Re: [PLUG] idle curiosity

[Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 2:04 PM, Matt Berlin <arkestra@gmail.com> wrote:
> Fortunately/unfortunately android doesn't have specific hardware (ala
> iPhone), so any Android App for music would have shoddy, and at
> least inconsistent, performance across devices.

I don't really see that as a big issue on most Android systems (most
being ones in the last year or two).  I doubt that any of the iOS apps
are using some kind of direct hardware access - they're limited to the
API, and I'm not aware of any big API differences here.  Android even
supports native code (though that IS going to be a bit more
hardware-specific, but the truth is that it all is on ARM right now).

You could do sound effects in realtime on a single channel back when
PCs were running at 200MHz, so I can't see how a phone running at 1GHz
and likely doing more per tick is going to struggle much.  The only
real issue is what else the OS is doing at the same time.  The lack of
multitasking on iOS might be a mitigating factor there.  Then again,
they had gStrings working on the HTC Magic - which is way lower in
performance than any modern android phone.

I think the issue is mainly marketing.  For whatever reason bands tend
to buy Apple products.  You see the same kind of skewed software
distribution in the Mac vs PC world (that is, the Macs have as much or
maybe even more high-end music software than the PC, despite having
maybe 5% of the selection across the board).  That, and people willing
to spend $200-500 on a phone are more likely to want to spend $20 on
an app, or whatever, which is why it seems like many developers target
iOS in the first place.

As for me - I'm the sort of guy who tries to get his phone for free
and patch the OS, so the absence of a $20 app in the market that I'd
never buy anyway doesn't tend to impact me much...

Rich
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