NOTION Music Forum

Do you plan a version ?

achambily wrote:Do you plan a version ?

We'd love to do it, but right now it's not on the immediate horizon.

please please please release a version for android
i refuse to buy an overpriced iPad

so do I...
but I own 3 android tablets...

Android seems to be a hard sell for developers of music products. I'm an iPad guy, but I also own an HP TouchPad which is running ICS (CyanogenMod is the best).

The best music app, so far, that I know of on Android is a PDF Music Reader called Mobile Sheets. Even then, the app doesn't compare with the best apps of the iPad in the same category (forScore, for example).

The widescreen format of most Android tablets might actually be a good thing when it comes to a music notation app (think about a score in a continuous horizontal mode, rather than the current vertical format of Noteshelf.

But when 3 million new iPads are sold the first weekend they are available, and so few tablets of any other kind have sold (versus over 60 million iPads), it's pretty easy to see where developers are going to go. And in this field, there are only two options. Notion and another app, which I won't name, as this is Notion's forum.

Admin wrote:

achambily wrote:Do you plan a version ?

We'd love to do it, but right now it's not on the immediate horizon.

Well, that's a disappointment. It's a major market. One would think the profit motive would be sufficient to drive development for an Android version of the app.

choirguy wrote:...

But when 3 million new iPads are sold the first weekend they are available, and so few tablets of any other kind have sold (versus over 60 million iPads), it's pretty easy to see where developers are going to go.

I have a different view. There have been 190 million Android devices activated. a half a million Android devices are being activated each day. Granted, these activations include phones and not just tablets. On tablets, Strategy Analytics reports that while iPad has 66.6 percent of the tablet market, Android tablets have grown to 26.9 percent. So, while iPad has two thirds of the market (making it a good reason for Notion to start there, as it did), Android tablets command one-fourth of the worldwide market. That is a HUGE market to just ignore, as Notion seems to be doing.

By not addressing the Android market, Notion is at risk of ceding the market to a competitor. While the barrier to entry for developing an app like this might seem high, the incentives for competitors to jump in are strong--and it is only a matter of time before one does, in a big way. It just baffles me that Notion isn't capitalizing on this comes-only-once opportunity.

Well, back to my film score...on good ol' Notion3 for the good ol' PC!

Composed wrote:

choirguy wrote:...

Android tablets command one-fourth of the worldwide market. That is a HUGE market to just ignore, as Notion seems to be doing.

By not addressing the Android market, Notion is at risk of ceding the market to a competitor. While the barrier to entry for developing an app like this might seem high, the incentives for competitors to jump in are strong--and it is only a matter of time before one does, in a big way. It just baffles me that Notion isn't capitalizing on this comes-only-once opportunity.

I can't be sure, but I suspect you overestimate the market, perhaps because you are advocating for it. Just how "HUGE" this market is, is information unavailable to us: Today at the iTunes App Store, there is a total of just 89 customers who have provided ratings feedback about Notion for iPad. Granted, no one outside Apple and Notion Music knows how many downloads they have sold, but the development of the app generated a great deal of heat from desktop-Notion users who saw an iPad app as a waste of time, given that Notion 3 had (and still has) many problems that need to be addressed. Another hiatus in desktop development would likely go down like a civil war.

I would imagine that a small company like Notion Music simply doesn't have the resources to develop an app for yet another tablet platform. And who knows, perhaps the Android platform has other problems that make it bad business to develop for it.

When a true competitor appears on Android, the time may be for Notion to reconsider its development strategy, but right now it doesn't seem to be as urgent to go Android as to move forward on what we have. I support Notion's reluctance to broaden their product line.

Best,
Thorrild

The problem here is probably that there is no code base for lInux, while they had one for the Mac. Not insurmountable but more work. I just bought an iPad, specifically for this program and other music programs. Of course, I'm not a starving student.

AND... While expensive, and at times annoyingly restrictive, the iPad is easily the best of the tablets I've used. I own a HP Touchpad, dual-booting to ICS, and have handled dozens at PCWorld's labs. None compare.

jonljacobi wrote:The problem here is probably that there is no code base for lInux, while they had one for the Mac. Not insurmountable but more work. I just bought an iPad, specifically for this program and other music programs. Of course, I'm not a starving student.

AND... While expensive, and at times annoyingly restrictive, the iPad is easily the best of the tablets I've used. I own a HP Touchpad, dual-booting to ICS, and have handled dozens at PCWorld's labs. None compare.

I own a Samsung Galaxy and I think it is better than the IPad (I tried this one before buying)