Crowdfunding, buyout, subscription???
the general consensus among BM3 users seems to be they love the app but..... hate how long it takes to get bugs fixed.
I have no idea how large the user base is but is it large enough to raise the capital needed to get more developers working on BM3?
You can do that through crowdfunding or going to a subscription model. I know everyone generally hates subscriptions but honestly if it means everyone gets the updates they want people will pay. I pay around $20 a month for an app that gets updated once a week. I have no problem paying because it’s a rock solid app that is always getting new features.
The other thing that would be amazing is if someone like Ableton buys BM3 and makes LiveIOS out of it. My favorite thing about BM3 is how closely it mimics the Live Drum Rack.
I love BM3 and still use it despite its flaws but I would be willing to pay a monthly subscription or a generous crowd funding donation to see faster updates.
Comments
$20 per month lol - you're funny dude
I don't think the major or sole problem is the money aspect. I believe there are multiple aspects that lead to very slow development and a accumulation of bugs:
Yes, you can solve all of this by a huge investment into developers. But it's like rebuilding the several centuries old building to meet current standards. It's usually many times more expensive than building it up from the scratch. With software, it's even harder, because you need to keep the backwards compatibility, so you need to be super-careful to e.g. not break older user projects after the update. Also you can't usually sacrifice any functionality, although it would help a lot while rewriting the app, but users would scream about losing something they were used to.
I believe the problem is also the motivation of the developers. They usually like to build new stuff, not to maintain legacy codebase. It's hard to find people, even if you are corporate which offers crazy salaries. Music making app is probably much more attractive than some awful old corporate system, but still, if the code is pain to work with, there is very few people that will choose this path, not to mention if the salary is not really competitive.
All of these are just my wild guesses and I would love to be proven wrong. I just am assuming this from a perspective of developer myself and based on the experience from some startup projects that grown rapidly, but ultimately failed and they had the same symptoms when observing from outside.
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Everything will come out in teh wash as they say, but ignoring your userbase will foster mistrust and eventually destroy any viability, personally i could not think of anything better than a user buy out at this point.
At first I did not like this idea but now I’m thinking about this buy out option.
I wonder how the user buyout is supposed to work like...? Is there some precedent of such case, even outside iOS world? It's usually quite hard for two businesses to make a deal about company acquisition, but when a "user community" (who would represent it?) negotiates with a private company, that would be even more complicated...
Acquisition by another company would be a huge thing though. But I am afraid companies like Ableton or Native Instruments are much more interested in acquisition of developers and know-how rather than a codebase, brand and community. They have their own much powerful brands a communities already, so it has no value for them and codebase itself, if not in perfect condition or containing some patent-pending unique magic, without developers and know-how, is usually also virtually worthless.
So would a buyout include all the iaps and app together? I mean bm3 easily reached a hundred dollars I believe with everything.
Precedent is Blender in the world of CGI, small time hardly used software, bought by users and set free, now the fastest developed and most used CGI software in history.
Do we need a better precedent ?
Good point.
It is definitely the most used FREE 3D software.
Tell me if I'm wrong -- But this seems entirely out of the question given the small user/development base for iOS music apps.
The user base is only small because there hasn’t been a “major” player fully jump on board with iOS.
Also every kid growing up these days uses tablets for school so the next gen of producers will probably have the same iOS bias that currently exists.
Its the most used 3D software full stop, nearly every animator and modeller on the planet has it and will use it at some point, even if their main tool is another package.
I work full-time 3d modeling for the past 25 years (as long as Blender has been around) and have worked with hundreds of 3d artists, modelers, animators, concept artists etc who all use 3d packages and as far as games and film production go Blender is not prominent at all. It is free and easy to download so they certainly rack up install numbers. In no way are they an industry leader or the most used. The amount of hours clocked by commercial industry dwarf hobbiests so I simply can't think of a definition for 'most used' that would fit.
Cool story, I have never seen many artists admit to using microsoft paint, its still the most used paint package, I have never seen a race car driver win with a Toyota, but they still sell the most cars.
Cool straw man, my dude. Strong argument you have there.
Most people download it, install it with intentions of using it and realize 3D is way more involved than they think... unlike MS Paint and Toyotas. True story.
Could have sworn, just this past weekend, Toyota won the 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans, finishing in 1st and 2nd place. In 2018 too.
Ok, i give up, Blenderbeing bought out by users was a terrible idea and nobody uses it.
Just last week I seen an artist win the world cup with BM3 so I think anything is possible if you just believe
This made my day. 🤣
I am still laughing - this wins "joke of the week" in my book! 🤣
It's gold, @ronji , Gold! 🤣
This forum is just screaming out for a public relations intervention.
Crazy to think that it is Intua’s public forum...
C’mon Intua! Time to get the messaging and development back on track. You have one of the most innovative music production suites very close to being prime time. Don’t pull down the shutters, don’t dumb it down for the masses, just BRING IT! 🙂💪👊😎
[This was a Gus Granite motivational broadcast TM]
This is just showmanship right? They go on at 10 right?
The small group of hardcore bm3 users here on this forum may not generate much direct income for Intua themselves...
(Intua have only ever had about $40 from my own pocket)
...but ... we are kind of like unpaid PR, tech support, and evangelists for the app, which helps drive awareness and lead to more sales, so I don't think it's unreasonable for us regulars here to request a little direct feedback and goodwill comment from the current dev team.
(Are they even reading these threads?)
I have said it before but to hell with 'new features' at this point. If BM3 were crash / bug free ('slice to pads' with 'create pattern' only works once now? too many ETCs) I would have evangelized it massively to real world people with audio jobs and not just sung it's select praises on the forum(s) of converted fellow mobile apologists.
Le sigh.
It is to the point where I feel why even post bugs now? Seven+ months for an update and no word on anything with the last update introducing new bugs on things that sorta kinda worked...? Again... le sigh... Here is hoping the new Logic on iPad rumors are real (of course they aren't... ...right?). Hell I don't even know if Logic is any good for me. Rambling now... delirious with semi-disappointment. still... BM3 ROCKS!! (relatively speaking / confusing times...)
When the noise coming from their own forum is so negative, why would they bother?
Now, you (tk32), and several others were like 'unpaid PR, tech support', and the majority of the posts were very helpful. But the discussions that stand out on any forum are the negative ones. That kind of negativity killed the MPC5k when it was released, and ultimately Akai Pro, even though they got most of the issues fixed later.
Sure, Intua's communication stinks, but it's a $40 app, not my spouse. All the harassing and verbal abuse on social media has got to be a moral-killer. Plus Apple's lack of documentation, unannounced changes, upcoming iOS13, iPadOS, Marzipan...might be wise to wait a few months before making any major changes to a big app.
Negativity lol, thisapp was praised non stop, even fanboyism is a light term for what this app had, until the developer (vincent) just shut up shop.
@ocelot how long ago was it when you bought BM3? How long have you been in the forum? When this app was first released we praised it. When we got updates we praised it even more. When some of us got 3.1 beta and roadmap believe it or not the excitement was through the roof!!! If you were there around then you would understand where a lot of us are coming from.
He's still working on it (going by his posts).
I never did.
Just a little while.
I know.
I know.
For sure. But it certainly wasn't unanimous, reportedly. Each use case is unique.
Okay.