Yeah right out of the gate iOS was the clear leader, but I think that&#x27;s the legacy of Core Audio from their main OS?<p>To me it&#x27;s not surprising that iOS was the go-to for audio, based on historical prescedent that both MS and, from what I understand, Linux platforms didn&#x27;t really have strong native audio processing for low latency. I mean, yes, it was totally do-able (MS via ASIO4ALL, I know there were a few Linux based music systems even that ran on Atom netbooks), but plug-and-play wasn&#x27;t quite the same. Even audio cards had some driver issues in the MS realm, speaking from personal experience.<p>It&#x27;s rather sad because the MS environment allowed for a lot of homebrew plugins - the VSTs. Those won&#x27;t run in Apple&#x27;s ecosystem. Other plugins do (ex. UAD) but for the longest time those required (still do?) their own hardware processing cards. $$$$$$$.<p>iOS bridged the gap in a lot of ways between the &#x27;average&#x27; and &#x27;pro&#x27; musician being able to access nice digital sounds on reasonably priced hardware. I&#x27;m a genuine PC guy (Ableton Live, Reaper) but get a lot of mileage out of a second gen iPad 2 - specifically Propellerhead&#x27;s Figure software, which is flat out fantastic. I&#x27;ve made an entire EP in GarageBand while traveling.<p>Sure, some devices won&#x27;t work with iOS devices (my LPK25 will run on the iPad 2&#x27;s port via camera connector USB dongle, but the MPD8 won&#x27;t), and yet some are outstanding (looking at the Line6 &#x2F; iK media products for guitarists and amp simulation). There&#x27;s so much of a head start with iOS that honestly I kind of think there&#x27;s little to no point in Android or MS trying to play catch up in the mobile sphere. MS has a winner with the Surface line because they run real software, but in the &#x27;pure&#x27; mobile space, iOS has all the goods in my opinion.