adapting a phone OS to a tablet) and it worked. Look, Apple could make an iBookend that does absolutely nothing, but as long as it has a shiny apple logo etched into it, some people would still buy it for $200.
If you start to attach mice and keyboards to a tablet then you donât have a tablet anymore, you have a notebook.
That was just an example. If people can get by with the tiny touchpad of the MBA, they would be MUCH more comfortable with a 10" screen.
The finger argument was a simple test how it will look like if you want to edit 1/8" sized icons and buttons with a 2.5" sized mouse cursor.
First of all, most Windows tablets come with digitizers, especially the new Bay Trail models. And secondly, if the tiny touchpad of the MBA is sufficient to handle a DAW, then why would you consider the MUCH larger area of a touch screen insufficient? It makes no sense whatsoever. Heck, the touchpad of EVERY laptop ever made is still much smaller than a 10"" screen. So, thatâs why I hypothesized that behind what you say there is something irrational, like an irrational hatred for anything Microsoft (which is typical of Apple fanboys, you canât blame me for making the easiest assumption.)