what? – Wotja - Generative Music & Cut-Up Text Generator Review

A day ago I thinking about how much I loved using Koan Pro to compose music. That was over ten years ago and it was the best music app I owned back then. I was interested in what had happened to Koan Pro and some web searching revealed that SSEYO had morphed into Intermorphic and that they now made generative music apps for iOS! Perfect. I was then delighted to see that I could download the brand new Wotja 4 app right away and try it for free. However, after downloading and running it I was immediately at a loss. I could see nothing like the screen shots on the app page, there was zero on-boarding, and tapping on the "Create New" block brought me to some tables of switches titled Templates. Randomly tapping around made some sounds, but there was nowhere else to go. Eventually I looked more closely at the title bar and found that there are buttons with white text on pale gray backgrounds that say "Wotja" and "Random" and I have no idea what any of those things mean or what they do. I went back to the prior screen and picked a thing named "Relax" which seems to be a collection of compositions. Uh, a screen with dice on a beach? I don't get what conceptual model of musical things that might be in use, what any of the UI elements are doing, or how to use any of them. It is an utter mystery. There's nothing in the UI that isn't vague. Given that touch interfaces have come to dominate mobile, and there is so much that the UI can now do to expose complexity in an easily manipulable way, I was a bit shocked to see how little effort was made to turn this into a great tool. Audio apps on iOS are of such variety and work so hard to give users power to create and overcome hurdles to creativity. So the bar is not low, but this app doesn't even try. Well, maybe it does, how would one tell? Koan Pro was such an amazing tool for making music that I want to give this app plenty of chances to impress me, so I will not rate it low. I wish I could give it a "not rated yet" option, but I can't. I'll give it a 3-4 but what I really mean is: these guys have done amazing work in the past make great stuff, I hope this is or becomes one of those great apps. However, this app needs at least an on-boarding video linked from the app, or a detailed help section that explains how to think about the currency of the app, or something. Anything. The UI/UX are the most dead and flat I've seen in any iOS music creation apps and I have at least a hundred. Given the complexity of the parameters in electronic music, a good UX treatment would go a long way to making this into a very powerful UI. Maybe it already is such a thing but I can't tell cause it isn't clear how to use it? Navigation tables of sliders and switches are not really doing it for me, however. And the white text on the navigation buttons has to go. UPDATE: Thanks to the developer for responding, but even though there have a been a few updates, there have been no UI improvements. Maybe a demo video that explains how to use the app would help? Also, the IAP shows PRO, but this is actually a 6 month auto-renewing subscription for those who thought buying a pro version for $10 would let them build something interesting. As it is, the screen shots look cool, but I cannot get to anything like that. Maybe a $2/month PRO IAP would let people like me test the app so I can be sure it actually works? I don't mind spending money, but this is just too expensive for a shot-in-the-dark. The UI is just obscure and dense and assumes you already know the tool. I don't mind spending money on music apps, I've paid for 60-70 of them already, but I don't buy stuff that I can't get a sound out of after an hours. And the white text on light gray buttons really is a unacceptable. My vision is not sharp and I cannot find the buttons without eye strain, let alone read the text on them.
Review by fgk on Wotja - Generative Music & Cut-Up Text Generator.