06.20.12
Hate frenzy for iStuff
If Apple thought it could get away with having people on television suck on a piece of iKit shaped like a penis it would probably have FoxConn make some. See, one of the most annoying things about iJunk is the fetishism. One of the fetishes, and a major selling point, is the illusion created that one can rule the world from the palm of your hand. Just whip your fingers over a couple apps, easier than the five finger exercise.
You see this in the Beeb’s Sherlock, a show I like very much IN SPITE of its pandering commercial Apple tie ins.
For the show, there are only two infallibles. The star, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. And the iPhone.
The iPhone is the aim point for all texting between good and evil — the detective, his colleagues and adversaries. Whenever another computer shows up, it’s an iPad.
And one can do anything on those, too, so why does Apple even makes more than one device, since they’re all the same kind of magic wand?
In the climax of season two — The Reichenbach Fall — the start is given over to Holmes nemesis Jim Moriarty who invades the Tower of England during peak tourism hours, engineers a break in at the Bank of England and a prison break at Pentonville — all by swiping his iPhone apps — while he’s listening to his iTunes and chewing gum.
Straight off I wanted Holmes to kill the guy out of hand.
In Scandal in Belgravia, the only woman to infatuate Holmes, the dominatrix Irene Adler, has an equally omnipotent iPhone.
It can bring Britain to its knees because scandalous photos and careless talk are on its disk. It’s a very special piece of iKit, booby-trapped with multiple explosives charges. The finest computer, forensic and safe-cracking technicians in the world cannot penetrate it. Only the intellect of Sherlock Holmes can manage it, deductively reasoning that Adler has made the first four letters of her new boyfriend’s name, his, the password.
There is now something called the gTar, a prototype semi-guitar that serves as a docking station for an iPhone.
Play the video on KickStarter.
Do you hear any rock and roll? Do you hear anything at all that sounds like what Leo Fender made? Or Les Paul? Are there anyone but nerds in the video?
The gTar, an instrument with the feature that it comes with no acoustic capabilities at all, not even requiring the strings to be tuned, which I can tell you is important — psycho-acoustically and feel-wise — in playing an instrument with virtually zero native tone, is not even cheap by the standards of guitars for beginners. Yet iJunk groupies are all over it judging by the project’s funding success.
Indeed, one cannot turn around without seeing iPhones as the Swiss Army knife of life.
This — in today’s mail — on using your iJunk as a digital guitar amp, studio and hit producing machine all in one. Everything sounds perfect but sterile, like fragments of tunes you’ve heard on all the best-selling records, ever, but not quite identical because of digital copyright issues.
There is something missing from the frictionless lowest common averaging technology with pretty imagery of iOS app — humanity. This lack optimizes it for instant gratification, HD video commercials and soundtracks made spasmodically in minutes, uploaded by the tens of thousands to YouTube.
The player’s face is never seen, only the gear, the iJunk and GarageBand icons and trademarks. His blue sneakers are the only personality in the damn thing. I’ve become so averse to iJunk and its culture of lickspittle, just the idea of using GarageBand or Logic Pro for anything gives me a mild headache.
bonze blayk said,
June 20, 2012 at 7:15 pm
“Let’s start off with easy…”
iTard selects “Stairway to Heaven”…
“The gTar by Incident is disruption defined.” – TechCrunch
Yup-ur.
And the Magic Line 6 iPad interface:
“Everything sounds perfect but sterile…”
Pretty much, though I think some digital amp emulations are “not bad”.
On the other hand, inasmuch as I just received $100.48 worth of 12AX7 variants and 6L6 and EL84 power tubes in the mail today? I guess, at some level, I am compelled to agree in re: “sterility” .-)
PS: I loathe Mac OS “Lion”, which for me “is disruption defined” – BUT I LOVE LOGIC PRO!
George Smith said,
June 21, 2012 at 8:20 am
The gTar seems to have all the right goods to disrupt a space as old as string instruments. This could be the high of Disrupt NYC talking, but it feels as if this could be, or perhaps lead to, the guitars for the Guitar Hero generation.
Taken from the TechCrunch thing, this is a stupid statement by someone who doesn’t know the nature of the guitar market. Guitarists don’t want what looks and feels like a toy. They’re bing on illusion of an expensive instrument even when buying the rock bottom China made guitar. The gTar is opposite. It looks cheap but isn’t. Plus, I’d wager the gTar makes picking up the guitar for the first time only marginally easier since even of you follow the magic lights and the iPhone damps the bad notes and strings you’ll sound lousy. Since even an acoustically nil instrument still has some acoustical property., and the strings will still vibrate, if it’s not even tuned, the player will still hear the duff tones in his or her ears, although not as loud as the iPhone. Geezus.
I bet there might be a niche market for it for a couple years. But Line6 made the Variax, one of which I have, and it has remained a niche instrument which they have now tried to change by hybridizing it with a
traditional instrument made for the studio toffs.
I’ve used a lot of digital amp emulators, live and in recording, and you can make them sound right on in a mix and solo. But the tendency is to make these demonstrations which accentuate a digitally-made ideal with little relationship to what you actually hear from bands or solo acts in the real world. It’s hard to describe but I can always tell when I’ve heard something put together by digital libraries in GarageBand or Logic. It sounds like someone’s idea of a great recording in any genre, but absolutely unidentifiable to any personal even slightly idiosyncratic style, something suitable for 15 seconds of television drama music or commercial.
Take the iPhone blues rock stuff demo’d in the Line 6 thing. Yeah, it sounds like perfect style and tone. On records you would have no interest in hearing.
George Smith said,
June 21, 2012 at 8:35 am
Here are two videos employing the same mentality, unwatchable for different reasons. They’re essentially both commercials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PerDQDupAKQ
With the above, I can think of few things more irritating than video of someone’s hand calisthenics playing along to power metal. How many people playing like this have you heard in your lifetime — 3 million? Now all on YouTube using iPhone.
And this…
http://www.youtube.com/user/apogeedigital?v=2zIbFRhIdxs
You’ve set up a nice boom and a spittle screen. All so you can record digitally into GarageBand on your iPhone. At which point an app will upload it to YouTube or BandCamp along with the 20 million others with “perfect studio quality sound” just like you.