So, unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, you know that Steve Jobs and co. are supposed to announce a new product today, believed to be a 'tablet' style portable device. Is there a place in the market for something essentially halfway between an iPhone and a laptop? It has to bring a lot more to the table than just that, and what that extra something is will be what decides if this is a flop or a hit.It certainly opens up possibilities for alternate controllers and musical performance tools. What do you think?
UPDATE: So, the iPad it is. Kind of sounds like a feminine hygiene product. Anyway, it's a 10" touch sensitive screen based around the iPhone OS, which is itself a stripped down version of OSX. I'm definitely a big Apple fan, but I just don't know about this. Typing on a flat screen in particular seems like it would be really unpleasant. I'll reserve judgement until more comes out about it (not even a price announced as I type this), but so far I haven't seen anything about it that makes it a "must have".
UPDATED UPDATE: Apparently the price is around $500.
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10 comments:
gotta admit, running TouchOSC on this is going to be awesome. but i need a new lappy waayyy before i need one of these.
TouchOSC and reaktor through a musebox, on the ipad would be siiick... personally i dont really think id need a laptop if that would work
This kills Jazz Mutant's Lemur I think....or close to it.
I'd love something like this with decent music making capabilities. If you change your environment, you will change your style. Making stuff in this dark submerged room tends to get a bit black and angry, but if I take one of the smaller synths out on the porch and stare over the water, its a different vibe...so I could only imagine what being able to go anywhere and see what comes out would be like..
This will live or die based on the apps that are developed for it. 64gb max storage makes this a companion, not a replacement for a laptop/desktop though.
I could see this working well with the beatmaker app as well as some of the apps from Amidio but over all the lack of even basic multi-tasking
seems like an epic fail...
When you look at other netbook/laptops that can run full softsynths etc... I just can't see paying double for less of a product
No USB, no Media card storage, no removable battery...this is nothing but a rich kid internet browsing toy, that will get tossed out in a couple of years. As far as practical usefulness for the price, I'm not impressed at all.
Not sure what to make of this device ...difficult to say to which market Apple wss aiming. Certainly on face value, it's connectivity and expansion options look a little limited. Still, perhaps some interesting creative possibilities exist. Dreadful name for a product...still, at the very least, we now know what the 'i' prefix signifies...'incontinence'.
Time will tell. The first iPods were sort of slammed by the tech press and the idea grew. One thing is certain, in about a year there will be an iPad 2 with more features and less cost. the early adopters will pay the R&D on the next generation of product.
I think it has great promise as an idea sketchpad and/or alternate controller. Bashing it for not being a full blown laptop missies the point. It isn't a laptop. However, from what I am seeing I fully expect the next generation MacBooks will become MacPads and everything will be done with a touch screen and a keyboard dock.
i just wish there was a cutdown version of Logic that could run on this thing.
There is an SD card/USB dongle for the 30 pin port. This may be quite nice as a BT controller and a bigger platform for iSyn. I'll bet they can get more than the two synth and drum machine running with the 1 gHz processor.
I was really hoping for a keyboardless/CD driveless portable to replace my MacBook Pro, but the iPad isn't aimed at that market. What it will do is allow Apple to fine-tune the touch interface and explore possibilities to eventually give a touch interface to the pro machines. Once things are right, they'll move into that market. At this time, it would be a huge gamble in a market they are doing quite well. Give it time. They days of touch interface Logic and Final Cut Pro is coming.
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