I can’t believe it was 10 years ago Frank Tovey aka Fad Gadget passed away. My favourite track of his, “King of the Flies”. Excellent music.
Tag: thoughts
Stuff I’m thinking about.
An article by me at Music 4.5. All about data
I do like Music 4.5. Their events are really good, and their blog is full of interesting guest posts. Here’s one from me about data. Enjoy!
Thoughts about the iPad 3
So I’ve had my iPad 3 for a few days now, and of course it is lovely and all that. So what’s great about it? Well, for me, the best thing about it is that it isn’t broken. My iPad 2 had a smashed screen which meant it was almost completely unusable for the last 2 and a half months. The iPad 3 is lovely from that perspective.
Aside from that it feels very similar. The screen is better, there’s no doubt about that, and whilst that’s great to have it adds little in terms of functionality for any music app, which is one of my main uses of the device. The camera is better so I’m told, but as I never really used the camera it doesn’t make much difference to me either.
So, whilst I’m glad to have a functioning iPad again I can’t say that the 3rd generation unit has overwhelmed me really. I think there was more that Apple could have done to make this an innovative device, but perhaps they’re saving that for another time.
After listening to ‘Aye’ by Martyn Bennett for a while
I wasn’t sure about this album but got it anyway. But having listened to it for the best part of 2 days I do like it. I don’t like all of it, I don’t like all the new material, but I think that some of the stuff that I haven’t heard before is really good. I’m glad I got it and I’m glad it was released.
David Sylvian, A Victim of Stars, and thoughts about curation
I was listening to this compilation on Friday and I really enjoyed it for the most part. Which I found strange. I didn’t find it strange that I liked the individual songs, I knew those and knew that I liked them, but the order that they were in created a different feel to listening to them, and that made me think.
It made me remember the mixtape, that is, when it was an actual tape and not a digital representation of a tape. Curating (if that’s the right word for it) tracks together in a specific order can quite easily change their meaning or at least adapt it for a different purpose.
I found listening to Sylvian’s tracks in the order in this compilation gave them a different meaning in a way for me. Not a totally different meaning you understand, but something subtle. It also made me remember mixtape’s where they were in a different order and what tracks followed which was strange too.
I’m not entirely sure where this leads, but I think it’s interesting in itself, that’s all.
My guest post at Music 4.5
The people over at Music 4.5 are lovely. When I first spoke to Rassami about a mobile music conference last year I was just amazed to think that someone would be interested in that kind of thing, but now, less that twelve months on, it doesn’t seem so strange.
I’m looking forward to the event on the 8th. The panel of speakers looks really good (yep, I’m on it too), and I think there’ll be a broad spectrum of issues raised to cover the mobile music world and where it has got to.
If you’re interested in reading my piece over at Music 4.5’s blog, you can find it here.
3 weeks without an iPad
Since the shattering of the screen on my iPad 2 I haven’t used it, that is, I’ve hardly used it. It does still work, but parts of the screen aren’t too nice to touch as the glass is broken. Hence, I haven’t used it. My plan was (is) to put a screen protector on it to effectively protect my fingers from the sharp edges, but actually getting hold of a screen protector has been amazingly difficult.
Anyway, what’s been interesting has been not using it. I do miss it. That’s for sure. But not nearly as much as I thought I would miss it. In fact, what I miss most are the ideas / experiments that I had planned that involved it that I can’t now carry out. Although hopefully I will be able to very soon.
It has also made me question getting an Android tablet. I’d almost decided on an Android 3.2 tablet, but then didn’t buy it. I couldn’t decide what I would actually do with it, which was a problem really, and it doesn’t make too much sense to spend a few hundred pounds on something you’re not sure you’ll use. So I didn’t buy it, and I’m not sure that I will at all now.
In some ways it’s made me reassess a lot of tech and my wishlist for gadgets too. However, that may change when I get it workable again, or indeed if the iPad 3 comes out any time soon.
TV is where the next tech revolution will be
I’ve been reading a lot of stuff over the last few days about what’s happening in TV. Especially about Samsung and their latest upgradable offering with gesture and facial recognition. All very impressive stuff. But, in many ways just a meshing of existing technologies from other sectors and form factors and nothing (as far as I can see) that is unique to or for the TV experience. Which is a shame really.
I’m not sure if I share the pundit’s view that TV is the next battle ground. It may be. It is certainly an area where there is plenty of room for innovation, which is in one way very good for the consumer, and in another very bad, as there will be winners and losers in a market land grab for TV, and some technologies will fall even if they are good.
So in some ways it’s a good time to buy a new TV and in others it isn’t. Maybe I’ll wait a couple of months or more.
The trouble with Android
I keep thinking about getting a decent Android device, but I never quite get around to it. The main reason being the enormous differences in devices and costs. In some ways I think the whole iOS device scene has it easy. There really isn’t much to choose from and you know what will work on what device.
But in Android land it is very different indeed. Not only are there far more screen sizes, but you have to worry about which kind of device will get an update to which next version of the Android OS. It’s confusing, and that’s not good when you’re spending a few hundred pounds on something.
Sometimes I wonder if I should bother. Maybe I should stick to iOS, but I keep coming back to Android on a regular basis, so maybe I should give it another look. It just feels like it’s going to cost money and by a let down though.
Trains, walking home and Christmas decorations
Yesterday the train services were messed up, and for a very sad reason, but I won’t go into that. But because of that I had to walk home part of the way, which was actually quite nice. It’s funny walking around places that you normally drive through. It changes the way you look at the area and you notice things in a completely different way.
Whilst I was walking back I noticed people’s Christmas decorations, or lack of them. It was interesting to see the two extremes. Some people had really gone for it and done a fine job (or not so fine in some cases). It seemed to me that some houses had been decorated very tastefully and some not so tastefully, but there were lots of houses with no decorations.
I am Ashley Elsdon 