intermorphic.com Blog

We are really sorry to report this, as we really wanted to get the Mixtikl mobile music creativity system running on iPhone / iPod touch (see Create Digital Music).

There is no intrinsic reason why Mixtikl and its integrated Noatikl generative music engine and Partikl DLS MIDI synth, softsynth, sampler and fx network shouldn’t run very nicely on the iPhone / iPod touch. But, as with porting to any Device/OS, there are many issues to consider ranging from technical to commercial, and Pete’s blog touches on some of the technical issues behind our decision.

After further investigation, however, it turns out that it was not only the technical side that turned out to be a show stopper for us. It was the terms in the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement (and as a European developer it took nearly 3 months for us to reach a stage where we got to see them).

Because of NDA restrictions we are not allowed to talk about anything in that long agreement. There was one particular clause that, for us, was a total show stopper (and goodness knows why Apple have that requirement) and another that, depending on interpretation, would also be a total showstopper for us. There were plenty more to really think really hard about, too along the lines of risk vs reward vs control vs who benefits etc.

We were (and still are) very excited by the potential of our software running on these Apple devices, and we love Apple products and all our other software products run on Mac OS X (and Windows XP of course).

So, we have decided not to press ahead with development until Apple can:
- relax a number of (as we see it) overly restrictive terms in the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement
- allow apps to share/exchange data/files between themselves and an attached PC/Mac

Will Apple care that a small developer like us chooses to stay away from the party for now? Surely not!

Will Apple change anything and open things up more because we can’t contine? Surely not, cos there will be plenty of other developers that will develop for it!

Will anyone notice our apps are not available on iPhone, and will anyone care? Some people may notice and care, yes, because we know we create products for a niche audience; however, those people may now need to find other devices to use them on (sorry folks!).

Finally, is this sour grapes on our part? Most definitely not, we still hope to come back to it some time in the future.

So, now that the road ahead is clear for the present at least, we will be turning our attention to Mixtikl for S60 after we complete our work on Mixtikl for Windows Mobile.

Pete & Tim