Went to set up my mixer last night before I headed out to my gig and MF3.0 would launch and immediately crash. Now I am not sure if this is linked to the removal of TestFlight, as I had a preview version, but it caused a bit of panic. I restarted the iPad, still didn't work, then installed the latest iOS patch, didn't work, so removed MF and installed the new version... hey presto we were in business again. Unfortunately, I lost all of my shows and presets from the last 2.5 years, a bit annoying, but I'll get over it.
Anyway, so back up and running, I set what I could up for my gig and then headed out. Docking the iPad instigated the firmware update and then everything was operating as normal. Now, I'm running an iPad 2 (one of the late models, as the 3 came out) and generally, on small movements with the faders I am getting very little lag, the amount I would expect on a touchscreen I guess. Bigger movements have some, but I am talking about almost a full fader swipe at speed, which I don't have to do often when engineering thankfully. It was stable bar one loss of connection (which I am still convinced is a iOS issue, not MF) and I could move between screens at a reasonable pace to tweak EQ, compression, monitor levels, effects settings, etc. The mute buttons responded immediately, which is good, as I use a long delay for some songs which needs to be cut in and out at the right time.
Overall, I am pretty happy with the performance of the desk and application, for me it is up to the job and I would still recommend it without hesitation, though I am conscious that other peoples' experience has been less than ideal.
On a general note, I was one of those people that was a bit annoyed I had to buy a Fruit product to work this mixer, but now I am sort of glad. The reason for this being that even with a relatively controlled software and hardware set, there are still enough variances to cause different users to experience different issues. If this had been opened up and there were Android and Windows platforms to support as well, then I think it would have caused both Mackie and us a whole load more headaches. If they continue to produce products using a unified application, then I think that in the longer term they will probably need to port out to other platforms... ideally when they have the resources and skills to do so.
