Yesterday night (May 12), Chromatik's most recent update went live on the App Store. This latest version is version 3.0 and it has a number of new features that are worth examining.

The most important updates in Chromatik v. 3.0–in my opinion–is that Chromatik now allows you to create hotspots in the score, making repeats, D.S., D.C., and Coda markings manageable with the app/service. It would be wonderful if the hotspots that were added to a score would be included if the score was added to a playlist and shared with others (saving them the effort of recreating those hotspots).

Additionally, if you are in the edit mode, you can now use a slider bar to quickly move backwards and forwards through a piece.

Although I know that some schools already use Chromatik in their teaching, these two additions make Chromatik an efficient option in the classroom. Without these two features (hotspots, quick turns), management in a rehearsal would be difficult (you would have to move page-by-page slowly through a score).

Yes, there are a number of features I would still like to see added to Chromatik to make it “fully” useful as a tool in music classes:

• I would like to be able to leave the seek bar on at all times (not just in edit mode).
• I would like to be able to write in colors, particularly red and blue.
• I would like to be able to set Chromatik to turn a page forward or back with a single touch on the right or left sides, instead of using the swipe (a single touch brings up the menu). Swiping is a complicated gesture that isn't great in performance (think about holding a tuba, or playing a piano, and swiping, versus a single touch).
• I would like to be able to attach an audio recording and include it on a playlist so that my students could practice with an audio track. This is crucial because iOS has the music library locked up. If Chromatik could work around this, it would be a HUGE solution to a major iOS issue.
• Chromatik is working on a feature that will allow you to sign up to a playlist with a code, rather than entering the e-mail of each student. This will be a huge improvement, but I do not think it is “live” yet.
• I'd like to see a way to get away from the e-mail subscription, for schools, as students under age 13 can't legally have e-mail addresses (but are in secondary level choirs that could benefit from Chromatik).
• I'd still like to see a tuner, metronome, and pitch pipe in the app.
• I love the fact that Chromatik offer music for purchase, even for groups. This is a huge step in the transition from paper to digital music. The problem I have with the purchase program is that the digital music available from Chromatik is the same price as buying a paper copy–and you cannot export what you buy to another program. In my mind, the digital copy should be less expensive as a paper copy–particularly if you can't take it out of Chromatik. As it stands, I would rather buy the paper copy at full price (and we have a local music store that gives us 10% off all year, and 20% during August). Or, I would pay full price if I could move the digital copy out of Chromatik as a high-quality PDF. In reality, I would like a digital copy that is less expensive that I could take out of Chromatik if I so wished/needed. I know the publishers are terrified of copyright infringement, and that Chromatik deserves to make money off of their services. It is a level of DRM (digital rights management) that I understand, but would rather be without.

And I'm sure that Chromatik has far more in store for the app than I can imagine. The recording feature isn't beneficial to me–in choir–because vocal students usually need a harmonic context for their performances. I would need a student to be able to play their part (on the iPad) and record at the same time. The fact is that SmartMusic does this–for vocal or instrumental music. But I can definitely see how the system could be used as the app improves over time.

At any rate, Chromatik's release of v. 3.0 has been pretty quiet (no major announcements), but it is a significant update that takes the app from the category (specifically, my category) of “app to be watched” to “app that can now efficiently be used in your classroom.” I give Matt Sandler (CEO) and the whole Chromatik team kudos for their work.

In my opinion, Chromatik still renders music on the iPad better than any app I've used (and I've used most of them). I think that files are slightly stretched to fill the screen (if necessary), but the end result looks very good…even on an iPad Mini (I'm waiting to buy an iPad Mini [and a MacBook Air, for that matter] until it is offered with a retina screen).

If you haven't signed up for Chromatik, do so today…it is free, and may become the way you distribute music to your music ensembles (you can actually set up band parts for the same score with different instruments–very cool). I think that I will be using it with my middle school choirs next year as they will be 1:1 iPad. I believe that Chromatik is also Air-Turn bluetooth page turing compatible.

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I recently saw a tweet by Richard Byrne about ReadWriteThink's app, Tradiing Cards. There is a web-based version of this app as well.

Create Trading Cards for Historical and Fictional Characters - The Web Version ow.ly/kWkwZ

—
Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) May 12, 2013

The app is free, and you can download it here.

The app does keep you to specific templates, and could be used for any number of things. Here are two trading cards that I quickly put together:

A) Music History – Composers

B) Music Notation

If you are in an all-iPad school (or have access to the web version), perhaps this app might be a creative way to have students do background information on the songs they are singing, or to reinforce other things you are teaching in class (as a project or the dreaded “h” word [homework]). But does it count as work if it is fun to do?

It would be nice if you, as a teacher, could alter some of the fields (not all of the given prompts make sense for music education)…but again, this is a free resource.

The trading card aspect may be of interest to your male students as well–although they cannot put these in the spokes of their bikes.

These could be used for studying a test; perhaps you could choose the best trading cards over the year and print out a collectible set for your students at the end of the year–lots of opportunities here.

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Occasionally, I’m asked what apps seem to be missing for the iPad.

It seems that apps continue to develop to fill any gap that I perceive.

At one point, music notation was a sore point on the iPad, but Notion is filling that need quite nicely, with rapid updates.

The biggest missing app, for my use as a music educator, is music scanning software on the iPad itself. Symphony Pro, when it existed, had a very rudimentary scanning option that didn’t work very well…but it was amazing that they tried to include it.  I’d like to see an app that would utilize the iPad’s camera to scan music.  I think the Think Music Technology app would have potential in that area.  I can see how the conversion of hand written music to digital notation is an attractive idea, but I’d be interested in the app applying the same principles to notated/printed music.  And then, if the result could be as accurate (or more accurate) as Photoscore or SmartScore, and exported in MusicXML to Notion…think of the possibilities!

The other missing piece is access to the audio music libray on the iPad.  You should be able to write to and from that collection of music (right now, you can only get music out of it).  But iOS has writing access to that library shut down.  I have e-mailed Tim Cook about this.

What about you?  What apps would you like to see?  I do have comments closed on the blog, but feel free to send a tweet (@techinmusiced) or an e-mail techinmusiced@ g m a i l.com with your ideas.  I’ll add them in a future post, along with your name (unless you don’t want me to metion it).

Admittedly, Apple deserved some of it.  Apple apologists can wax poetic about the mid 1990s all they want, but the truth is that Apple was going down the tubes, and it took the rehiring of Steve Jobs to turn it all around.

The problem is that Apple of 2013 is very different from Apple of 1995, yet our educational systems are full of IT staff members that came into the system before or during that time period.  Thus they bring their anti-Apple biases to the table.  They block iPads, purchasing Android or Windows tablets, they block Apple computers, and they close their networks to Apple’s Bonjour services that are needed for many important iPad features such as Airplay (I saw a gadget this evening that allows an iPad to mirror without wireless for $299, specially created for districts who will not open Bonjour on their networks.  This is crazy.).

The main arguments against iPads?

1) The iPad is just for consumption.  You can’t create on it.

2) We can’t do what we need to do on iPads.

3) This alternative device is just as good, and it costs less.

4) We can’t open our network to those Bonjour services.

5) iPads are too expensive.

In this post, I’d like to address the first point.  Does anyone truly believe this anymore?  A related argument against iPads, in the consumption camp, is: “Microsoft Office isn’t available for the iPad.”  We keep hearing that Office is coming…but there are plenty of alternatives for the iPad, such as Apple’s own Pages and Google Docs (to name just two).  A recent article claimed that Microsoft may be losing billions of dollars by failing to offer Office on the iPad.  

There was a point in my recent past where I believed that I would still need a notebook computer.  As the ability of tablets continues to improve, and as the variety and ability of apps continue to improve, I am seeing that I was wrong.

I used to think that I would need a computer to store my media.  In reality, it is more efficient and secure to have other sources store my media for me (e.g. iTunes Match).  I used to think that I would need a notebook for music notation software.  Notion is proving that the iPad is a capable platform for music notation.

Now, can I do everything I need to do on my iPad?  Not yet.  But it is getting there.  MakeMusic just released SmartMusic for the iPad.  SmartMusic for the iPad doesn’t do everything that the computer version can do (at least not yet), but SmartMusic for the iPad does more than SmartMusic of 5 years ago. Pages for iPad can’t do everything that Pages for Mac can do, but it probably will.

And there are certain iPad apps that I already like better than their Windows/Mac versions, such as Keynote.

The fact is that the iPad is the most flexible computing device we’ve ever seen.  Its portability, light weight, and long battery life make it more practical than a traditional netbook computer.  The abundance of apps and excellent developers (some just waiting for the next idea) make the iPad able to do just about anything.

I used to say that there are things my MacBook can do that my iPad cannot; but there are things that my iPad can do that my MacBook cannot.  The truth is that I’m not sure how much longer it will be before my iPad can do everything my MacBook can do, and more.

The CEO of Blackberry recently stated that the tablet would be dead in five years.  Of course, this is coming from a company that has had zero success making tablets.  But what he says may have a ring of truth, because tablets may become what we know as computers.  Steve Jobs likened tablets vs. computers to cars vs. trucks.  Both will still exist, but trucks (computers) will be used for specialized applications, whereas cars (tablets) will be owned by everyone.

It is possible that Apple could lose the lead in education (and tablets as a whole), but as for now, that isn’t the case.  In terms of music education, the software available for Android is limited (and often of exponentially worse quality than an iPad app), and music software written for Windows is mired in the use of a keyboard or tablet, losing any tablet advantage.

You can’t wait for the next trend, as you will wait forever.  But you can make a decision to go with a device that can be used today, with the tools you need today.

You can create content on an iPad.  And apps like Notion for iPad or GarageBand demonstrate that you can do so effectively and even efficiently.  Yes, you can use an iPad for content consumption, like any other digitial device.  But it is foolish in 2013 to say you can’t create on the device.  The next time you hear someone say this, please, call them on it.

It’s fine if you don’t like iPads, or if you don’t like Apple.  If that represents your point of view, be honest about it.  Don’t use a false mantra.  And this is coming from a recovering Windows addict.

I have been editing posts and pages today with Posts, a blogging app for the iPad, which works with WordPress and Blogger.  

If I’m writing on my iPad, I typically use Blogsy, which is another blogging app that has many more features and works with a wide variety of blogging apps.  I like Blogsy, but one of the blogs I follow stated that Posts was free, so I wanted to download it and try it.

Overall, it’s a bit easier to use than Blogsy, has fewer features, and it doesn’t automatically scale photos to your blog size (If you notice, the pictures I added to my last post extend past the visible point on the screen).

But other than that, Posts seems to work well, and it is free.  If you are a blogger, you might as well download it and give it a try!  If you need more features, Blogsy is still out there.

You can check your biggest apps by going to Settings -> General -> Usage

A quick look at my iPad shows how 3 music apps take up 4.2 GB of space on my iPad:

Now, not all of these apps are as large as they seem.  You can click on any one of these apps to see how much memory the app itself takes, and how much memory the additional files you create take up on your iPad.

Here is forScore, which is only a 7.9 MB app.  I have 1.5 GB of sheet music materials in forScore, which I will likely clean out in the near future.

In contrast, Notion for iPad is a huge program, weighing in at 1.6GB.  

Now, just because an app is large doesn’t mean that is is bad.  But what it does mean is that if you (or your school) buys 16GB iPads, it won’t be long before those 16GB are used up.  It makes a lot of sense to me to spend $100 per device and to give yourself some additional breathing room.  Personally, I’ll buy a 128GB iPad the next time around.

I know many Android fans will say, “We have SD card slots on our devices, so we’re not limited by that.”  But the truth is that Android users then have to manage where things are stored as they are installed, and should they remove that SD card, all kinds of potential issues arise.  In the education field, the fewer ports the better, and the fewer things to lose (SD cards, for example), the better.  This is probably true in every market, not just education.

I’m hoping that Apple will drop the 16GB iPad when the 5th Generation iPad is released, and upgrade the iPad line to only offer 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB versions (I would also consider a 256GB iPad).

Two things are abundantly clear: First, high quality apps take up a good amount of space, such as Notion and SmartMusic.  Even Apple’s high quality apps take up a bit of space.  Highly interactive iBooks can also come in at a whopping 2GB.  Second, if you have a 16GB iPad, space management will be an issue.

I’ve been recommending the purchase of 32GB (minimum) iPads since 2010; and all of my iPads–to this point–have been 64GB devices.  If you–or your school–is considering iPads, and you can make it happen–get the 32GB devices.

Notion released an update to their iPad app today (1.2.49) that features transpositions, a new eraser function, and the ability to enter notes with your finger or a stylus versus the on-screen keyboard, fretboard, or drum pad.

A colleague of mine who is currently working in India (Hi, Nyssa!) wrote this morning to inquire if there was a possible replacement for Symphony Pro–what incredible timing on her part! Symphony Pro was a valiant notation effort by a team of three college graduates, and they had a program with a great layout, and it was always buggy–but it worked. As I reported back in February, the program is no longer in development, and is no longer available.

For quite some time, Notion for iPad has been the most comprehensive notation app for the iPad. There are a few other apps, but nothing else comes close in terms of a “real” notation app on the iPad. The inherent issue in my reviews of Notion is that I review apps from my perspective: a techie music educator with limited piano playing abilities…but enough piano ability that I prefer to enter notes in a notation app using a piano keyboard (either onscreen or an external core-MIDI keyboard). I forget that a large number of musicians–particularly children–have little or no skill playing the piano.

This is a natural thing to do (to forget that some people lack the very skills I would consider as “basic.”). One of my favorite quotes comes from the New York Times tech columnist, David Pogue, who says, “We geeks tend to forget that the majority of the world is made of non-geeks.”

That is a brilliants statement to keep in mind…it really is. Musicians (and music educators) need to remember that the majority of musicians may not know how to use a keyboard…particularly in this era when a piano is no longer needed in a house just to have music (which was true of the world before the recording industry began).

Until this morning, Notion for iPad required a basic knowledge of the piano, a fretboard (even less likely), or a drum pad to enter notes. That is no longer true. It might seem reasonable to ask, “Doesn't input by touch make complete sense on the iPad?” Well, yes, it does. But if you are going to write a serious app for music notation, and you had to prioritize development wouldn't you first choose to provide the most efficient way to enter notes, via a keyboard? That is what Notion did.

A representative from Notion discussed this on their Facebook page, where they make most of their announcements. The previous release of Notion allowed for displaying more than two measures per system, as well as the ability to zoom in and out of the music. For touch entry to work, Notion had to have zoom working. Well, zoom is now working and so is touch entry.

So, if you were a Symphony Pro user, Notion can now replace anything you could do in Symphony Pro (and of course, can do more with far better sampled sounds).

Back to my colleague Nyssa–she has been using Symphony Pro with elementary students because it allowed you to enter notes via touch. Now Notion will work for those students, and if you are a non-piano person, it can now work for you, too. This “simple” addition to the app (I'm sure there was nothing simple in the actual coding) allows the app to be accessible to a whole new level of users.

Notion is currently available for $14.99 at the App Store, (and yes, schools can buy it at a significant discount via the Educational Volume Purchase Plan) and comes with a wide selection of sounds–with an additional library of sounds available for in-app purchase at an affordable $29.99. In terms of a program that offers most of the tools needed by musicians in terms of composition, this is a great bargain. In fact, you can purchase an iPad and Notion for less than the cost of Finale or Sibelius (non-educational version, of course). The only caveat with Notion is to be aware that the app does take up a healthy amount of storage on your iPad at 1.6 GB, much of that sounds (and that is BEFORE the purchase of the additional sounds). If you school is running on 16GB iPads, space may be a consideration.

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Several weeks ago, the Music Theory Pro app was updated to Version 2.0, and some features were locked under an in-app purchase. The developer received feedback and changed the app so that all the content is included in the purchase price ($4.99). I love to see developers responding to user feedback.

Music Theory Pro fits into the same category as several other theory apps, such as Tenuto and Theory Lessons (basically musictheory.net). Simply put, if you are a serious music student (high school or college) owning this app (actually, owning all three) would be a great way to reinforce your study of music theory–as well as to add some ear training exercises into your study of music theory.

If you would like to learn more about the Music Theory Pro app, check out their website.

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