Category: Developers

Sync, Dropbox and a reminder …

A post or perhaps a tweet from Tim at Discchord made me think about this over a few days and I thought it would be worth a quick post about it. We use cloud services all the time, or at least I do and I guess that many of you do too. I’m really interested in what people think the best, or rather, the easiest to use services are.

On the one hand I think that using services like dropbox or iCloud for sync between devices is really handy, and on the other I do like bespoke services like those used for non-music apps such as DayOne, or Things. The main benefit of bespoke services is that they’re designed to handle the specifics of an app’s data and events. The downside is that your data is often difficult to get out from a bespoke service, which is really one of the great reasons for an app to have a bespoke sync service.

On the other hand dropbox and other cloud services are more universal and at least mean that your data is your own. But the downside is that developers need to keep up with the APIs that these services deploy, and that is the current issue with dropbox. Dropbox has changed it’s API and if developers don’t update their apps soon they won’t keep working with dropbox.

So, developers, if you want to keep your users data working in dropbox, please update your apps with the latest API as soon as possible,

If you don’t currently use dropbox you can get signed up here and get an extra 500mb in your free account too.

Roli releases JUCE 5

Roli has updated their JUCE development framework for audio applications by adding some powerful new features. And, perhaps even more importantly they’re now offering JUCE licenses for free to startup app developers, which is pretty good news.

If you want to know more then read the attached press release.

 

JUCE5announcement

Intermorphic is 10 today

I’ve known about the work that Intermorphic have been doing for longer than 10 years, but today they celebrate their decade. That’s an impressive achievement. Ten years is a long time in the mobile world and not many people can lay claim to the same.

They’ve made some amazing apps, Mixtikl, Noatikl, Wotja, and liptikl. But I go back longer than that and remember where they started with miniMIXA for Windows Mobile.

I hope that Intermorphic have a long and positive future ahead. They already have big plans for 2017, and if you want to know more about what’s coming and also what’s gone before then you should read the interview I did with them at the very end of 2016.

Well done chaps, and all the best for 2017 and beyond!

TAAE2 is coming

It’s probably more of interest to developers than to app users, but it’ll be something that users will be very glad of I’m sure. If you want to know more about TAAE2 (The Amazing Audio Engine 2) then take a look here.

Lots of detail for developers looking to add Link

Ableton’s Github site for Link is now live so any developer not already using Link can check out the documentation before asking Ableton for a licence.

Android is going Pro with Zero Latency Audio and MIDI

Whilst there isn’t currently a huge market for music making on Android I think that all of that is about to change. Samsung have just been in touch with me and shared this:

  • The Pro-Audio SDK 2.0 provides low-latency audio and MIDI functionality to Samsung Android devices, and it also has zero-latency Audio/MIDI connections between independent music apps.
  • Soundcamp is a Samsung-developed mobile DAW app that harnesses the full power of the Pro-Audio SDK and can be integrated with multiple 3rd party music apps for up to 8 tracks.

They have already started working with several music app innovators in these areas.

Professional Audio provides the following features:

  • Musical Instrument Creation
  • API for creating professional instrument applications
  • Support for all functions of the JACK Audio Connection Kit

Plug-ins

  • Plug-ins for acoustic piano, steel guitar and a standard drum kit
  • Support for USB Audio devices
  • Support for Audio input
  • Usage of the real-time scheduler
  • It can make a connection between apps at the SDK level
  • It is easier to move to other apps and support its remote control

Now this is pretty amazing stuff and has the potential to really change the face of Android music making.

Also, Musical Android picks up on this news too. So Android could really be starting to catch up. I really hope so, it is about time.

Jamie Bullock: Live coding audio with Swift Playgrounds

Probably of most interest to developers. Here Jamie shows live coding audio with Swift Playgrounds, which sounds like it should be very useful for developers in the DSP space.

http://aos-creative.prf.hn/creative/camref:ijvr/creativeref:302434/special:rotate

WWDC is 2-6 June this year

Anyone going? Anyone lucky enough to get a ticket? What do we expect this year?

http://aos-creative.prf.hn/creative/camref:ijvr/creativeref:302434/special:rotate

Musikmesse 2014: Saying hello to EUMLab

It was great to meet up with the guys from EUMLab at Musikmesse this year. Of the 2000 or so exhibitors at the show this year they were one of the few iOS app only booths. For me that made them stand out if there products didn’t do so already, and they do.

If you don’t know EUMLab they make a range of great apps for you iDevice:

Pro Metronome – Beat with Sound and Light
iUke – Ukulele Song Book
Guitar Toolkit – Tuner, Metronome, Scales, Chords and Progressions
Ukulele Toolkit – Tuner, Metronome and Chord Diagrams

Actually that isn’t even a complete list, they make more apps than that, but I’m only going to focus on a couple for now, Pro Metronome and Ukulele Toolkit.

When I visited their stand Shawn from EUMLab took me through both of these apps. Now, generally speaking I wouldn’t really go for these kinds of apps. You’ve probably noticed that as I generally don’t mention metronomes and guitar tuner apps or similar. However, I’ve made an exception for both of these apps as I actually think they’re pretty special and worth mentioning.

Shawn took me through their Pro Metronome app which has just loads of features in it, too many to mention here to be fair to the app and to EUMLab. In fact the same is true of Ukulele Toolkit which was of special interest to me as an occasional Ukulele player.

It was great to see an app only booth at the show and I wish EUMLab all the best with their apps. You’ll be hearing more about them I’m sure, and not just from me.

http://aos-creative.prf.hn/creative/camref:ijvr/creativeref:302434/special:rotate

Apple Announces developer talks for this fall (that’s Autumn for us in the UK).

No actual details as yet, but it’s good news for those who missed out on WWDC, which is almost everyone right?

Announcement here.

http://aos-creative.prf.hn/creative/camref:ijvr/creativeref:302434/special:rotate