Faffing around with iOS

Having acquired an iPhone 5 through work I thought I may as well try out a few apps.
 
Garage band. This seems like its only half baked. Some things sound quite good, but there are limitations, the guitars are limited to triads in the key of C for example. I can't find a way to open clips and edit them. Fun but I can't see finding a serious use for it.
 
Sampletank Free. Sounds OK, not sure how to use it for any serious purpose without extra hardware.
 
I am still looking for a sequencer that is not loop based, has either a staff or piano roll input, can export a MIDI file and has a GM sound set that could be used to sketch out ideas.
 
In the end I think the phone formfactor will prove too frustrating to use for anything other than messing around.
 

strikinglyhandsome1
Cubasis, which costs more than your average app, seems popular.

You need an iPad, not suprisingly it requires more screen real estate than is available on an iPhone. I have no intention of buying an iPad.
 
I am skeptical that I will find the iPhone a workable platform so I not looking to spend too much on an app until I have proved I can enter and manipulate midi data on such a small screen.
 

Going to try the free version of Music Studio http://appcrawlr.com/ios/music-studio
 

So glad you started this thread.  I was going to do a similar one.  
 
Last week my iPhone died suddenly at the age of 26 months.  When I got the replacement, I thought, "hey, I will try some of the apps that are available for musicians."  After all, everywhere you look there are adds for the musical use of iStuff.   So, I went to the app store and carefully looked at a bunch of the name brand apps that we often talk about here on this forum; I tried a few.  I genuinely wanted them to be something that I had misjudged and that I would now find  to be useful if only when I am out with my wife and while she is shopping and I am sitting waiting for her.  However, my honest impression was that most of the musical oriented iApps were not usable by me.  Let me stress the words "by me".  I do realize that for many teens and college students iPhones, iPads and iStuff are essential to their core being.  It is not just the wave of the future, it is the present reality for millions of young people; and we will not go back.  Many people seem to find use for/in these iApps that I just can't find useful.  I thought that "it might be good for traveling".  I realize that some people will be able to make music, and edit/produce music with these, but I found it too hard to use on such tiny iPhone screens.  With my aging/vintage eyes, I just need two 27 inch monitors just to see what is going on, and a real set of tactile keyboards to do midi input.  Trying to do this on a 3x4 inch screen just is not going to work for me.
 
Bottom line.  I hope others will make great music with iApps.  I genuinely tried them out; I wanted to see what all the hyp is all about.  They must work great for many, but for me they are too tiny, and too difficult to use.  I honestly wish iStuff designers the best, but hope they remember that some of us still work best with computer based DAWs or old school mixing consoles and hardware.   This post is not a flame attack, but my report that honestly I looked; I tried; but they are not for me.

After playing around with it I think the iPhone is too small to use something like Music Studio. The app its self is something close to what I was looking for but using it on such a small device is difficult to say the least. Maybe the "smart phone generation" will have more success. Also it was not apparent if one could output midi files, it may be there but my frustration with the size of the interface prematurely ended my explorations.
 
I tried a staff program called iWriteMusic but it seemed unstable, some reviewers also mentioned problems with this one.
 
Cubasis on an iPad is probably the way to go if you want to do something with iOS. But you can't exactly slip an iPad in your pocket, in reality it's not that much more portable than my laptop. Its not like haveing an iPad would mean I could leave my laptop behind on business travel as I need access to technical software.
 
I will try a few of the the synths, like Alchemy but I don't expect to do much serious work. - Back to the manuscript pad and pencil.