2013 Summer NAMM Show: Here’s an overview of the new Artiphon Instrument One.
The Instrument One is a handcrafted MIDI controller that’s designed to let you control an iPhone with the feel of a traditional instrument.
The Artiphon Instrument One is available for order now for $799.
via keyboardmag1
Only 799? muahahaaaahaaha
Indeed. What hurts even more is that this will not work anymore in two years when Apple changes their connector or the form factor of the iphone/ipod. People will be forced to find a used model just to make it work with this thing.
Its a shame, because the touch surface of the Artiphon seems very responsive and precise. Hopefully someday he can get it mass produced and lower the price a bit.
why wouldn’t it work in 2 years?
first of all, the 30-pin connector was in use in iPods, iPads and iPhones for nearly 10 years. whatever your take is on Apple’s use of proprietary connections, they aren’t going to swap out the lightning connector anytime soon.
second, its 95% likely that iPhone 5S will have form factor identical to the iPhone 5, so you can almost guarantee that the next generation will be a perfect fit for this thing.
third, if there is some incompatibility by the time iPhone 6 comes out, it will be easy (and cheap) to find a used iPhone 5 or 5s… have you tried looking for an iPhone 4 or 3gs lately? They aren’t hard to find. And the current generation is amply powered for software synthesizers and those sort of applications. you can expect the 5s to be even more so.
Its not just the connector and the form factor, but also the apps themselves. Only a very small fraction of all apps survives when IOS gets updated, the rest just stops working (because Apple removes every old libraries when they do the update). Good thing most great apps are updated, but any one of these 3 fails and you will be stuck with a 800$ accessory. And you can never know when Apple will make any changes because they never tell anyone about it, not even their partners (remember when Akai launched a Iphone compatible keyboard only to have the iphone connector change a bit one week later?).
I guess I’m biased because I’ve been burned many times by Apple’s changes, and wasted a lot of money on accessories which are useless unless I keep an ipod 2nd generation and keep it on IOS4 eternally. But as they say “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”.
And btw, I’m still stuck with a 700$ ipad 1 which cannot be updated because Apple said so, and the ipad one is barely 2 years old… and nobody know if the ipad will change its form factor in the next iteration.
Also guess what device will not get IOS7 : The Ipod Touch 4th generation, which was released in October 2011, less than 2 years ago.
Sadly, this is the rule with Apple’s devices, you gotta buy a new one every two years or else you will be left in the dust. Oh sure the device itself will still work, but will you be able to get all the new app? Not unless you buy a new device.
Let me know when Waldorf Nave is available for IOS5 some day.
I’m sorry but this is the biggest piece of pointless shit ever to have been invented. End of.
Sorry but I thought that was your comment.
The idea is very cool! But there is an obvious problem: the latency they are getting on all of those apps is riduclous (it’s very visible in the video, for a phenomenon that’s already too much when you need to measure it with an oscilliscope to quantify it). Hopefully they are just being bad at picking apps for the demo, and not adding latency at the controller.
And for that price, they would probably be better off using an embedded brain, than tying their fortunes to iPhone connectors, iPhone sizes, and the apps currently working. The whole point of using the phone is really just to be able to install patches into the audio brain (ie: hackers build patches on laptop and upload into the device).
The idea is still very cool overall. The piano layout is not playable on the iPad, let alone the iPhone.
I love iPad synths, but I don’t like the idea of expensive peripherals tied to the form of a mass market device.
Apple will make the device thinner and lighter over time and they have to, to be competitive. This means that this controller is tightly tied to the current generation of iPhone. This increases the investment the user has in the status quo, when you really want the freedom to try new things.
What if I get a call?
An iphone controller which costs more than the iphone? 800 bucks just for use the crappy sounds from an iphone? No thanks. Maybe the gadget could have an usb port, right?