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The iPad As A Musical Instrument?

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 7, 2010 by admin in Music

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Well, maybe not quite yet, but here’s a roundup of some tools that are available that point to a cool future for multitouch musical instrument controllers.

Way back in November of 2008, we took a look at the state of innovative tactile controllers for music. At the time, the coolest cutting edge tools were mostly research projects, certainly not something you’d pick up at the local music store. Well, this is finally beginning to change. For professional work, and for about two grand, there’s the JazzMutant Lemur, which is probably beyond what a lot of musician/songwriters or dabblers need. And if you have the brains and can get your hands on the hardware, there’s the Töken multitouch screen running Emulator (video below). But the iPad – in spite of being an annoyingly closed platform – is coming into its own as a somewhat interesting tool as more sophisticated apps become available. And the overall cost of working with an iPad can’t be beat. After the initial purchase of the iPad itself, many of these apps – like MorphWiz, Pro Keys by BeepStreet, or the latest and probably coolest, Seline HD by Amidio Inc., are often less than ten bucks. For a more comprehensive roundup, both PCWorld and CreateDigitalMusic.com did features earlier this year. Below are a few videos that demonstrate some of the available tools. Read the rest of this entry »

Is The Printed Book Dead?

[ 3 Comments ]Posted on August 27, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Friday, August 27th, 2010

The “is it dead” question gets pretty tedious, until it becomes a reality, as with newspapers. Is the death of the book imminent? If you answer that question with a resounding “no”, I’d bet a nickel you’re over forty.


Not surprisingly, this title is
only available for the Kindle

Is it dead yet? Is the Internet dead? Is Facebook dead? If you spend enough time on the web, this kind of question becomes incredibly tedious. See The Tragic Death of Practically Everything if you don’t know what I mean; it’s a tidy roundup of press about the death of everything from iPods to e-mail, including the death of both print and eBooks. Now that would be a tragedy. If that happened, what would we read, especially now that the iPad is killing the magazine (and 18 other things) as well? As a result of all this kind of linkbait content flooding the web, I actually find it refreshing when one of these deaths is more or less confirmed. Especially when it impacts me directly. It wasn’t too long ago that you could debate whether newspapers are dead, but I think the eulogy is being delivered as you read this. And now, at last, I think the real death of the printed book is imminent. Although as recently as September 2009 I was pondering the pros and cons of eBooks vs their dead tree counterparts, a few pieces of information finally tipped the scales for me recently, which was a relief, because I’m nearly finished with a book myself, and was struggling a bit with how to market it. The fact that there’s an iPad vs Kindle debate going on at all is a powerful statement that those who understand books and making money are committed to the future of the eBook. But what is probably informing my decision even more is the wealth of information about how much money you DON’T make in traditional publishing. My first glimpse into this was this article from last year in which the author of a top 20 NYT bestseller shares that she netted about 27 grand for her troubles. And most recently, influencer and media guru Seth Godin said that in spite of his significant success with traditional publishing, he’s giving it up for his future releases. Which has helped me solidify my plan to forgo the traditional publishing route (unless you can introduce me to Ellen or Oprah) and utilize a mix of guerrilla marketing and the web, with print on demand solutions to satisfy the paper-addicted. I often joke that with certain technologies like landline phones you need only wait for the over-fifty crowd to die and the technology will die with them, but books are much more emotional. What do you think? Will the book be joining its distant cousin the newspaper within say, a decade? And if your answer is a resolute “no”, are you over forty? Read the rest of this entry »

Did The iPad Kill The Kindle?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 30, 2010 by admin in Popular Media

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Not yet. But they sure forced a price drop. And changed a paradigm. Will YOU buy a Kindle now that they’re only 139 bucks?


My dream is that one day you’ll click
on my Amazon Kindle ads while
you read my writing on an iPad.

Amazon wants to rekindle their relationship with you. They’re really, really sorry they were charging you so much for just reading a book with them, so they want to offer you another chance at making things work. And this time they’re only charging you $139. That’s right, Amazon’s Kindle, which just last year was priced at $299, is now only $139. In spite of the press about how the Kindle’s sales accelerated last quarter, the fact is that the iPad made quick business of mopping the floor with the Kindle, and the only hope Amazon has is to do exactly what they’re doing, which is price-slashing. If you read that Business Week article, you might take note of the fact that while Amazon expects to sell over 3 million Kindles this year, Apple sold over 3 million iPads in just EIGHTY DAYS. We poked a lot of fun at the iPad this year, and even rounded up aspiring “iPad Killers”, but the fact is, if any of those devices really intend to do any killing, they’ll mostly be killing themselves by marketing themselves that way. In his seemingly unending genius, Steve Jobs made us think Apple was launching a new device, when what they really were doing was launching a platform and shifting a paradigm. Although I’m still anxiously awaiting a more full-featured iPad-like device from whoever builds a good one first, I’d buy an iPad hands-down over a Kindle for media consumption. But I don’t want to use an iPad or a Kindle, I want to be on them. As a media creator, this is possibly the most exciting new publishing channel since the web itself gained a wide reach, and I’m more excited than you could imagine about the possibilities; it’s the first time in a while that a platform with such broad potential reach is accessible to “the little guy”. As this Ad Age article about Virgin’s new iPad-only magazine “Maverick” points out, major publishers have their hands tied because they can’t charge less for an app than they do for the print version of their established magazines, so they have less incentive to get involved, because they’d potentially be damaging their own struggling profit model. Expect to see an explosion of new development much like iPhone apps, but with much richer content and easier distribution of content if you’re a media creator. And look for us there soon.

Up Shit Creek Without An iPaddle

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on April 5, 2010 by admin in Technology

Monday, April 5th, 2010

The tech blogs are being pretty hard on the iPad, but it’s an amazing device and probably has dozens of alternative uses that no one has even DREAMED of.

Poor, poor iPad. I was just joking the other day that ephemeral internet micro-celebrity Chris Crocker (of LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! fame) should do a new version on behalf of the iPad. Well, that didn’t take long. Anyway, I explained early on why I won’t be buying one, and assembled an extensive list of iPad alternatives for you, but I don’t HATE the thing; in fact, if I had more money and less work to do, I would totally buy one. It’s a fun and amazing device, and I’d love to have one for travel. Or bedtime. Or the bathroom. But try telling that to the tech/business press. They’ve only found one use for the thing – mopping the floor with it in their articles. Yesterday, Business Insider’s Jeff Jarvis shared that he really hates what apple is trying to do with the ipad (the headline’s different today, but look at the URL). He talks a lot about how it’s a retrograde, choice-limiting device (a common sentiment amongst techblog influencers), but he also has a great insight about how publishers like the New York Times are only on board because they “are deluding themselves into thinking that the future lies in their past”. Which probably IS one of the bigger problems it faces, because it’s almost certain that no one wants the expensive newspaper apps it offers. Besides, the irony of paying to read this NYT piece about how books are greener than the iPad might make your head explode in a sort of Hasselhoffian Recursion. So regardless of the negative spin the poor little iPad is getting in the tech press, it probably has a lot more potential than we realize. Although it can’t be used for feminine hygiene, it will change the world of fashion. And since it’s blendable (and cheap), you could buy two and make daiquiris with one, while using the *other as a serving tray , ala Pee Wee Herman. More images and clips below. Read the rest of this entry »

The iPad Killers Are Coming

[ 5 Comments ]Posted on March 23, 2010 by admin in Technology

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Longing for a lightweight tablet PC but not too thrilled with the iPad? Don’t worry, there’s an avalanche of contenders.

The tech industry is a brutal world. Every time a product or service establishes some kind of dominance, every few months you’ll hear about its impending murder. Google Killers, Facebook Killers, Twitter Killers …well, now it’s the iPad’s turn. I already explained why I probably won’t be buying one even though I drooled for months awaiting its release. If you feel the same way I do, but long for a tablet PC to replace your laptop, we may be in luck. With the iPad hitting the market soon, the existing tablet industry is tooling up to cash in on its notoriety. We’ve rounded up most of the major players below. Read the rest of this entry »

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