A High-Level Review of Mappings in Musical iOS Applications

We present a high-level review of mappings in musical iOS applications. All of the 38,750 music applications on the iOS store were reviewed and classified, using their title and descriptive text. Fifty music-making categories were found, along with sixteen non-music-making categories. Summarized mappings for each music-making category were defined and enumerated, by downloading and examining the screenshots for each app in each category. We present the total mappings, across all fifty categories, in terms of pitch, trigger, time, volume, and timbre. The sixteen non-music making categories were overviewed, but not discussed in detail. We also discuss broad trends and underutilized mappings, as well as suggesting areas for innovation. Finally, we provide public access to the created dataset, in order to further research around both iOS applications and text classification. This dataset includes the title, URL, and descriptive text for all applications, and is available both classified and unclassifed.