I am not yet sure why I did this, but the second I heard that Chrome was available on the iTunes App Store, I went for it. I am almost exclusively a Safari user, but for some reason I felt the need to add Google's browser to my machines. I'll let you know when I figure out why that was so important, but in the meantime I did feel that the little ad Google prepared for this intro was worth watching. Enjoy.
There had been so many rumors about the new retina display on the 3rd generation of iPads that I was convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that rather than present a line-up of iPads with 16, 32 and 64 GB, the new line-up would consist of 32, 64 and 128 GB units. Imagine my disappointment when I realized we would probably have to wait one more year for that change to take place. Let's face it: in order to take advantage of the retina display, owners of the new machines will want to watch 1080p video, they'll want apps that have higher resolutions than the current ones etc. All of that takes up a lot of space. I don't have enough room on my 1st generation iPad with 64 GB so how would things work out with the new one ?
Time will tell. Already we see that only a handful of apps were properly rewritten to take advantage of the new screen resolution. Even Instapaper, the app everyone expected would be ready on the day the new iPad came out, has not yet been released because of a last minute surprise from Apple. The Apple apps that were updated last week already show the bloat that accompanies the higher resolution, and in actuality some of the universal iPhone/iPad apps will carry the bloat over to the iPhone as well.
No doubt the reason for this decision by Apple has to do with the cost of flash memory. Chances are no 128 GB units could be produced to match the price of current 64 GB iPads. So the question is do I wait one more year before upgrading ?
Ever since the introduction of the iPad a great number of people have been saying that it will change the face of education. The first time I saw that potential in person was with the introduction of Theodore Gray's The Elements ebook for iPad. Suddenly there was a way to literally manipulate the elements of the periodic table and learn all about them in a fun and exciting way.
A few months down the line and we finally start to see something even more exciting. One of the major school textbook companies, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has launched a pilot project to teach Algebra to California high-school students on the iPad. Apparently 400 students will participate in the project, with one group using the app and a control group using a regular textbook.
They even produced a cool little video that both illustrates how this app would work, but personally I find it exciting because it fires up the imagination and you start realising that in a few years time schools will look very different to what we know today. Maybe our kids won't have to "shlep" such heavy bags full of textbooks to and from school anymore. Instead of "Take out your Ancient-Greek history book and turn to chapter 4", they will hear "Take out you pad and turn to location marker 1467". It will make perfect sense to them. Probably will sound like ancient Greek to us.
I had left her behind. I had turned my back on her. It was January of 1986, we had been close for a couple of years, and the day I left Belgium I simply walked away without giving her another thought. It took almost 25 years for me to start remembering those long ago years, to once again think about the times we had spent together. To remember how she felt to the touch, to imagine her luscious curves and the unique sound she made when my fingers would touch her just so. Yes, you guessed it: I finally dug out my old bass guitar left behind in a locked case in Antwerp a quarter century ago.
It's been two weeks now since I got her back, twenty five years since I last attempted to play bass. It's safe to say that this time around my approach is a little more methodical. I probably learned more about playing the bass in the last two weeks than I had those couple of years way back when. I still sound like crap, but I have hope that one day I might even sound halfway decent.
But this time around I was able to marry my love of music with my love of tech like never before. One of the reasons the bass guitar came back into my mind was the introduction of one of the coolest apps I have yet discovered on the iPad. Actually it is a combination of hardware and software. The hardware part is the iRig and the software is AmpliTube, both made by a company called IK Multimedia. iRig is an adapter that allows you to hook up a musical instrument to your iPad (or iPhone/iPod Touch) and get sound output. AmpliTube for iPad is a collection of software based amps, effects and other musical tools that previously would have meant carrying tons of gear around with you.
Rather than write some sort of review I shot and uploaded a short video that shows this gear in action. I have seen a lot of videos online showing mostly guitar players putting the iRig/Amplitube combi through its paces, but so far no bass players doing their "thing". I have however heard of at least one electric violin player using it as well, so I am sure we are only in the very first stages of a modest revolution in the way musicians perform.
Forgive all the screeching though. Remember, for all intents and purposes I am really still a newbie.