iPad controlling Reason and Record

While still convinced that on its own the iPad has too many limitations to ever justify its place in my living room, as a host for useful apps it's already a winner and it certainly creates some interesting competition for a lot of people.

As far as we (music making geeks) are concerned it is now the best alternative to the awesome Lemur – it certainly doesn't match it, but there are practical applications where the extra latency and inferior coolness factor are not an issue.

In these two videos...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWQO0CVsS5I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg4m-hXOPmQ&NR=1

...we see the first application of an iPad as a remote control surface for Reason and Record.

In reality the interface we see is a based on an open source format so it is not exclusive to Propellerheads software, it could have been used for Live, Logic or anything else that supports some midi mapping (you will probably find many more examples on YouTube by the time I have finished typing this). And for the same reason, it's not yet the brainless solution we'd like to have, as in 'get an iPad, connect to computer, done'.

But there is little doubt that having two iPads sitting on your desk instead of a traditional mixer/controller is now a very attractive thought.
Not caring at all about 3G, we can look at the price of a couple of iPads (why two? well why not? I like living large, and have one for faders and one for something else) and see that it's still way more affordable than a traditional dedicated controller.

At the same time I also believe that touch screen have great advantages but also great disadvantages, and I will always prefer some faders and knobs that I can grab and feel.
So I won't be convinced that iPads or Lemurs are the only thing I will ever need, but a hybrid combination of both is the way to go.

In any case, expect to see one or two iPads at London School of Sound very soon. You know, for testing purposes...