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Loopy Pro

loopypro.com

150 pointsalin2349 comments

I love this honest and straight model of purchase regarding a 7-day trial and one time purchase with 12 months updates, while letting the user keep whatever they have or upgrade only if they want to.

Will give it a try.

That was my biggest takeaway as well, I thought that was really interesting!

Yep, I feel it's the best of both worlds between subscription and one-time purchase, while also supporting the dev when a high-effort upgrade is needed.

I've done the same for Lunar (https://lunar.fyi) but people were very confused at first and didn't understand the model.

I had to respond with "It's not a subscription." and a lengthy description of how it works more than I'd have liked to.

It's honestly a breath of fresh air. I wish Apple made it easier for developers to adopt this business model instead of having to choose between an unsustainable one-time purchase and an unpalatable rent-forever subscription.

I wonder how much work went into building the framework to enable a "subscription to new features" on iOS. Perhaps it's even something the developer might be interested in open-sourcing so more developers can go this route?

I don't know how the purchasing gets set up, but couldn't all of these just be separate products? 7-day trial, permanent version license, upgrades for two years...all with different prices? Does Apple prevent you from applying more than one to a single app or something?

Because the 12 months are from purchase date not development cycle, so you’d have to track features available to each user.

It's ridiculously hard to adopt this model on iOS

I started implementing it for my app, Codea (https://codea.io) because it was released in 2011 and I have been updating it ever since. So I'm still working pretty hard to support customers who purchased it for $8 over ten years ago!

I got as far as enumerating features (classing them as "Free" and "Pro"), adding a system to the codebase to check if a feature has been permanently activated based on the most recent receipt. But then I went to implement NON-autorenewing subscriptions — i.e., subscriptions that don't renew automatically — and discovered that Apple doesn't even support StoreKit testing for this type of subscription. So it would be a nightmare to test with having to manually create a ton of non-reusable sandbox accounts for every scenario

It's unsupported, under documented and just neglected. You have to work harder NOT to automatically take your customers' money after each renewal period!

I'd still like to go this route, but it took weeks away from working on actual useful features. And since it's a hobby project it seemed sensible to shelve it for now

Edit: the worst part is you have to litter your codebase with checks for features and whether they are active. Gracefully handle them not being active. If Apple let us simply sell version upgrades this would all go away

As a counter to this, Sketch uses similar pricing and it was one of the things that made migrating off of it to a competitor at my last company so easy. Since Sketch licenses were permanent, it was a no brainer of a decision. We could continue ongoing support at the last version of Sketch we had licenses for while embracing the new product, at no cost.

As a consumer I love it, but it's a risky strategy from a stickiness standpoint.

>As a consumer I love it, but it's a risky strategy from a stickiness standpoint.

And why we should support Sketch and similar companies with buy-once licensing and shun those that force you into the subscription hell model.

Sketch, unfortunately, no longer offers this model to new customers. Legacy customers can still buy a new year of updates, but anyone new to Sketch can only rent the software.

If the product does everything you want why should you be forced to pay for updates forever for features you don't want?

I would love to pay for Acrobat from like 7 years ago. There's been no value add for me.

That's a fair assessment, but I can tell you that if you run an Acrobat from 7 years ago, you are gonna have a bad time from a security perspective :)

I hate subscription models too, but maintaining software takes time and money.

I think that just emphasizes we need better desktop application sandboxing.

If I could trivially say this app does not get network access, restricted to this file system directory, can only read the supplied file, etc why should I have to live in fear? Granted, now that everything "needs" the internet quite a few of those limitations are meaningless, but I can dream.

> you are gonna have a bad time from a security perspective

You say that like it's inevitable, but there's no reason to state with certainty that bad things will happen unless you keep paying up.

No doubt software companies benefit from the fear of old versions. The fear spreads via comments like yours. Who wants a "bad time"? Not me, not anyone. The solution is easy! Open wallet, pay now, or better still hand over credit card and keep paying every month. Protection money, turning bad times into good times.

Depends on what the OP is doing. Some people just have repeated tasks of preparing documents. I don't see any security implications of using 7-year-old software as long as the user is just using it for authoring some PDFs and not opening anything of an external origin. The OS, if connected to the Internet, must be up to date though.

That being said I agree that licensing/subscription model makes sense even though I personally hate it too.

You are not buying a "product". You are buying a license to use the software under some conditions one of which could be that if you use it year after year you must pay more.

Nobody is "forcing you" to pay for updates, they are selling you a license. And since they are the seller they can write the terms of the sale.

IntelliJ offers a similar pricing: if one subscribes for at least an year - which has a fair price - they'll get a perpetual license.

Loopy is pretty cool.

The dude who wrote it (Michael Tyson) is also behind https://audiob.us/ and https://theamazingaudioengine.com/ and was really early and influential to the iOS audio scene.

Definitely worth checking out.

I only jumped around to get the gist, so I apologize if he goes over this: is the musician restricted to a measure length configured for a particular track-as-a-whole? Can you have loops of arbitrary length, quantizing or not as you see fit? I imagine this might break the automatic loop detection, but just from a polyrhythmic standpoint it's nice to have the ability for some parts not to be locked to the same time signature.

The reviewer shows a setting for it. By default, each track loops on its own. You can toggle a setting to link tracks and make them play together (I forget how it’s called).

Fantastic to see Michael Tyson releasing this update. I've relied on his contributions to iOS music app development tools (the amazing audio engine, audiobus, the spectacular sync engine) throughout my career.

Of particular note is the custom yearly / keep forever pricing model he is trying with this release.

Does loopy pro have a retrospective looper?

By retrospective looper I mean can it loop audio after it happens, as opposed to punching in?

I learned about this approach using https://endlesss.fm and have been looking for a standalone version ever since.

Yes. There's a video on their site that's about an hour that is a pretty effective demo.

Wow that looks really cool! I was watching the demo from Dub FX, really cool how it hooks up to the APC40, now I want to try it out. (Although I'm pretty sure it will be a bit disappointing as my music skills are less great haha)

Very reasonable priced btw, audio stuff is usually stupidly expensive, but this seems fair.

I bought Loopy HD several years ago after seeing Jimmy Fallon and Billy Joel use it for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." YouTube has some slide shows with audio, but I can't find a video that shows Jimmy using the app.

I can't say that I've used the app to as good effect.

Here you go:

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/ji...

I thought it was https://ncase.me/loopy/ pro version. I would love if there was a pro version to better demonstrate or simulate feedback loops

Is it related in spirit to the Fruity Loops of y'ore? Or only in name?

I don't think FL is really strong on live performances.

They added a ton of features for live performances a while back, and the playlist window context menu has a whole submenu for live performance settings.

Though the only thing I see in photos of live performances is Ableton

Is it correct to say that Loopy Pro is a DAW for iOS devices?

Not a conventional one, but it checks the boxes of recording audio on multiple tracks and the ability to edit on a linear timeline (in song mode), plus the ability to host plugins. Like Ableton Live, it's both a DAW and an improvisation/performance environment.

One common DAW feature it lacks (that many, including Ableton, also lacked in the early days) is MIDI sequencing, but it's on their roadmap.

I don’t like how the app immediately asks for microphone access on first launch and instantly starts using the mic.

What the hell?

Well, it’s the main functionality of the app, it records loops. What would you expect it to do?

Can anybody who used "new" loops interface in Logic say how it compares? I like not reinventing my workflows.

Curious if there's a HN specific angle?

I'm fascinated by this category but especially if there's a UI innovation.

Well, Michael Tyson has been in the iOS audio space for a long time (releasing a number of ubiquitously used frameworks and apps in the process), and has been working on this particular project for almost a decade IIRC.

There are very clever contextual UI / UX features, gestures for fine-grain control of faders, levels, balance.

JP Music UK video from LoopyPro.com

https://youtu.be/zz2Ggzd1QDo

Really cool UI

Ok, I clicked the link because I thought there is a new trackball available.

As the creator of zenAud.io I'd like to congratulate you for this super cool app. I wish you all the best with your release :)

Are you aware that your website is currently compromised and redirecting to malware?

I'm not OP, but just confirming that their site does go to the unexpected.

Probably not. Most of that type of malware takes additional measures to avoid detection by the site maintainers.

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