A while back I considered the iPad to be nice timekilling tool, but not really a device to create content. Well maybe if you’re a writer and have a keyboard dock you can use it for work. But most other kinds of creative activities were out of the question since the apps were baby-apps, not too powerful and not too serious. That changed a while ago when apple released iMovie for iphone. Sure it’s not Final Cut, but it’s a start – you can be on a bus and edit a video you shot before. This opened up a lot of new possibilities, but it looked like that was about it. Photoshop for iOS is a big disappointment, because of it’s lack of serious tools and layers, and those painting apps, well , they’re for painters not designers.
Sure there’s iFontMaker which is pretty useful and can be considered productive. But yesterday garageband came into the spotlight, because frankly, this is an app in which you can actually do something. Just like iMovie. It’s not a time killer, because if you’re into music making it’s the first big app that doesn’t just let you play with some sounds but also records them and let’s you arrange them. This is big. Sure I can’t imagine a real photoshop or illustrator for mobile devices just yet, but who knows. It’d have to be stylus operated though and that doesn’t sit well with capacitive touch displays. And making a company logo with just your fingers is only good if it’s a logo for fingerpaint selling firm.
But finally we can do some music and that’s great. I can’t wait to see ableton and other bigger players make an approach at this. The new iPad is as capable as the computers from a while back if not better. So the only thing stopping the expansion is the user interface. It has to be redesigned and it has to be done good enough to allow some serious work. Exciting times!