Steven Kovar - Interactive Designer

iPad is more than just an e-Reader

February 06, 2010

A lot of fuss has been made over Apple’s new iPad, but it seems to me that most articles and discussions about it have centered around it competing in the e-reader and netbook market, particularly against Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle. Other topics have included email, web use, and using the iPad for watching movies. For me main thing that has been overlooked is the new possible uses in the arts. Just a few applications that already exist for the iPhone/iPod and could easily be resized to take advantage of the larger iPad screen, could make this a revolutionary tool for visual artists, DJs, VJs, designers, video editors, illustrators and others. While in some ways, this is just a giant iPod Touch or iPhone, the larger scale will allow apps new functionality and precision.

I can see the greatest possibilities for visual and audio artists in the realm of OSC and MIDI applications, due to the flexibility, modularity inherent in the communication specs and the increasing number of applications that have OSC or MIDI capability. Almost every live audio application is MIDI capable, and some of the most popular live video applications are also. Apple’s Motion, a motion graphics application has midi capability, so one could use the iPad as an external controller. Modul8 one of the most popular live visual applications, has very powerful midi control.

The iPad will definitely be able to replace some OSC/MIDI hardware: Jazz Mutant’s Lemur has been a popular and revolutionary touch-screen OSC/MIDI controller for live performance for years. At around $2000, it’s definitely not within the reach of everyone. There are already a lot of apps in the app store that when used on a larger screen could give the Lemur competition at a fraction of the price. In fact these apps would become much more usable in a larger format. I’m sure the Lemur is great, flexible and robust, but I predict that some of the following apps will grow to fit the new screen size and give visual and audio artists a multitude of new controller options.

Hexler TouchOSC

This app is close in concept to the Lemur. It has a range of controllers including faders, knobs, buttons and step sequencers, and now has an accompanying desktop app for configuring custom layouts.
http://hexler.net/software/touchosc

Trapcode ProLoop

Not just a creator of ground-breaking After Effects plugins, Trapcode has created a revolutionary sound looping app. It allows you to load your own loops in and is priced at an attractive $5.00. I predict that you’ll see this one on a lot of iPads in the next few months.
http://trapcode.squarespace.com/journal/2010/2/1/trapcode-proloop-new-iphone-app.html

iOSC

This app is similar in many ways to TouchOSC. One powerful feature is the ability to control multiple OSC apps on different hosts. Great for combining control of audio and video.
http://recotana.com/iphone/iosc/en/index.html

iTouchMidi

Too many apps to write about, iTouchMidi has a large suite of midi apps.
http://www.itouchmidi.com/?q=node/283

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