14 DAY TRIAL // GarageBand is becoming a free app starting this month, joining other iLife and iWork apps which are now downloadable for $0 as long as the customer is using iOS 7.
According to a brief update on Apple’s web site (which has now been pulled), “GarageBand is free on the App Store for all iOS 7 compatible devices.”
The move isn’t surprising, considering that apps like iPhoto and iMovie had already been made free. The same goes for Apple’s iWork productivity suite, comprised of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.
GarageBand was a tougher nut to crack likely because of the royalties involved with the sound samples, as well as the amount of work that goes into developing and maintaining a music creation software.
Just ask Image-Line. It took them 10 years to bring FL Studio to the Mac, and it’s still in the early beta stages.
“Additional GarageBand instruments and sounds are available with an in-app purchase. iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are free on the App Store for qualifying iOS 7 compatible devices activated on or after September 1, 2013,” Apple also said on the marketing pages for the iPhone 5s.
Apparently the blurb regarding GarageBand got pulled over the weekend.
It is unclear what content will be pulled out from the free version of GarageBand, but you can expect a limited application when the new build comes out.
For customers who’ve already purchased the full app, nothing should change. If anything, there will probably be some extras to download if Apple makes some changes to the app itself. At least the icon is definitely changing, as evidenced in the screenshot above.
GarageBand is likely to become available for download free of charge following tomorrow’s scheduled iPad event.