iOS 11 - Native MIDI via cable?
A question for any iOS11 and macOS High Sierra users in here... during the Apple dev talks before release, I saw a demonstration of realtime midi send from iOS 11 iPad to macOS. All that was required was to plug the iPad into a mac via the 'official' cable, and configure it via Audio Midi Setup. So that's realtime stereo channel audio midi finally in place.... That should mean that iPad/iPhones on iOS 11 can send and receive MIDI in realtime without the annoying Bluetooth issues or other workarounds. I've spent some time searching for that video in order to post it here as a point of reference. Kudos to Audeonec, Matthias Frick, and others for initially breaking down the walls. Before I upgrade, I'd just like to know if this Apple 'feature' has made it to market, and has anyone had the chance to give it a try? Would be great if it did...
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so, I don't know if what I just did is new or not, but, it feels new? I've already updated my iphone and ipad to ios 11, and I've hooked up my iphone to my hackintosh running el capitan, added my iphone in audio midi setup, opened touch osc on my iphone and ableton live on my mac (hac), set up my iphone as a controller in live, and I'm sending keys and cc to live. just to make sure I'm not somehow doing this over wifi or bluetooth, I turned on airplane mode, and it's still working. is this the new ios 11 stuff?
hooked up my ipad to my mac (hac), set it up in ableton live as a midi controller, set fugue machine to send midi out to IDAM MIDI host, and it's working perfectly. from what I've read briefly online, this wasn't possible before.
@ronji Cheers for getting back to me - that's great news! I'm a little puzzled though - you're on El Capitan? I though there was a restriction there - i.e. that Bluetooth and wifi were the only options... but if you've looked out for that and you are still getting midi out by the cable.... that is mad! What part of the system is doing the receiving? Do you have midimux or anything like that running in the background??
Yeah, I'm on el Capitan (updating hackintosh isn't the easiest thing to do) and I'm preeeeetty sure I don't have anything else going on that would make it possible. I did have the touchable script running at first (to allow touchable to control ableton) but I quit that as well. I don't even know much about this new IDAM stuff or what the requirements are, so I don't know if high Sierra is really required, but it's working. Perhaps someone else can also chime in? I know @5pinlink has a Mac and is also running iOS 11, so maybe he can do some testing as well?
@ronji Nice to hear the spec - Scan have had my interest for a while. Yep- @5pinlink would be great to get your feedback on this if you get any time off from the sexy Russian fembots...
Still setting up this replacement MacBook, will get on it as soon as poss, probably tomorrow
Great stuff, I've got to drop in two of my own next week. Its a pain. Whenever suits
Oh mines not an apple replacement, got fed up with the modern crap blowing up, I grabbed a 2011 MB Pro 2.2 i7, still has a HD which I need to upgrade to and SSD at some point, and I need to change the bluetooth card for continuity so that airdrop works with the iPad, but yeah, much better machine.
As long as it doesn't have a touch bar, its likely to be pretty solid! I've a 2013 and after a bit of bartering, I was given the work computer. Screens are screwed, and drives need replacing. Doing a little bit of nimble hardware replacement myself
The only real issue with the older machines is the heat, for the difference in price the performance is not far enough ahead in my book.
And the graphics card failures on 2011-2013 Pros - if they weren't replaced during the recall.
Interesting. If it's not relying on a new driver/protocol at the Mac end this could be good news for Windows users as well as external hardware users.
@TheMediocritist that's what I was thinking as well. I don't have any synth hardware to plug into, or I'd test that.
just did some more searching, and came across this page which links to this presentation and also this video (48:00 in). the presentation says "requires ios 11 and mac os el capitan or later" =D I suppose that might mean no love for Windows or midi hardware, at least at first?
Thanks for providing the link @ronji, that was the video I was referring to - close to where you pointed out, at 49:05 he introduces iOS11 with IDAM +MIDI - yes - you are good to go with El Capitan! No macOS adjustments required
Hoping to bite the bullet with iOS 11.1.0 
I believe so. You may need to actually connect the iOS device to a Mac to see the IDAM midi destination. I haven't tested with bm3 but touch osc and fugue machine worked automagically. The guy in the video said something like "you won't need to update your app if it's already using class compliant midi"
OK, what do we want to test ?
Heres what I did so far...
1 Connected iPad to MBP, went to Audio/MIDI setup on MBP and it has an enable button for iPad.
2 Once enable it is just an input (24/44.1 no way to change this it seems) It is not available as an output.
3 Set output as MBP and input as iPad.
4 Opened Reaper and used for audio device, Beatmaker recorded in to Reaper by arming track as per normal.
5 Created a MIDI track in Reaper, monitored Beatmaker on an Audio track and triggered it via a MIDI track in Reaper .
6 Loaded a synth on a track in Reaper and triggered it from a pattern in Beatmaker.
Anything else I need to test ?
I will connect it to a Windows PC in a sec, but I am dubious of that working, simply because you have to press that enable button in Audio/MIDI setup.
Oh by the way, latency seems ******* brilliant !!!!
iPad as a sound module is looking good, but this is just the built in audio, obviously with an external interface you are going to need an aggregate device, not sure what the latency issues are with that kind of set up.
OK people, riddle me this.....
I am using this MBP on the built in speakers, yeah its weak but I always use laptop speakers as reference nowadays too, I notice that one side is slightly louder than the other hmmmmmm, try the balance in settings and it is centered, tried the levels in Audio/MIDI and they are level hmmmmm.
Opened up Reaper and started trying panning, hmmmmm, if I pan right it all goes right, if I pan left it goes centre WTF
So I'm thinking the guy I bought this off has obviously done some jiggery pokery to get the sound system working and he has blown it up, so off comes the bottom of the computer, ohhhhh nooooooo.......
Those masters of perfect design (So we are told) Apple, have only gone and fitted a tweeter bar on the left, and an L shaped thing on the right that holds the right tweeter and a sub woofer, the sub woofers range is so similar to the range of the tweeters, that on the right you get double the volume, on the left you get basically a centered signal because the damn sub woofer is wired summed mono and sounds exactly the same as the left speaker hahahahahaha
Seriously though, who the **** in their right mind would do that crap, just the biggest music supplier on the planet, in the entire history of the planet !!!!!
I'm gong to have to think about that... pics? Curiosity, not doubt... I trust your judgement!
Not my image cause i have put the bottom back on, but here ya go
Augmented frontal lobe overthink drive engaged.
You're supposed to position your head according to the product, duh. "don't hold it like that" is the answer to your problems =p