One of the titles that keeps being re-installed and played from the top is the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The open world system, the possibility to evolve a character in whatever way you seem fit keeps pulling me back. And of course there is the excellent soundtrack by mr Jeremy Soule.

While in-game the music of Morrowind seems pretty sparse, because there are only 4-6 tracks cycling while adventuring. But as one of my colleagues pointed out the other day: These tracks are so sweet, so well orchestrated and blend so perfectly with the game experience, that it doesn’t matter if there are few of them.

The entire soundtrack totatls 21 tracks and is avaliable from this site:

By the way, it seems kind of awkward that the soundtrack isn’t available from iTunes or from any site, other than the above. I originally purchased the soundtrack when it was made available, but it had some nasty DRM protection that was specific for the computer it was downloaded to, and you only had 5 shots at  re-liscensening. I would think mr Soule would benefit if his music was made widely avaliable.

iPad: Gaming center, productivity tool, news feed and writer's tool

I admit it: Apple was right, and I was wrong.

My initial feelings towards the iPad was: What can this do that an iPhone can’t? And: Why do I want an over sized iPhone anyways?
I found some answers and am ready to share them with you.

I gotta say this however: There was no marketing from Apple that really got me hooked with the iPad. None of their videos / articles could explain the concept to me in a way that made me wanna go buy one. The main reason I got one was a) that the iPad 2 was launched and the previous version was cheap b) I thought I’d just try it to see what all the fuzz was about. 3 days after I got mine I was completely sold.

So what can you use an iPad for?

Gaming
There are ALOT of cool games out there for the iPad. In the app store, if you see a + next to an app, this means that it’s ready for both the iPhone and the iPad. This is important because you don’t want iPhone apps that run in a small frame in the middle of the screen. (it sucks).

Personal recommendations:

• Prison Mayhem HD
• Hotel Dash
• The secret of  Monkey Island
• Monkey island 2: LeChuck’s revenge

Productivity

I have some apps on my iPad that I just can’t do without at this point. Some of them are paired / synced with my mac, and generally makes my life easier.

Personal recommendations:

• Things for iPhone / iPad / Mac. Awesome to do list that can sync between your hardware. I tried several of these programs before deciding on Things. If they could just add as web interface to it all, it would be perfect. the iPad version is also HD and really beautiful to work with.
• Analytics Pro. Essential if you want to keep track of visitors to webpages and analyze the content of your website.
• Dropbox. A standard app for any Maccer, also for the iPad in a nice HD version. For me, the real power of the DropBox is in conjunction with:
• Plaintext. This nifty little app lets you edit text files on your iPad and sync them to your DropBox. It also has the ability to sync with my No 1 writers tool: Scrivener. This little marriage of apps makes my iPad the perfect writers tool on the go.

Movies

if you’re anything like me the iPad is the perfect bedtime companion when you want to watch movies or tv-series before you go to sleep. The built-in YouTube application is also great, with the possibility that you will be clicking through more or less interesting fall and fail videos all night. You can of course add movies directly to your device, but what I did was set up a shared homegroup from my Mac Mini Media Server.  This way I  have access to all my movies, music and podcasts.  Which reminds me about the next thing:

Podcasts

Podcasts is a really cool (but underestimated?) thing. If anyone is unfamiliar to the concept, get the low-down over here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

There are alot of great podcasts out there, among other some from Stanford university (you need to already have iTunes to open this link, or it will be installed when opening)
My favorite from Stanford (to nurture the nerd side of me) is the iPhone application developed program.

Music

Of course the iPad is like a huge iPod too and you can enjoy music on the go. Being an audio professional I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with the speakers on this little thing.

Personal recommendations:

• Spotify
• iTalk SWEET audio recorder with DropBox sync capability. The audio quality is very nice and crisp + you can give all your recordings a decent name. (The default Apple naming for voice memo’s doesn’t quite cut it)
• MusicStudio is essentially a pocket sequencer. This is a GREAT tool for composers and producers to quickly jot your ideas when you are out and about.
• Tempo is my life saver when it comes to conducting. It  has a playlist feature that you can save sets and just recall them whenever you need.
• Wolfram Music Theory is a pretty handy tool when either studying or tutoring music skills.
• Simple Songwriter is pretty handy for writing your tunes. Just press the chord you need and CREATE!
• Pocket Piano is just that: A piano in your pocket, to find melody lines, tune-up or whatever you need.

Syncing

If you own an iPhone + an iPad you will have no problems syncing the devices. All downloaded apps are automatically sent to all your iOS devices when you sync them, but they can be individually removed as well. For instance I see no need to have my Camera++ app on the iPad, as it has no camera.

Setup was kind of easy although with some bumps in the road, and the app absolutely does what it says.

However, the entire concept of control surfaces is imo a little overrated, having tried several of the ones available in the market. Plus, having to setup your iPad, launch and possibly do a re-pairing of your hardware seems counter productive when trying to get something done. It occurred to me that we initially made MIDI controllers to replace the hardware knobs, sliders and dials we used to have in the “old” world of audio production. With this software you end up with something that used to be hardware, turned software with audio production moving into DAW’s, then replaced with MIDI controllers for you computer and now: turned software again.

That said, i DID have a lot of good times with my old Radikal Technologies SAC-2k, although mostly for scrubbing, play controls and some features in Sonar that I assigned to buttons.

I did a little video of the setup for one of my friends, posted here:

Thing is: I loved the iPhone enough to do the switch from pc to Mac, and I never looked back. (someone from Eplehuset or Humac should really hire me at this point). But I’ve been skeptical of the entire iPad concept. What can it do, that an iPhone can’t.

Stay tuned about this.