Björk gives up trying to Kickstart Android music app Elfin Icelandic singer and educator Björk has had to cancel a Kickstarter project to get her music and science app suite Biophilia ported from iOS to Android and Windows 8. The original Manic Pixie Dream Girl was looking for £375,000 to get the multimedia project - which includes an album where each song is a self-contained …
No they didn't. One paediatrician had anti-paedophile graffiti sprayed on her house by an unknown vandal or vandals (no reason whatsoever to believe it was a "mob", and certainly no mob was seen or reported). No one was attacked or injured. This is the story which is the grain of truth at the root of this urban legend;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/901723.stm
The iPhone has always had a relatively audio low latency around the 8-12ms mark (and built-in wireless MIDI), but Android hasn't always been great for virtual musical instruments:
On the Samsung Galaxy Nexus handset – a device over which Google has more control – they've already improved latency from 100 ms in “Ice Cream Sandwich” (4.0) to “about 12 ms” in “Jelly Bean” (4.1), and want to go oven better. 12 ms is usable; sub-10 ms could really attract sound developers to the platform.
-http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/07/android-high-performance-audio-in-4-1-and-what-it-means-plus-libpd-goodness-today/
If you go down the iPhone route, it's an expensive mistake, as everything is tied to that platform and it's esoteric language (objective C).
Had they gone Android in the first place, they wouldn't have had this problem. The Java language is portable everywhere, and compiles down to Davlik on Android.
Commercial audio creation apps on iOS? Seriously who would be using a phone to create music?
OK I acknowledge that a lot of music production these days is done on Apple products (Macs are well known for this) and I'm sure Snow Leopard (or whatever the latest Big Cat is these days) is great for it, but honestly I cant imagine anyone seriously into audio creation using a phone to produce their music with...
think this was "proved" by the Gadget Show. Recorded a new tune on an iPad and promised it would be the theme tune from then on. New series started, the tune was still there, but, the iPad recorded version was binned and a better version was in place. Of course, the tune they used was terrible anyway, but the iPad version made it even worse.
No idea if they are still using the tune, as I stopped watching after the first episode of the new format.
>Commercial audio creation apps on iOS? Seriously who would be using a phone to create music?
Lots of people... smart phones are less phones, and more general-purpose computers. The iPad is commonly used as a control surface for a Mac, for virtual mixing desks and the like, and will happily act as a synth for any MIDI keyboard attached to it- handy for recording melodies on the road. True, you wouldn't want to pass your audio stream through an iDevice- but then you wouldn't through any kit that wasn't designed for it- hence pricey external soundcards with branded ADCs. This should give you a flavour:
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2011/02/how-to-use-midi-to-make-an-ipad-more-musically-connected-productive-video-resources/
This guy routinely uses the G sensors in an arm-mounted iPhone in live performances- the rest of the kit he has built/modified himself and has open-sourced it on Thingiverse: http://onyx-ashanti.com/
Then you have all the acoustic musicians who use the iPad in place of sheet music http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/musicians-embrace-the-ipad-leave-sheet-music-at-home/243726/ , and use phones as guitar tuners and sound recorders (with plug-in microphones and ADCs).
I'm sure you don't need reminding that technology (and drugs) can change the sound of music, from Bach's clavier, through Wheatsone's concertina to Bo Diddely's solid-bodied electric guitar and the 808 and DX7 in the eighties.
All you're seeing there is that when someone uses an Apple product, they have to advertise the fact, and it gets an article in the news. (And it's still a device looking for use - great, I can lug a big expensive device around, and leave the paper at home!)
Obviously one can use devices to display sheet music, including tablets, same with using devices in performances. Sorry, nothing special or magical about IOS.
There's lots of professional music stuff on iOS, from synth/sampler/sequencer packages (NanoStudio), multi-track recorders (Multitrack DAW, FourTrack), full-blown combinations of the two (GarageBand), MIDI controllers, DAW controllers used in conjunction with software on a laptop, effects apps etc. Often with associated hardware, eg mics, line-in and instrument adapters, pedalboards, you name it. I've even heard of a setup using two iPads and CAT5 to replace hugely expensive multicore cable for the stage/mixer link for PA work. And you may have noticed one act during one of the Olympic ceremonies using three iPads. Most of this stuff works better on the iPad's bigger screen, but lots of it works on the iPhone/iPod touch which is handy for those uses for which you used to use a PortaStudio.
Not to mention the zillions of virtual instruments which are more on the entertainment level, eg the marvellous Pocket Guitar, which really has to be on a phone-sized device for you to play it.
Time to get that imagination of yours working a bit harder :-)
...Acording to Apple...
Apple say alot of things about Android, and 99% of the time it's utter bullshit. They know that by claiming that Android lacks low latency audio (without any evidence to back it up), they have created a nice little excuse for developers to thus use when someone asks for an Android version.
Android latency varies by device, Jellybean devices usually very good.
>Apple say alot of things about Android, and 99% of the time it's utter bullshit. They know that by claiming that >Android lacks low latency audio (without any evidence to back it up),
Apple don't say that- Android users do (and demonstrate it), as do Google Android engineers. Horse's mouth. A Google Android engineer: "Latency is a big problem. We’re working at, hopefully we hope to be able to do something about it with ICS." It was a Google who said that on a Galaxy Nexus they had 100ms on ICS and 10ms on JB.
- http://www.rossbencina.com/code/dave-sparks-on-android-audio-latency-at-google-io-2011
I've posted links to back up observations, but you don't. Yet you complain about a lack of evidence. Oh well.
>they [Apple] have created a nice little excuse for developers to thus use when someone asks for an Android version.
Your theory gives Apple an excuse, but it is the developers who haven't developed the apps for Android- you haven't explained their motive for not doing so. In the link in an above post is an audio software developer stating their reasons for concentrating on iDevices first: basically, it comes down to latency, and also the smaller number of hardware variations amongst iDevices over Android devices. Sounds plausible, no?
>Android latency varies by device, Jellybean devices usually very good.
I said Jelly Bean was good in my original comment- and that 3rd party developers are actively looking at it now. But most Android devices aren't JB yet. Other enhancements for JB include USB audio device support and multichannel audio (including via HDMI). Google are also looking at imposing strict maximum latency requirements for third-party vendors at some time in the future.
I'm not for a moment saying that iPhones are the best phones for everyone, I'm just describing the evolving situation. I own an Android phone, and naturally want it to get better over time.
I think it's unfair to compare on what Google say, as it's penalising them for being honest, whilst Apple meanwhile claim their devices are "magical"... (meanwhile most Apple users see imperfections as "Why would you want to do that", or even a feature).
"But most Android devices aren't JB yet."
Most devices aren't iphones. One can still buy a specific device if you know you want JB.
Objective C is hardly esoteric. As a simple superset of C/C++, it's built into g++. If so inclined, you can write iPhone apps entirely in C/C++ with some calls to Obj-C classes sprinkled in to handle the UI. This is infinitely more programmer-friendly than trying to write UI in a Java layer and the backend in a C++ layer, and contorting yourself to connect the two, as many Android app developers end up doing.
>Objective C is hardly esoteric.
Only because Apple has had a decade for the ages business wise. You would have asked people in the mid to late 90s and they would have answered differently. Jobs pretty much single handedly kept ObjC from fading into the dust bin of obscure languages.
The Android route would've been a very expensive mistake because it's a commercial software and needs paying customers. This Kickstarter demonstrates the point.
Developing on Android first, not having enough paying customers, then converting to iOS to make some money is the wrong way round -- why do you think so many paid apps are typically developed on iOS first?
"375,000 bucks in around 28 days for something that has already been there (and should just be transferred to another platform)"
As someone who makes iOS apps and has looked into making Android apps, I encounter this attitude a lot. Most people assume it's easy to port iOS apps to Android and I don't do it for mine simply because I'm too lazy to click on a few buttons (or however the general population thinks apps are ported).
But really, anything to do with UI needs to be completely rewritten and in most cases redesigned because the UI libraries for each system are so radically different. Many apps don't have very sophisticated back ends, so rewriting the UI isn't much different from rewriting the entire app from the ground up.
That being said, 375k seems like a lot to charge for rewriting some song apps. Although I haven't used them so I don't know.
May I recommend a book and a recorder. *toot toot*
Worked just fine for me - fun for all ages - no batteries required - let alone a fleet of rip off merchants
As someone with a casual interest in app development this is a fascinating comment section. As a musician this whole topic is quite frankly hilarious, in a very real and very tragic first world sense.
It would help to give more background information on how Björk has always been using mobile technology for recording, composing and performing songs, but is really into the Apple gear now. Does all kinds of off stuff with it, often customized to her liking.
For the iOS app album she went with some of the top minds: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/08/features/music-nature-science . Which also mentions that the developers in that case funded the development themselves and solved with Apple problems of having songs both in app and iTunes stores.
Anyway, way more to this than meets the eye. Dear journalists, please spend a few minutes to ask around before reposting blogosphere quality material?
I've seen this app on television. I like Bjork but the app frankly looked rather silly -- she was using it to play the song, and it looked like there was just a lot of animation on screen and you'd prod various bits to play notes and sounds. The art and music are already in the app, 375,000 pounds sounds like a VERY high bill to port this.
I'm kind of disappointed to see nobody point out what, to me, is the single biggest reason this project failed:
[i]You can get Biophilia as a normal album now, and have been able to do so for ages[/i]. When it was first out, it was in App form. Then came the conventional releases; I got my copy from eMusic.
It would be one thing if the album were, up until now, an iOS-exclusive experience. But given the choice of contributing to Kickstarter to maybe get an Android version eventually, or spending less than a tenner on a CD copy (I got it via eMusic for about a fiver, I think), it's no surprise that she didn't reach her goal.
I reckon she's made the mistake of asking the developers of the original iOS version to perform the port.
They've been less than enthusiastic so they've given a quote so outrageous that the punter would be crazy to accepts. Although to be fair this is Bjork we're talking about.
Whether their enthusiasm is due to an unwillingness to work with Android or an unwillingness to work with Bjork in unknown to me. But any UI developer who has worked with a "creative person" will be all too familiar with how a relatively simple task can rapidly turn into a never ending nightmare of changes, tweaks and chaos.
I expect for "version 2" they have priced that in.
I mean imagine the phone going at 3AM and its HER VOICE shreiking away at the other end about "some great idea" she just had while powdering her nose in the 1st class bogs of an A380 in its way to a Buddhist retreat.
I mean. Jeebus.
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