Once you wade through the options and the connection possibilities, you can build a Live/iOS rig that includes MIDI and audio coming from both boxes, in a stable and repeatable setup.
If you’re using MIDI or Link to sync everything as well, there’s every chance of getting a very neatly cut, ready-to-use clip straight away. There’s also no reason why you can’t continue to record audio straight out of your device into Live, courtesy of your audio interface. Apps like Apple’s Voice Memos let you AirDrop recordings, which is fast and convenient. It’s true that it’s a little inelegant at times to get audio in and out of iOS apps it sometimes requires a few extra steps, but the workflow is getting smoother all the time, and there are apps which make iOS audio management much easier, like AudioCopy, Audiobus, and AudioShare. Although Ableton itself has never fully embraced the mobile platform and graced it with an iOS version of Live, its influence is felt in apps that attempt to provide a Live-like experience, apps that support the Ableton Link sync protocol and apps that export their files as Ableton Live projects, ready to open on our computers. Since 2007, iOS has matured into a sophisticated mobile-computing platform with the hardware to back it up, and some highly evolved apps for music recording, programming, and control.
