Inter-App Audio Coming In iOS 7 – What Will It Mean For AudioBus, Jack?

icon-ios7One of the new features listed for Apple’s just-announced iOS 7 is ‘Inter-App Audio‘.

Inter-App Audio was originally mentioned as a feature for iOS 6, but did not make the cut for that release.

Here how Apple describes Inter-App Audio:

Now your apps can make beautiful music together.

With Inter-App Audio, apps can register their audio streams to share with other apps. For example, a series of apps could publish audio streams of instrument tracks while another uses the combination of these streams to compose a song. Inter-App Audio also provides for MIDI control of audio rendering, remotely launching other registered Inter-App Audio apps and more.

It’s too early to tell how this will impact AudioBus & Jack, third-party tools for audio routing on iOS.

But it sounds like iOS 7 will directly address the needs of virtual instrument uses and some of the key complaints of musicians that wants something similar to VSTi’s on iO7.  In iOS 7, DAWs like GarageBand or Auria should be able to automatically launch virtual instrument apps, as needed, to receive MIDI and translate it to Audio. This will require updates to both instruments and DAWs for support.

What do you think about the prospects for Inter-App Audio?

via Apple, Peter Kirn

20 thoughts on “Inter-App Audio Coming In iOS 7 – What Will It Mean For AudioBus, Jack?”

  1. I think that if you want Korg Electribe, MS-20, Arturia Minimoog to render their work in Fruity Mobile, just like VST do with DAWS, you’ll need really more horsepower than an Ipad or Iphone could provide yet ….

    1. Yes & no.

      iPad DAWs can currently do 24 channels of audio easily, so the limiting factor is CPU draw of the virtual instruments. Mobile users may need to ‘freeze’ tracks to conserve CPU, like many desktop DAW users do when they push against the limits of their processor.

      The latest iOS devices have Geekbench ratings comparable to laptops from 5-6 years ago, so even CPU limitations are becoming less of a concern.

  2. It means that iOS will be the undisputed choice for those who want portability in their music making. It also means no apps need purchasing to route.

    It also means upgrading to ipad3 or 4 at least

    It also means Apple heard our prayers:)

  3. I have nothing intelligent to add, but I’m really happy that Apple is taking our needs seriously here.
    iAudioUnits next?

  4. Let a thousand flowers bloom…I say. Unless Apple’s implementation becomes a noxious weed and breaks Audio Bus and Jack.

  5. What I realy want is to be able to plug my iPAD in the USB socket of my PC and get MIDI over USB- How hard can it be!!! Ironicaly if you plug your apple USB socket in to a usb to midi and then get a midi to USB with generic PC drivers it works!

    1. Hi there; I want it too. Can you expand a bit on how to do it going from usb to midi and back to usb? What do you use to do that? I do have two m-audio usb to midi cable/adaptors, is that the path?
      Thanks

      1. Yes, you need a USB Midi interface for the iPad and a midi interface for the PC. And between the iPad and the USB Midi interface a Camera Connection Kit.

      1. There’s no reason Apple couldn’t implement USB from the Mac to the iPad. Even with USB 2.0, this looks like the Mac being the USB bus master and the iPad being the peripheral. What do you think happens when you sync your iPhone with iTunes?

        You may remember how older iPods showed up on your desktop like USB or FireWire hard drives – this is a similar idea, except that instead of acting as a hard drive the iPad would show up as a MIDI interface and an audio interface.

  7. Everyone wants audiobus right now so I guess it will be a success commercially, most iPad users don’t seem to want to create professional sounds but are content with low CPU implementations. For me as an individual I’ve written iPad synths but now am moving off to VSTs because working with an ipad screen in the way that you just want to work with a vst instrument is a pain, with my DAW I want a nice large screen to work with and the surface needs to be large enough so that you can accurately press buttons, iPad will never offer that so only the novel solutions are really of any interest, any desktop mimicking software is really a distraction and a way to work more slowly with what you already have available

  8. Good for users, not so good for the AudioBus developers. They’re probably glad they had a year to cash in!

    This should eliminate for third-party solutions and app-by app support.

  9. I hate to see the AudioBus guys sidelined, but having the system itself support midi and audio routing will be better for musicians in the long run.

    Can’t wait to see how Apple implements this!

  10. Check out the thread over at Discchord… AudioBus guys in with Apple core Audio team and they I’ve what they are hearing 🙂

    Looks like iOS 7 is going to be a great release for musicians!

  13. Do this be meaning that it would be possible for devs to allow the option for us to individually route drum parts out of their drum apps to individual tracks in auria for example?

  14. I would bet a bundle that Audiobus cut a deal with Apple to help them get it together with the implementation of this. Audiobus has been an absolute game-changer, and even though I am a bit of an Apple fanboy, they owe Audiobus a ton of thanks and hopefully some of the well deserved gravy for giving musicians an incredibly practical, open ended platform that encourages exploration, modularity, and creative experimentation. I also hope Apple understands the implications of it enough to implement a version of it in OS. The plugin thing works, but the DAW concept has evolved into a dinosaur when compared to the way we get to interact with instruments/control surfaces etc. in iOS. It is more fun, and of course it slaughters OS for sheer mobility, creativity in motion. No contest.

  15. What would be great is if Apple would add keyboard split & layer – like a Korg workstation e.g. – but for music apps,.. To my knowledge Audiobus does not do that,.. Most PC DAW’s don’t either & is one of the reasons I love Kore 2 & Reason to a lesser degree … I’d be tickled pink if they or Audiobus did this …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *