Recently Apple announced their latest product, the iPad. It's basically a giant iPod touch, and there has been a very large range of responses on this device. Most people seem to be unhappy that its not a fully fledged computer and are annoyed at what limitations this will bring. I however beg to differ.
As a musician, I have been intriuged by touchscreen devices as musical instruments for quite some time, and as a result, I have already obtained over 20 musical instruments for my ipod touch including midi interfaces, tenori-on clones, pianos, synthesizers, full sequencers and even a virtual theremin. The ONLY gripe I had about this was the tiny screen, playing a 3inch keyboard isnt exactly easy, and the idea of performing with one, especially if one has had a couple of beers, seems challenging at best. So, it should be pretty obvious where i'm headed with this...
The iPad has a 9.7inch screen and supports all iphone apps and will also be opened up to new software being developed for it. The sheer number of musical instruments you will be able to emulate in this device will blow a lot of other electronic music creation devices out of the water. Also this is pretty good price wise. Look at the tenori-on for example, it costs £789 new. an iPad starts at $499USD, pretty damn competitive when you consider the amount of flexibility that you will have with it.Sure the iPad may be lacking some areas, but it makes up for it in many other ways, and as a musician, i'm pretty keen to see this thing used live.
