Its been several months since Audiobus was released, changing everything for a lot of people. Since then most every music app worth having has become compatible. Others have not. A lot of excellent music apps have completely missed the bus. Why is that I wonder? Are the developers done? Are the apps dead? What’s going on? Its like they just prefer to walk separate from the pack or are waiting for something else.
Some notable apps that have been quiet about their Audiobus plans are: Cassini, iSequence, StudioHD, Borderlands, and everything by The Strange Agency to name a few. Wizdom Music hasn’t yet made any of their apps Audiobus compatible, however they are working to support it in some of their apps soon. SampleWiz and GeoSynth first. I haven’t heard about MorphWiz and SpaceWiz, but seems logical they will follow.
Jaroslaw Jacek of BeepStreet (maker of Sunrizer, Impaktor, and iSequence) said recently that he will be revisiting his roots and develop a new app based on iSequence. He added that development will begin once iOS 7 arrives with its “inter-app audio” functionality. That wasn’t an exact quote by the way.
Now, I don’t know all the in and outs of the inter-app audio stuff coming with iOS 7, but it seems that it will be yet another major game changer for how we make music on iOS. If it does indeed provide an audio connection to and from our music apps, what becomes of Audiobus? Is this what the other developers are waiting for as well? Who knows? It sure is intriguing and there’s plenty to speculate about.
I have no reason to believe Audiobus will vanish into the night. It will probably go in a new direction and evolve into something else just as useful as ever if not more. Maybe it’ll (Speculating!) work over WiFi somehow sending audio and MIDI back and forth between separate devices? Now that would be very cool, would it not? Stranger things have happened.
So did some apps miss the bus on purpose, or are they dead? We probably won’t know for sure until iOS 7 is released and developers start talking more about their plans. Whatever the case, there’s much to be excited about in the coming months. Perhaps another revolutionary breakthrough will occur bringing loads of new possibilities, amazing new apps, better and more choices? Like most of you, I’ll certainly be watching closely as things unfold expecting iOS music to once again take us to the next level.