iXY Stereo Recording Microphone for iPhone/iPad with 30-Pin Connector

I've been wanting a really good stereo mic for a while now, and I finally decided on the iXY. I bought it for a concert that I wanted to record and I suspected that, as usual, when I use something for the first time on something important I would be disappointed. I was.All I could do was set up the mic, hit record, and leave it alone so no monitoring. Turns out fifteen minutes into a great recording the app switched from the iXY to my iPhone's internal mic which was not oriented for recording. As a result, the recording was abysmal...except for the first fifteen minutes, of course.Come to find out the bug with the new version of iOS didn't just affect whether or not the phone would recognize the iXY in the first place, but it also meant the phone might stop recognizing the mic in the middle of recording. It took a few tries to get the app to recognize the mic, but once it did I thought I was home free. Not so.The mic is solidly constructed, comes with a very good case, and the foam windshield is nice. The app is pretty easy to figure out, although more detailed descriptions of processing options, setting gain, and other basics that experts probably already know would be nice. I'm not an audiophile, not an audio hardware expert, and I'm sure I got in over my head with little time to prepare. However, manuals for all electronics are notoriously bad: poorly laid out, incomplete descriptions, or downright incorrect. This manual (within the Rode Rec app) is incomplete. What information it contains is useful and seems accurate.Rode should have an alert on their product page to update firmware immediately to assure proper functioning. When you register the product, their confirmation email should announce in huge bold letters that there is a glitch caused by going from iOS 6.0 to 6.1.X so update firmware before even trying to use. I can forgive the manual not being as thorough and clear as I'd like, but when a glitch affects the ability of this device to function at all, they should make a bigger deal about it. Also, it would be nice if Apple had a menu option allowing someone to choose their preferred recording device rather than assuming an order. If you plug in your headphones after you attach the iXY the phone will assume the last thing you plugged in is the recording device. How dumb is that. There should be an iOS option to set your preference for either the headphone jack or the dock connector device. Oh well.And one more thing. Rode, where is the iPhone hotshoe mount? All of your materials show pictures of it. Reviewers received it and claim you informed them it would be out around the same time as the support clamp. There are surprisingly few options for mounting an iPhone to your camera, and it looks like yours would be great. Sell it to me already!Update 6/3/13:I had the opportunity to use the iXY to record a friends newly restored '66 Barracuda and everything worked perfectly. The app never had any problem recognizing the mic on the first attempt and the recordings were very high quality. I learned that you can't be shy about using the gain, and had to go in after the fact using the app editor to increase the gain by about 10dB. The gain slider in the app unfortunately has no indication of what the scale is. Is a notch on the slider 1dB? 10? Fortunately the high quality raw recording can be easily gained up without loss of fidelity.

Fantastic product - although, a little bit of an issue with the app itself. Sometimes it does not record in high-fidelity, and you need to fiddle with the product itself (plug / unplug, etc). Otherwise, great sound fidelity!

Incredibly durable, highest quality and sensitive spatial ambience and all it needs is a $10 audio adapter to fit the 30-pin to a lightning equipped phone. It is advised to use the proprietary app for attaining 24-bit input, however using the GarageBand iPhone app it is impressive as is.

Ok.. edited updated review.. I had to delete the app and reload it. That was a big help but then it started crashing at the 1 min 20 mark. Finally after multiple back and forths with Rode home base in Australia we figured I should delete any extraneous crap on my phone and Hey presto! it's working fine. Not as blown away as everyone else with the sound quality. Marginally better than my Zoom H4 but 50 times more durable and convenient so I'ms ticking with it!

The microphone is great and works amazing, however the app that rode built is not user intuitive at all. Too many screens to figure out how to turn up the mic gain or any other options. I thought the app would let you do more editing as their promo video showed, but you basically have to re-edit on a normal computer (we use this for podcasts in various environments).Make sure you have enough space on your ipad/iphone because it made my iphone freak out (thought it died, but crashed the phone) because of limited recording space.

Bought this to augment audio for my video camera. Software is so buggy that it doesn't even recognize the mic 3 out of 5 times. Interface makes no sense. Forgets recording parameters between recordings. Total pain in the a-s. Not only a waste of time, but I was left without adequate audio from video shot while in Europe. Garbage. Waste of money. Do not buy. Rode should be ashamed. zero stars.

I had some issues getting this to work right with the Rode App, but eventually it started working. The biggest downside to this is that you have to use an adapter with an iPhone5S. Unless you absolutely need it, I'd wait for them to update a version that works natively with iphones built in the last 14 months.