A reader counters yesterday’s note on GarageBand:

I think especially GarageBand is a bad example, because in the realm of Music and Audio apps there seems to be a thriving business with lots of much, much more capable and (all in all) much better apps (not in breadth, but in depth) – with higher prices as in the rest of the App Store. And those who look out for really good musical instrument apps, and who use them on a regular basis, buy them (instead of GarageBand, or rather in addition to it).

One example could be Auria – a “Digital Audio Workstation” – sold for $50 (and a light version for $25 with In-App-Purchase to get to the full version): GarageBand can’t hold a candle to it. And there are Synths a lot, beating the shit out of GarageBand. And an app like iGrand Piano, that sounds like *real* pianos – at least compared to GarageBand’s Piano that sounds like … uhm … don’t get me started!

I don’t know how well all those apps (and programmers/companies) fare in revenue…

Here’s the thing: I’m not entirely sure either who is succeeding and who isn’t. Something I would like to do over the coming months is write profiles of all kinds of apps with a clear focus on economics, not features.

What works? What doesn’t? And what can platform owners do about it – if indeed
they even care.