A lot of hoopla has been going around the internet this past week regarding the iPad. Love it or hate it, the fact of the matter is that Apple has a track record of producing new hardware that rocks industries in such a way that the entire industry changes. The question comes down to then how will the iPad impact music production?
One of the biggest complaints I have seen from people regarding the iPad is that it is not running OS X and while this might seem like a fault at first I actually think it is a blessing in disguise. OS X and even Windows are what I would call “dead” platforms. Not dead in the sense that people will stop using them, but dead in the sense that they have pretty much reached the pinnacle of their development. They are mature and probably won’t be seeing any revolution design changes.
There has also been several complaints about the restrictive nature of the iPhone/iTunes application ecosystem. Peter Kirn over at CreateDigitalMusic.com. I agree with his sentiment to an extend in so much that the closed fist that Apple has on the App store can be detrimental, but I am not so quick to jump to his side in that open source is the solution. I love open source as much as the next person, but the inherent problem with open source on the whole is that almost all of the products are not consumer friendly. And to be honest the way in which Apple governs its App store has probably not afflicted most consumers in any great impact. In fact it could be argued that Apple’s approval process has been a huge success at keeping the applications on the store and on the iPhone running amazingly well. Regardless though of what you think about that process we will see music production applications come to the iPad. It is safe to say that there will always be a place for those who want more openness to go as well, namely Android.
There is new OS war brewing and in this OS market there is tremendous growth potential for the company that takes it over. Right now the front runners are Apple with the iPhone OS and Google with Android/Chrome OS. What is unique about these OS’s and most of the products that they are running on is that they are middleware of sorts. They are complimentary to your traditional OS. They aren’t going to replace it. You will sync your general media, contacts, documents, etc. on them and chances are sync that back to your “desktop” OS when you are done. The assumption that these platforms are inherently less powerful is entirely the wrong way to look at these platforms in my honest opinion.
So being that they are middleware or complimentary, how do they come into play in music production? Are you going to be running the latest version of Logic Pro or FL Studio on them? Chances are the answer is no, and while that functionality may come with time that is not where its strength is going to lie. Instead think of ways in how these OS’s and devices can link up and also complement your traditional workflow.
If you can break away from the traditional mindset that these devices need to run your existing applications in existing methodologies, their potential grows tremendously, and not just for music production. Think for a second of the iPad not as the hardware running your DAW but instead as running or being a control interface for your DAW, or perhaps operating as you would an external synthesizer. May be it replaces your midi controller?
The power of external DSP systems has proven itself to be useful in music production. The TC Powercore, Muse Reactor, Virus TI, etc. How would your production setup be improved if for example you could run a modular synthesizer just on the iPad, where the DSP processing is handled and it shows up in your DAW as any other VST? Think of how the Virus TI works. The OS on the iPad has such low overhead compared to a traditional OS that you could do DSP offloading applications on it that you perhaps couldn’t do in a traditional OS environment.
Hey Remeber this guy? The Jazzmutant Lemur? It was the “groundbreaking” multi-touch control surface interface that everyone wanted for years, but was just too expensive to own. Well guess, what. Apple just announced a $500 multi-touch control surface.
Wan to know something else? There is already a control interface software that runs on the iPhone/iPod Touch called TouchOSC that utilizes Open Sound Control.
You see where this is going, don’t you? Just look at the plethora of other interesting music creation applications that already exist on the iPhone.
Heck, Even Akai is getting in on the synthesizer creation business and we have also seen how well the Korg DS-10 synthesizer has been received.
The point is I think there is a huge potential here that is going to explode. No, this is not a replacement for your desktop, but were you really looking for that anyways? What is is though is a very interesting piece of hardware (that will only improve in future generations) that developers are going to take advantage of in the near future to produce some crazy good applications for. Just think of what they can do with that screen real estate!!!!
