Kontakt iOS

So with all the features of IPadOS, use of external hard drives etc, surely we must be able to get a working Kontakt sample player on this platform, being able to compose really professional music with vast string libraries and the like would be great. Is it now the right time that both h/w and s/w are mature enough for NI to do this....

 

Don't hold your breath for this, there is a number of reasons why this won't happen any time soon, or likely ever.

 

A real shame that NI is neglecting/ignoring the iOS realm so hard. As forward thinking as they were back in the day with making the computer a powerful production tool, the more ignorant it seems with their decision not to port any of their professional tools onto iOS/iPadOS or even create new ones designed specifically for iOS. iMaschine is not even worth mentioning anymore at this point, it lacks so many features that basically every other comparable app offers and unlike iMaschine they also get regular updates. We´ll see how Traktor will be developing in the future but iOS versions of for example Reaktor Blocks (look at MiRack for example, the iOS version of VCV Rack) and all the FX tools are just a huge missed opportunity in my opinion.

 

It's easy to wish it, but you can't force the current codebases easily into iOS realm. Remember these things (Kontakt, Reaktor) are close to 20 years old now - way before HiDPI, way before iOS. It would be a very significant effort required in manhours to do the conversions (on the order of years), and it might very well still not result in adequate returns considering the required time to do those conversions. Now, if you were a profit-driven company, what would you do in that situation?

 

I don´t know, maybe we should ask companies like Steinberg, Sugar Bytes, Arturia and all the other developers who offer their tools cross-platform... and I would assume that those companies have significantly less manpower available than NI. It´s obvious that iOS is somewhere on the very end of NI´s bucket list but no one can deny that it is a growing market which has had a pretty impressive development in the last years.

Companies like Adobe also didn´t bother with a serious flagship product for iOS (maybe because they felt safe since they´re industry standard and thought they can dictate the trends) until a small company called Affinity came along and made professional tools that can easily replace Adobe´s core products for the graphicdesign industry and that cross-plattform. Now Adobe announced a full fledged Photoshop version for iOS and I think it´s fair to assume that they´re only doing it because market shares are declining and not because they belive in the platform. Being profit driven is one thing but paired with "ignorance" (feels a little harsh but I can´t think of a better word right now) you might end up like Nokia.

NI used to be very creative/visionary but I don´t see that really reflected anymore in their products. Still excellent products though, no doubt about that.

 

What you're asking for is a bit of apples and oranges. You're asking whether you can haul an 18-wheeler with your Prius. Modern-day Kontakt users are accustomed to DFD streaming, high CPU usage, and dozens or hundreds gigabytes of sample libraries. Those are all beyond the physical capabilities of iOS at this time.

It's likely that one day, iOS machines will be powerful enough to do this. It's also possible that NI could develop a lite version of Kontakt that could do some of Kontakt's simpler tasks and move that to iOS if they wished. I don't know their thinking on it, but obviously they are well aware of the iOS space and (at least until now) have decided that there isn't the opening to make a good product here.

You may want to take a look at what they've done with iMaschine. To be sure, it's a slimmed down version of Maschine, however, it does have a bit of overlap with Kontakt (sample triggers), and they've customized it so that it really is a very useful tool used on iOS. That's a perfect example of using iOS for what it's ideal for.

 

I can't really see this happening with NI's existing product range. Reaktor is practically a coding environment for plugins, one that requires a fair amount of CPU for more intense ensembles(Polyplex used 30% on my old FX-6300). And even ignoring the fact that porting it to iOS would likely be a pretty big undertaking, I personally wouldn't want to work in Reaktor on a touchscreen.

Kontakt relies on large amounts of ram and disk space for it's sample libraries, and FM8/Absynth haven't been updated in years; I'd much rather see Absynth 6 than be able to run either on an iPad, and I don't think that's an uncommon opinion. So short of making something new, maybe a player/trimmed down version of Massive X or something of the like, it doesn't seem particularly likely. Don't get me wrong, it would be cool as hell, but I just don't see it.

 

My iPad Pro from 2015 outshines my iMac 27“ from 2013 in basically every aspect when it comes to performance (especially when working with video material) and the latest models have storage up to 1TB, so I‘m not sure if that really is an obstacle. On top of that the latest iOS also allows external drives and mouse control, keyboard control was around for a while so the lines between computer and „mobile“ are getting thinner and thinner.

Nobody expects 1:1 clones of heavy stuff like Kontakt or Reaktor (I was only mentioning Reaktor Blocks), they have their place on a studio computer with lots of „horsepower“. But why not even working on integrating the possibilities of iOS devices into the existing workflow? Additional touch control for parameters in form of an X/Y pad for example or using the tilting sensor for expressive playing? From a sounddesign perspective those are definitely interesting ideas. Or just simply having the option to start creating something on your tablet while on the go and then just keep working on your studio computer to finish out your ideas... and technically it’s possible since other developers already incorporate something like that.

iMaschine is a bad example because this app basically shows NI‘s negligence towards the iOS realm. It hasn’t been updated for years and only got a minor update not so long ago. Why use such a limited app when you can use a much better one?

There are so many amazing production and sound design tools available for iOS so it just feels like there is something missing if such a big name like NI is basically none existent in this.