Since music making is art I guess I won’t disagree.

There’s a large ecosystem of iOS music making apps and the iPad is actually an excellent interface for some applications, e.g. a kaoss pad.

For instance have a look at what Korg and Moog have available in the app store. Or check out drambo.

I think you could have a really good iOS DAW, I think Apple will release Logic for iPad pro at some point. But yes some of the iOS architecture is a bit weird, in terms of apps/plugins/files silos.

I think the "no windows" and sandboxed apps/files paradigms are very limiting for pro work.

And you really need lots of customisable keyboard shortcuts for most pro work, most iOS apps are extremely lacking in this department.

FL Studio mobile is already quite capable, and I'm sure Logic for iPad would be great. But most DAWs make heavy use of plugins/VSTs to provide extensibility to the environment, and I highly doubt that will be supported. Why would you use an iPad over a MBP for that kind of thing? I can't imagine the touch-screen gives any sort of real advantage.

iOS does support audio/synth plugins in the form of AUv3, it's a little bit clunky but works.

I work primarily with Logic (been using it for 20 years) but the form factor of an iPad is pretty nice - it fits perfectly on music stands and laptops don't. If Macbook screens would tilt 180 degrees, all the way flat, you might be able to use them on music stands too - but they don't.

If you are both playing and recording a real instrument at the same time, having the iPad on the the piano/music stand in front of you is very useful. Many people use Logic Remote on iPad on the stand, and Logic on MBP for actual recording at the same time. But not sure why you should need two devices.

Touch screen is nice for some things too, like mixing or quickly toggling things.

I wonder how iOS Logic Pro would handle plugins.

The same way as iOS Garageband handles AUv3 now, I assume.

AUv3 plugins are meant to be able to run on both MacOS and iOS in the near future (this has caused some concern in the plugin dev community, because of different pricing models). Just in iOS they are apps you install from the app store, because everything that executes code needs to be a sandboxed app in iOS.

Okay, I do see why it would affect pricing then if they are forced to be in the App store. I always thought that they would be handled the same way as desktop.

In any case, I am still waiting for Logic Pro or Ableton to be ported to the iPad.

I have been using Ableton Live for music production for over a decade, and I can say that if it were ported to work on my iPad, I’d use it every day.

Or Android.

Actually I was impressed with what people do in GarageBand on ios. Unfortunately I haven't found anything comparable for Android. Only ridiculous $20/month apps.

Blame Google. Android has a craptastic audio stack and only Google can fix it.

Google would have to rip the heart out of Android and fix it for real time programming properly like OS X did way back in like 10.2?.

However, don't get me wrong, iOS isn't great--it's just at least possible. The fact that you can't actually send a defined packet (just a bag of bytes and you don't know how many until the call--"HAH! HAH! You device decided to prioritize something in the OS and your latency just quadrupled--sucks to be you.") to the Audio system on iOS is infuriating.

However, at least it's possible on iOS. On Android, not so much.

> Android has a craptastic audio stack

Didn't know. Looks like I'm little closer to replacing my android with iphone

Do you use your phone to create music?

I liked videos on "iSongs" youtube channel and wanted to play with GarageBand to try some ideas without full-blown DAW. I am just starting and looking for what works for me.

What advantages do you think it offers over using a MBP?

1) The launch grid (I forget it’s proper name) is an increasingly common pattern in touch-based music apps; I want to touch the Ableton one. Especially in live performance.

2)The form factor of an iPad makes more sense in my music setup, in that I don’t need to haul podium or standing desk on stage as well as my instruments.

3. In producing tracks, most of my time is spent twiddling knobs, adjusting levels, etc, rather than dealing with external audio interfaces or doing fine grained, fiddly things with a mouse. But now iOS supports a mouse, so I could even do that...

You should check out bitwig studio on a Surface tablet! They have had an optimized Multitouch UX mode for a few years now, and it looks pretty good.

IIRC Bitwig was actually featured in the Surface launch event (I think it was the very first generation of the Surface tablet, I might be wrong though).

One advantage is that recording drum pad sessions would be more convenient on an iPad (you could just tap out a beat right on the screen). On the other hand, there's something to be said for high quality midi controllers that allow you to do the same.

For instance, an iPad would be a great place to experiment and get an idea down, and then you could bring the idea to your other, more professionally oriented tools.