Thank you for your insight! It's too bad Scythe isn't as lucrative as you hoped... seems like it's hard to get serious software noticed in the App Store over free, bite-sized entertainment apps. Incidentally, my app is targeting the iPad as well, but I don't really mind the business reprecussions: I'm writing it for my own personal use above all else, and I wanted to give my trusty old iPad 3 something useful to do instead of just serving as a very expensive web browser. I was thinking of going Lite/Pro, but perhaps freemium might be better after all; I just really don't philosophically like the idea of charging for individual features, especailly when they're part of the MIDI standard already. (But that's just business, I guess.)
There's been a lot of talk recently about the iPad languishing, and it seems that Apple is taking notice. Would not surprise me if they made more of a marketing push towards promoting iPad apps in the coming years, especially with the possible arrival of the iPad Pro.[1][2]
Crazy that the VST market can be so lucrative! It makes me happy that some people are still willing to pay a fair price for their "workhorse" software.
The VST market isn't really lucrative. I have it on good authority that most plugins sell at most 200 copies. Music software is also very challenging to write because it combines multi-threading with soft-realtime requirements. So any programmer good enough to write non-trivial music software can easily make more money with fewer headaches writing almost any other kind of app. So I'd say the only good reason to write music software really is just for the enjoyment of doing it.
As for myself, as much as I enjoy writing music software I enjoy making music more and it seems like I only really have the mental energy for one or the other.
There's been a lot of talk recently about the iPad languishing, and it seems that Apple is taking notice. Would not surprise me if they made more of a marketing push towards promoting iPad apps in the coming years, especially with the possible arrival of the iPad Pro.[1][2]
Crazy that the VST market can be so lucrative! It makes me happy that some people are still willing to pay a fair price for their "workhorse" software.
[1]: http://www.macrumors.com/2015/02/08/apple-ipad-grammys/
[2]: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/12/31/apple-expands-start-some...