Monday, May 3, 2010

Applying iPad Technology AS A CONTROL SURFACE

The iPad is the control surface I dreamed of for years.
In my 20's I started designing technical systems, beginning with mixing consoles and tape recorders. The control surface designs (better known today as UIs or User Interfaces) were limited by buttons, switches and sliders that needed to be logically located for the user - but also dictated by engineering and board layouts.

In the early 90's, as digital controls became feasible, I started to design control systems using computers. The first of these were very crude, but by the mid 90's I was able to create graphic user interfaces for machine and system controls. I eventually received a few patents in this area.

Probably because of my background in hardware UIs, I always liked software that emulates hardware. Buttons sliders and knobs should look, feel and operate like their physical counterparts. The main benefits of the electronic interface is its tremendous flexibility. Of course, interacting with this interface using a keyboard and mouse was a giant leap backward.

In this new century, touch control has leaped forward as evidenced by many things including the touch screen in my car and of course now my multi-touch phone.


Putting the iPad into this context is more than exciting!
Consider the following characteristics:
  • The iPad is not only touch but multi-touch.
  • The iPad is untethered with great battery life and the ability to link the control surface to the controlled system wirelessly -with both wifi and bluetooth.
  • The iPad can leverage client-side AND server-side applications for really sophisticated controls that are software and database linked.
  • The iPad offers powerful high-speed graphics and animations to support real time feedback including live video cameras and sound.
  • The iPad is an ideal size for a single user UI.
  • The iPad is very inexpensive in the context of control surfaces.
  • The platform is very feature rich compared to a standard touch screen. It includes multi-touch, accelerometers, GPS location, wifi, blue tooth, web, multi-tasking (imminent), sound, and more.
THE TOPPER!
And most important, the iPad is NOT some proprietary hardware system you need to integrate and support. Rather, it is a relatively inexpensive, commodity, commercial device you can easily adapt to your most esoteric application by simply developing software - and if the device you need to control does not support wifi or bluetooth, a little bit of hardware interface is probably enough.

It seems that the audio Apps have really gotten into this. As an example, Groove.Maker includes sliders, button, selectors, real-time visual feedback and more.

Although this particular app does not control an external device, it easily could. Others do.

It adheres to many real-world design metaphors and you can run multiple faders and turn knobs at the same time because the control surface is multi-touch. Wow.

The real innovations are yet to emerge. I expect industrial casings, dual hand or "many surface" coordinated applications, video integration, and much more.

I will go as far as to predict that the iPad becomes a catalyst for a renaissance in man/machine interface...

This is Theo - Exploring the iPad as an amazing control surface application.


5 comments:

  1. Yeah, but you can't buy one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark: Do you mean iPad? Or special control surface? If you mean special control surface, you have to make one or have one made. But at least it is just software as opposed to hardware. I can tell you from experience that is MUCH easier and cheaper.
    Theo

    ReplyDelete
  3. They just had the crazy release in Canada this week....I have to say, after reading this, I want one....

    Because I am not technologically gifted like some of my cousins, I will wait. But probably just until Christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was just whining that I had not been able to get mine yet.

    I am now a proud iPad owner.

    I admit to being surprised that there have not been more attempts to connect an iPad/iPhone as the display of choice for all manner of sensor data. Stuff like health checks (blood pressure, blood sugar, etc...), my car sensors, and all that sort of thing...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mark: Fully agreed. Part of that is the Apple App distribution and development system makes it a bit awkward to use the iPad as a component in a larger tech system. It will come.

    ReplyDelete