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Yeah right out of the gate iOS was the clear leader, but I think that's the legacy of Core Audio from their main OS? To me it's not surprising that iOS was the go-to for audio, based on historical prescedent that both MS and, from what I understand, Linux platforms didn't really have strong native audio processing for low latency. I mean, yes, it was totally do-able (MS via ASIO4ALL, I know there were a few Linux based music systems even that ran on Atom netbooks), but plug-and-play wasn't quite the same. Even audio cards had some driver issues in the MS realm, speaking from personal experience. It's rather sad because the MS environment allowed for a lot of homebrew plugins - the VSTs. Those won't run in Apple's ecosystem. Other plugins do (ex. UAD) but for the longest time those required (still do?) their own hardware processing cards. $$$$$$$. iOS bridged the gap in a lot of ways between the 'average' and 'pro' musician being able to access nice digital sounds on reasonably priced hardware. I'm a genuine PC guy (Ableton Live, Reaper) but get a lot of mileage out of a second gen iPad 2 - specifically Propellerhead's Figure software, which is flat out fantastic. I've made an entire EP in GarageBand while traveling. Sure, some devices won't work with iOS devices (my LPK25 will run on the iPad 2's port via camera connector USB dongle, but the MPD8 won't), and yet some are outstanding (looking at the Line6 / iK media products for guitarists and amp simulation). There's so much of a head start with iOS that honestly I kind of think there's little to no point in Android or MS trying to play catch up in the mobile sphere. MS has a winner with the Surface line because they run real software, but in the 'pure' mobile space, iOS has all the goods in my opinion. |