Tablet PC musical keyboard neat but not useful |
This could get me ejected from the Tablet PC club, but it’s videos like this one by Rob Bushway at GottaBeMobile which make Tablet PC evangelists look silly and detached from reality. I’ve met Rob, he’s a good guy, and am hoping he’s not seriously pushing this musical keyboard application as something useful? This has to be tongue-in-cheek.
Playing a keyboard — that doesn’t even allow multi-touch — on a Tablet PC is a sad substitute for making music with a real keyboard. $2,000 will buy you pro-quality keys. Heck, you can get Pro Tools Lite, USB interface and a PC notebook computer to record your jams for that much scratch. Rob writes:
"I’d like to see folks with regular laptops do this …"
My answer? What regular laptop user would want to?
I’m not knocking the fun/cool factor for an application like this, it looks neat, but I can’t see a person go out today and buy a Tablet PC because they want this type of application. Is it a gimmick or intended to be a useful music device? Is this a motivator to buy a Tablet PC for you? This doesn’t make me scream “I gotta be mobile.” Heck, it would be a lot less expensive for somebody to make music using the Guitar Hero controller. Don’t laugh, some folks already are. Isn’t there an iPhone musical keyboard application that does have multi-touch?
I don’t see anybody doing any serious music creation or live playing on their non multi-touch Tablet PC keyboard screen. Please somebody, anybody, prove me wrong. Not even in the next Revenge of The Nerds sequel. LOUIS! GILBERT!
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Lighten up, TDavid
I never said folks should go out spend $2k to do this. It is fun, experimental, and just goes to show the flexibility that a touch-based tablet pc brings to the table.
Did you spend $2k+ on your Motion slate tablet pc to read books? no, but I bet you did read books on there, at least once or twice……I guess this means I should show a video of me reading a book on my tablet pc in slate mode because no serious person would spend that much on an ebook reader.
Comment by Rob Bushway — July 31, 2008 @ 11:00 am PST
I am lightened up just fine, Rob. Just think your video and quoted comment above came off as smarmy. If that’s what you were going for, so be it, but I doubt that was the intention. The keyboard app might be “neat, fun,etc” but respectfully I’d submit to save the whole ‘you can’t do this on a notebook, neener, neener’ stuff for some truly productive, useful applications.
Now if you turn into Beethoven with that application, ping me back and I’ll gladly update
Oh, and I don’t have the Motion Tablet any more 
Got swiped in a burglary back in January. I’m tablet-less ATM. It was insured, but haven’t decided what to replace it with yet. Maybe an Applet Tablet if that comes to be.
Comment by TDavid — July 31, 2008 @ 11:06 am PST
TDavid, you’ve really gone off on one here and I’m struggling to see why! ‘you can’t do this on a notebook, neener, neener’? It’s a bit of fun!
Sorry you got burgled btw, not good at all. Hope you get some cool replacement kit.
Comment by Gavin Miller — July 31, 2008 @ 11:37 am PST
I have to agree with TDavid’s position on this one. It’s sort of like buying an iPod for the games: sure they exist and can kill a little time, but is that really what you intend to use your iPod for?
Comment by badSol — July 31, 2008 @ 12:09 pm PST
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion I guess…
There are people who suffer from RSI to the extent that most regular keyboards cause pain even after a few minutes of use. I wonder if this kind of application could be a solution. I am looking forward to trying out a virtual keyboard (qwerty, not music) on a tablet PC with touch enabled… multi-touch would be icing on the cake!
Comment by asif_is_me — August 21, 2008 @ 9:45 pm PST