H4essential Control vs ShowMIDI
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
H4essential Control
Control your ZOOM H4essential Handy Recorder wirelessly from your iPhone or iPad. Manage recording, playback, parameters, and monitor vital information like waveforms and battery life.
- Wireless remote control
- Start/stop recording and playback
- Add marks
- Set parameters
- Monitor waveforms
- Check battery and recording time
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H4essential Control is an app that enables wireless control of the ZOOM H4essential Handy Recorder. An iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch can be used as a remote control for an H4essential. In addition to the fundamental operations of starting/stopping recording/playback and searching forward/backward, this app can be used to add marks and to set various parameters. The app can also be used to check the waveforms of input signals and the remaining battery charge as well as to monitor the remaining recording time. Note: A BTA-1 wireless adapter is necessary to operate an H4essential with H4essential Control.
ShowMIDI
This application provides a real-time, glanceable view of all MIDI activity on your computer. It visualizes various MIDI messages and allows you to pause the flow for a data snapshot. It can be used as a standalone tool or an AUv3 plugin within your DAW.
- Real-time MIDI visualization
- Auto-hides irrelevant messages
- Pause and snapshot data
- Standalone application
- AUv3 plugin support
- Supports MPE configuration
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ShowMIDI is an open-source multi-platform GUI application to effortlessly visualize MIDI activity. Instead of wading through logs of MIDI messages to correlate relevant ones and identify what is happening, ShowMIDI visualizes the current activity and auto-hides what you don't care about anymore. It provides you with a real-time glanceable view of all MIDI activity on your computer. ShowMIDI is designed to be always on, using the spacebar or play/pause button you can pause the flow and focus on a data snapshot with the latest state of any MIDI entity. ShowMIDI can be ran as a standalone application that automatically detects all your MIDI devices, or as an AUv3 plugin in your DAW or host to visualize MIDI data in your sessions. ShowMIDI visualizes: * MIDI ports * channels * program change * note on/off * channel pressure * polyphonic pressure * continuous control change * pitchbend * RPN and NRPN * MPE configuration and channel modes ShowMIDI supports: * themes * standalone operation * AUv3 operation
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: ShowMIDI at 4.8 against H4essential Control's 2.8. ShowMIDI also leads on review sentiment (88% vs 50%) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 14 months). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
ShowMIDI holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 2.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 18 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 50% of H4essential Control's written reviews are positive against 88% of ShowMIDI's.
H4essential Control ships an update every 14 months, ShowMIDI every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | H4essential Control | ShowMIDI |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.8 (4 ratings) | 4.8 (18 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews | 87.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 4 | 18 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 14 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ZOOM Corporation | Uwyn, LLC |
Customer experience
H4essential Control
ShowMIDI
In-app purchases
H4essential Control
No in-app purchases
ShowMIDI
No in-app purchases
