That means that the iPhone/iPad developers can start building applications controllable via MIDI! Just imagine the possibilities!
Additionally the net has a lot of success reports for using the iPad with external USB audio interfaces and other USB hardware (keyboards, etc). All it needs is a powered USB hub and a Jailbroken iOS.
The iPad/new iPod Touch/iPhone 4 all have very powerful CPUs. I believe that we will soon witness the creation of multiple DJ & Music Production apps for the last generation of Apple’s mobile devices.
The SDK enables MIDI host API. It’s not about sending MIDI data, it’s about receiving MIDI data. In other words - plugin the VCI-100 + NI Audio2 or any other USB controller + USB audio to you iPhone or iPad and that’s your setup.
all you’ll need is powered USB hub and the apple Camera Connection Kit for USB host port.
What you say is partially true. There are reports and youtube videos for using Audio, Keyboards and other USB peripherals with the USB part of camera connection kit. USB Thumb Drives and HDDs are also operational on jailbroken devices.
Audio interface connected to the USB is also reported operational:
This is for simple USB audio interfaces which require no special driver. It’s CoreAudio running inside, so potentially all HW manufacturers can port and rebuild their drivers for iOS support if they wish and agree with Apple to do so.
As per the MIDI - it’s getting officially enabled by Apple, which means that you will be able to plug USB MIDI hardware to the USB dongle of the camera kit. There is no other point in enabling the CoreMIDI in the API.
On the hack side - I have experience with Hackintosh (running Mac OSX on PC) and also with Jailbroken iPhone. Both OS X and iOS are UNIX inside, very similar to FreeBSD, and you could do many things with them. There is a file system with drivers, shell scripts, etc inside. An average Unix/FreeBSD/Linux user feels at home once SSH and console are installed. It should not require huge efforts to port, build & plug any open source driver to the iOS, considering that the camera kit provides USB host. Practically, the Jailbrake is the way Apple are limiting the average user from messing with OS internals - once you jailbrake, it becomes a nice UNIX system with lots of possibilities.
Guys, Apple are just about to open the door for the i* devices to become full scale musicians’ tools on their own - not just TouchOSC control interfaces. If you ever watched Steve Jobs doing presentations (the one from Sept 1st 2010 in particular) he tends to say how much Apple’s staff loves music. Well, that’s a logical step forward, don’t you think!
You coudnt be more right but Apple has show us over the time that they are not too much open mind with this kind of things, but this could really mind a real change in the way musicians play, we´ve been seeing intresting things like the amplitube for ipod.
But really one of the things i dont like is using my laptop for djing or production and also for work, but if i get able to use an ipad as a carrier for my software dj and music i could take it anywhere set my music and be allways ready to play…
I really wish this turning point gets to apple they could sell tons of ipads, even so you dont need a revamped interface for software, you will allways need controllers thats it. Touchscreens are great but knobs are knobs it the same for faders and buttons, they have a physical response that we all love…
it’s an official DAW software, available on AppStore with support of multi channel USB audio interfaces over the USB camera Connection Kit (with powered USB hub).
dunno about ipad for performance, but Id love to see a mini version of traktor where you could import, create playlists, drop cue points and do all of your other dull dj preparation work on something portable. Would make train rides a bit more productive.
Oh, and your changes would sync to the cloud, or thumb drive, for proper traktor syncing on your performance machine.
Terribly OT, but I felt like dreaming for a brief moment
I still wonder what’s up with this. The people that use midi like that are just a small drop in Apples bucket when it comes to iOS. Does Apple of something in the pipeline that this might work with maybe?
CoreAudio was always there. The Harmonicdog’s software is already using multi channel Audio. I was digging their forum to see what devices are supported and people report success with quite a lot of USB 1 devices. Most of the users are using single channel USB output devices for Master out and monitor via the built-in headphones out. Pre-cueing is already possible and the more people realize it, the more DJ & production apps will appear on the AppStore. I could easily forsee a djay fork being ported to the iOS 4.2 once released. They already have a database of maps for Vestax Spin and many other controllers which would work out of the box.
MIDI users are not a tiny drop. Consider all the people that produce + the ones who’d like to use the iPhone/iPod/iPad for DJing. Definitely not that few, man.
I’m not questioning whether or not it’s coming, just wondering of maybe Apple is creating a product to go along with it. I guess they have sold keyboards and other musical devices in the apple store for some time, so maybe I’m just being overly pessimistic.
I still think that out of all the people that have an iOS device that midi users are a small drop in Apple’s bucket though.
About a year ago at a conference some random guy told me that Apple has some DJ hardware in the works. It was right after the Vestax Spin came out so I assumed that was what he was talking about but he said no he had seen a prototype that had a touchscreen interface along with faders and some kind of platters. I had decided he was either stoned or full of shit, but who knows, maybe there’s something more to this. It doesn’t seem to fit with Apple’s model – DJ hardware is a niche compared to the products they sell – but who knows? With their support of djay software it definitely seems possible.
Akai appears to have the software synth since June this year, now (on BPM) they’ve announced hardware controller which will get use of the upcomming CoreMIDI in iOS 4.2.
