I will be presenting "Going Paperless with iPad" at the Texas Music Educators Association Convention this Friday, February 12th, at 4pm.
Click here to view the session notes and save them to Evernote.
"Digital Organization Strategies for Music Teachers" Session Notes, OMEA/TI:ME Professional Development Conference
I am glad to be back at the Ohio Music Educators Association Professional Development Conference this year!
My session, "Digital Organization Strategies for Music Teachers," is on Friday, January 29th, at 9:30 am in room CC234.
Click here to view the session notes.
What is the killer Apple TV app? (Suggestion included)
Something that has struck me about the new Apple TV is the fact that I have not seen any apps that truly innovate the way users interact with content. You know what I mean...there is no "killer app" for it yet that compels people to buy the device. So far everything is just a port of a game or video streaming app from iOS. I haven't seen any apps yet that do anything...
A. a previous streaming box could not already do
and
B. that takes unique advantage of the strengths of a TV (plus the remote input)
What are the strengths of a TV? A few things that come to mind are:
- It is large and central to the room it is placed in.
- It is communal. Everyone in the room can see it at the same time.
- It is always plugged in. Information on it can be left visible indefinitely, be seen from far away, and not threaten the battery life of the device.
- It is dedicated. TVs are intended to consume our field of view and attention. Apps have the potential to be very focused in this respect, occupying the entire screen and not allowing distractions like notifications and multitasking.
- Like a touch screen, apps can take any shape they want at any time. Sure, they can feed the user a video stream, but they can also be as interactive as a developer is willing to make them. Let's not forget that the remote to manipulate the device has an accelerometer, microphone, and touch screen. This does not even include the fact that third party game controllers, mobile phones, and Bluetooth keyboards can be used as additional inputs.
- Fill in the blanks here. I am probably missing a few...
The promised MLB.com At Bat app coming in 2016 supposedly challenges this ideas by allowing you to watch multiple games side by side, call up contextual stats about players, and view scores to other games without interrupting the video feed. Apparently the QVC app allows the user to interact with the video feed by buying items displayed on the screen from right within the app. I do not use either of these apps but this is the kind of forward thinking that I am talking about.
I thought of a very specific problem earlier today that only a TV app could uniquely solve.
The app market is saturated with "read it later" style services like Instapaper and Pocket. These apps allow you to quickly clip web content into an app where you can read it later distraction free. This makes digging through links on Twitter and Facebook feeds a lot quicker. What I have noticed though is that I clip a lot of videos into my Instapaper account that I never actually go back and watch. There is a reason for this. When I am on a mobile device, I am usually in public or at work. There is rarely a moment when I have time or privacy to watch loud videos. They also take up the entire screen and demand a level of attention that I am often unable to give while mobile.
At the end of each day, I do usually end up in front of a TV, even if it is to do something like watch an episode of The Wire before bed. I have a different attitude about watching video when I am in the living room. I crank it up loud, tune out all work, and am ready to be entertained. What better time and place to conveniently watch through a feed of all the video I clipped from the web that day, only on a huge screen, without annoying anyone in public, and when I am relaxed?
So, there you go. Feel free to steal that idea for a "watch it later" app! To be honest, Instapaper and Pocket have great video support on iOS. It is a surprise they have not already made video only versions of their apps for Apple TV.
Confessions of a Vinyl Junkie | David Bowie's 25 Favorite Albums
Confessions of a Vinyl Junkie | David Bowie’s 25 Favorite Albums is a good read.
It's just fascinating to see how eclectic Bowie's interests were.
I find my musical tastes to be just as all over the place and really related to the list. I look forward to digging through it over the next few days.
Here is a link to an Apple Music playlist I made containing all of the albums I could find. In some cases, I replaced the version on Bowie's list with an alternate recording to accommodate as many of the albums as I could.
iOS 9.3 Preview
Apple has released a preview of iOS 9.3. This update is in beta and will contain many new decent features. Nothing big, but stuff that Apple typically does not add to their operating systems mid-year. This a much welcome change and allows Apple to stay current in ways that they could not on an annual software release cycle. I am really happy to see Apple Music features in the car, thumbprint protected notes, and suggested apps that can feed the data in the Health app. Also interesting is the Night Shift feature which will warm the colors of your screen when it gets dark at night to make it easier on your eyes. This is just a month or so after the developers of f.lux (popular screen temperature app for the desktop) figured out how to release it for iOS through process of sideloading only for Apple to ask them to remove it soon afterwards.
Most surprising to me is the last section on the iPad in education. It looks like Apple is adding multiple user accounts to the iPad for classrooms and is adding a classroom management app. This is interesting especially because of CEO Tim Cook's recent comments to Buzzfeed when asked about the growing ubiquity of Chromebooks in the classroom.
Google’s Chromebooks have overtaken Apple products as the most popular devices in American classrooms, but Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company will not be following the search giant’s approach to the education market, which has been a stronghold for Apple since the early days of the Mac.
“Assessments don’t create learning,” Cook said in an interview with BuzzFeed News Wednesday, calling the cheap laptops that have proliferated through American classrooms mere “test machines.”
“We are interested in helping students learn and teachers teach, but tests, no,” Cook said. “We create products that are whole solutions for people — that allow kids to learn how to create and engage on a different level.”
Apple has been deeply connected to schools since it first rolled out mass market personal computers in the 1980s, and has long offered big discounts to students and teachers. But its education market share has been snatched away by the Google-branded Chromebooks, which are outselling not just Apple but everyone else in the tech business.
I am very excited about these new features, what it means for Apple to break the annual software release cycle, and how they might fight for their place in the classroom.
My favorite apps of 2015
I feel the need to defend these apps in a way that I didn't for my favorite albums of 2015 list I posted yesterday. In part, this is because music's role in my life has a certain type of inevitability that makes it difficult for me to immediately understand its value myself. Secondly, the music I experienced this past year is worth so many more words than I could possibly type. Finally, apps, especially paid ones, tend to require a defense; a "why do I need to buy this?" Their value is also often technical and practical, and can be condensed down into a few sentences.
Productivity
I can't remember what getting work done on an iPad or iPhone felt like before discovering this app. Think of this as the missing Finder on iOS.
My new favorite for setting timers and reminders. I like how persistently it bugs me until I actually complete the task.
Unbelievable automator for creating multi step workflows on iOS.
For getting all physical paper into the cloud as beautifully formatted, text searchable, PDFs. Syncs effortlessly to Evernote, lightning fast, and zero step scanning.
Apple Notes
Stellar update this year to the notes app that comes bundled with Apple devices. I love the rich text formatting, web clipping, and list support.
A great app by the makers of two of my favorites: OmniFocus and OmniOutliner. OmniGraffle has come to replace Adobe Illustrator for me. It is my go-to for designing graphics. Specifically, I use it to design seating charts for my classes.
Amazing service for linking different internet connected services and devices. You can create if-then statements to automate them. Example: If I am tagged in a Facebook post, save that photo to my Dropbox. Another example: When I arrive at home, then turn on the lights in my house.
Cooking game changer! My wife and I clip recipes from the web into this app and it formats them beautifully so we can isolate ingredients, directions, and set timers. It has a built in grocery list and meal planning feature that can send data to Apple Reminders and Calendar apps, respectively.
I have been listening to a lot of podcasts this year. Overcast offers the best experience of all the podcast apps I have tried.
Music
Not a new app to me but I have really taken to organizing my scores on the iPad with this app over the last year. It has truly revolutionized my musical workflow throughout my band directing, private teaching, gigging, and church music directing jobs.
Still my favorite metronome app on iOS.
My favorite tuning app. Features gamified tuning, polyphonic tuning drones, just intonation, and simultaneous metronome and tuner playback.
Health
Using these apps (and more) in combination with the Apple Health app and Apple Watch, I have lost about 30 pounds since late August. Ok, really, I worked out and changed my diet some, but the apps helped.
Helps me set goals for water consumption and see my progress each day. Logging water is easy with the Apple Watch app and all data syncs to the Apple Health app.
This app is fun for tracking work outs and food, but I use it primarily to track the hours I sleep each night. It accomplishes this through the motion of my iPhone.
I have been using this app to track calorie and nutrition data for almost a year now. Really easy and addictive to use once you get into a routine.
This app, in combination with the wearable tracker by the same name, has allowed me to track trends in my breathing for the last few months. The app categorizes my breathing patterns into "focus," "tense," "calm," and "activity." When it senses a streak of tension, it sends my watch a message to breathe slower. It also allows me to set goals for minutes of focus per day, offers guided meditation, and syncs respiratory rate data to Apple Health.
Home
All of these require home automated hardware to be useful. By recommending them, I am recommending the devices themselves as well.
Automated TV remote. No more fuss over HDMI inputs and multiple remotes. This app controls all of the things plugged into my TV and allows me to trigger different things on and off with simple one tap button presses.
Lights that connect to wifi. These can be controlled from a phone app, automated with services like IFTTT, and commanded with Siri.
High quality speakers that connect to one another over a home wifi network.
Games
My favorite albums of 2015
In no particular order:
Released in 2015
Brad Mehldau - 10 Years Solo Live
Hiatus Kaiyote - Choose Your Weapon
National Brass Ensemble - Gabrieli: Music for Brass Ensemble
The Punch Brothers - The Wireless
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Roman GianArthur - Ok Lady Roman
Discovered in 2015
NPR Music's 50 Favorite Albums of 2015
It is time for one of my favorite recent holiday traditions!
Every year around this time, I look forward to creating a Spotify playlist containing NPR's favorite albums of the year. Every year, I have a great old time driving around doing various holiday tasks and traveling to and from gigs while soaking in tons of new great music. The lists always last me far into the following year too. I hope you enjoy the playlist.
Click here to see NPR Music's 50 Favorite Albums of 2015.
Click here to listen to my playlist.
Happy holidays!
CPR Classical's Favorite Releases of 2015
Colorado Public Radio published CPR Classical's Favorite Releases of 2015 earlier last week. I put together a Spotify playlist of all the albums on the list (or the ones I could find at least).
My personal highlight so far is Render by Room Full of Teeth.
iTunes Match song limit increase
The iTunes Match song limit has been increased from 25,000 to 100,000!
This is a big deal for me because my iTunes library is massive. It is full of large libraries of classical and jazz. Additionally, I archive all of my music projects, concert recordings, and educational materials there. Now that the limit has increased, I can actually sync my iTunes playlists of all this personal data across all my Apple devices which is pretty powerful. I am even warming up to the idea of importing music from multiple machines instead of all from my desktop which is currently my media "hub" (where local copies of my videos, photos, and audio is stored).