Mark Terry has written a pretty nice looking application for iPod Touch and the new 3G iPhone called Band. It takes advantage of the wonderful touch screen, and allows you to tap in drum beats, bass lines and piano melodies. I have tried some previous piano application in iPhone, and it was fairly hard to insert notes “accurately” in tempo. For our students, I would see real use for example in creating backing tracks and practicing with them and also recording own playing simultaneously. More than a year ago, I was in contact with developers in one mobile phone company, and asked whether they would develop something like this.. Seems like the people developing software for S60 are not really interested in music software.

I find the 3G iPhone cool, of course, but still a bit expensive with contracts.. And it still does not have a proper camera, no video camera nor possibilities for video chats. But it really is proof of world class marketing and has the best user interface around. I wonder, if a car manufacturer who built a car that would run on pure water could create such a hype? I doubt it. But the main thing is that the hype was not really created by Apple, instead by the users. (Me being a mac user since 1992).

I have been testing the fairly new Nokia N810 Internet tablet. The reason I am testing these mobile devices is that I believe that educational designers should be aware of the possibilities novel devices offer and prepared to develop the learning environment to suit these possibilities when the devices or at least their properties become more mainstream and for everyday use for may students and faculty. Touch screen devices with Internet connectivity and media player properties are certainly becoming more and more popular. The N810 is a pleasant surprise in many ways.

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Every now and then when “new” technologies, like the iPhone (quite old (2001-2004) tech with super usability in my opinion) come to popular use they tend to generate hype. Mobile technologies, especially when online access with truly mobile broadband (3g or similar) is allowed do offer great potential. But the danger is, they are being used again with models from industrial age of learning, or teaching to put it correctly. Now, according to Apple Insider, some universities in the USA are providing students with iPhones, where they feed the lecture notes and some videoed lectures, I assume. Read the rest of this entry »

This from Wired magazine’s blog. A trio plays Iphones and a Nintendo DS. iAno Piano seems to work also on iPod Touch! Interesting way of making use of touch screen devices. I assume we will see a lot of those applications in the coming months & years. Update: unfortunately, you need to “hack” the iPod touch (or iPhone, with Jailbreak or similar) in order to install this software. I wonder, whether similar software are coming to more open platforms, such as Series 60 used by some touch screen devices, like Nokia N810.

I purchased an iPod Touch (8gb) to experiment with in various settings. One of the main uses will be for piano students (and perhaps other instrument students) to evaluate and especially reflect upon their lessons or single songs played in both practice and teaching situations. We are already recording lessons on video and evaluating them in a web-based evaluation system. The mobile device will allow students to see and hear their lessons after the lesson or practice situation in a bus going home or where ever they desire. I will also evaluate a Nokia N810 for comparison. But more on that later. Read the rest of this entry »

Nokia reports on a survey on consumer’s role in media creation, which they had conducted with The Future laboratory. They predict that by 2012, 25% of content consumed will be created and consumed within consumer communities. Well, really not a surprise, when you look at how rapidly the peer-related culture consuming has exploded with online music communities, Youtube etc. Entertainment will be circular. In my view, it has been that for many for a while. Read the rest of this entry »