Filed under: iPhone, iPad

I'm not the most musically inclined person, but I do tend to try out a bunch of different music generating apps on both my iPhone and iPad. Sometimes the end result is more or less successful, while other times I may as well have been sitting in front of a Baby Grand with just my index fingers and the sheet music for Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor in front of me. The newly released Hexaphone from Impresario Digital, thankfully, fits the former quite well.

Hexaphone uses samples generated from an expensive Nord Lead 3 synthesizer to provide you with five different sound patches and eight different scales to use, as well as 17 percussion beats to accompany your music. You can lay down a drum beat, then record a bass line and play it back while you lay down another track, and then more upon that if you want.

What's most interesting and different about this music app is how the keys are laid out, making it much easier to hit the intended notes on a smaller iPhone screen. The app works quite well on the iPad, though one optimized for the larger iPad screen would be most welcome. See the video on the next page.

My only gripe with the app so far is not being able to easily export recordings, though the developer says that's coming in a future release. The developer's website has lots of instructional videos for musical newbs like me, and they do a good job of showing you the capabilities of the app, before or after you buy. You can grab Hexaphone in the app store now for $2.99 (25% off).

TUAWApp Review: Hexaphone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod

Filed under: Accessories, iPhone

And you thought using an iPhone as a flashlight was crazy...

Apparently the above image is just a concept for a flexible iPhone dock that one can easily bend into the form of a lamp. Obviously, the screen is bright enough to give enough light for a small desk area, but is it at all practical? Of course it's not. It should be using the iPhone 4 and its much brighter back-facing LED!

To me, the stand looks much too narrow to be practical as an iPhone stand, never mind as a lamp. Still, I've seen crazier things being done with the iPhone when one is in a pinch.

[via Obama Pacman]

TUAWInteresting, impractical iPhone concept lamp originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod

As part of the Pure Evoke 1S Marshall radio we got taken round the Marshall amp factory in Milton Keynes, where lots of the main amplifiers are still made. There was lots of work being done by hand, by what seemed to be a ridiculously small staff. We saw the electronics being wired, the metal being punched, the boxes painted, sprayed and covered. For all you audiophiles, we put together a gallery of our trip…

Got questions about the factory? Drop them in the comments…

Related posts:

1. Pure Evoke 1S Marshall Radio: still goes up to 11
2. On tour with Sony Twilight Football: Exclusive photo gallery
3. Taiwanese factory tooling up for June 3G iPhone launch?

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod

Filed under: iPhone

ClearCam has been around for a while, and I first took a look at it more than a year ago. It was a clever app that had two modes. One mode took a series of four pictures in rapid succession, and then it saved the best and sharpest one in your photo library; the other mode took six images together and stacked them in order to increase resolution and reduce noise. In practice, it meant that the old 3G 2MP camera became the rough equivalent of a 4MP camera.

The app had been pulled from the App Store for a while -- the SDK did not allow access to raw iPhone images (only compressed images), which meant it was impossible to run any enhancement algorithms on the data. The SDK now allows for access to those uncompressed images, iPhone cameras are better, and ClearCam has returned as a regular iPhone app. It runs on the 3GS and the iPhone 4, and it requires iOS 4.

The app is similar to the original version, although now it chooses the best shot out of three instead of four. For the stacking or enhanced mode, it still takes six images and then aligns and processes them.

TUAWClearCam goes legit, will increase image resolution at a price originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod

TechRadar spoke to Amazon today about its new Kindle device which is set to hit the UK this August.

The refreshed Kindle range has been made 20 per cent smaller than previous devices and utilises new more readable e-ink, but features like colour and touchscreen technology are nowhere to be seen on the device.

There is a very good reason to this according to Amazon.

Speaking to Steve Kessel, senior vice president for Kindle at Amazon, he told TechRadar that there won't be a touchscreen version of the Kindle as this will impede on the user experience.

We won't compromise

"I don't think there will be a touchscreen version [of the Kindle] and let me tell you why: touch for an LCD display makes a ton of sense. Because touch is a layer which goes over the top. But an LCD is backlit so it doesn't matter," Kessel notes.

"But if you put touch on an e-ink display – a reflective display – then anything you put on the top ruins readability. You can already see this with some devices which are out on the market at the moment that have integrated touch into the displays.

"It increases glare and makes it more fuzzy. We won't do that; we won't compromise the reading experience because of the technology.

"Colour is the same, there isn't a great colour reflective display yet."

When we asked about the simple functionality of the Kindle and its general lack of features and gimmicks, Kessel explained: "We didn't want to design a gadget, we wanted to design a functional dedicated reading device."

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod

Reports have Apple looking into performance issues with iOS 4 running on older iPhone 3G handsets.

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod

A new Halo:Reach campaign trailer has been released. The game is out on September 14.

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod

I don’t like coffee much. I like the way it smells sometimes, but I hate the way it tastes. The only way I can imagine coffee being even grosser is if it was brewed with a concrete filter.

This new Lavazza concept espresso machine has surfaced with a body made out of two pieces of molded concrete. The thing looks very industrial and would probably fit right in at Steve Jobs’ house.

The parts that actually make the espresso appear to be stainless steel. The water goes into a drawer for brewing. The only particularly unpleasant sounding part is that the coffee beans appear to go into a hopper that puts them right next to the concrete. Mmmm. Coffee and concrete.

[via Yanko Design]

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod

Posted under Cameras, Computers, GPS Navi, Gadgets, Monitors, Notebooks, PC Accessories, Printers, Scanners, iPod