I just got home from band practice, and it was my first session using the iPad to control the sound board. I have to say that I loved every minute of it! If you remember I bought an iPad for my job as Tech Director at my church because of the apps that are available to help me with my job. We just finished installation of a brand new sound system this week, and that included a Yamaha M7CL digital mixing console. Like I mentioned before, our sound booth is upstairs in the balcony, where it sounds completely different than it does on the floor where 95% of the people in Sunday service sit. With the right app for the iPad, I can sit on the floor and mix using the app, without having to be near the sound board.
The only thing that really sucks about the whole thing is that I had to support Apple in order to have this functionality. If you read John’s article about sue-happy-Apple, you will know what I am talking about. I agree completely with his take on the whole patent and suing culture we are in right now. Sadly, Android has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to technology in the church world, and this Yamaha app is the perfect example: It’s not available on Android. A couple weeks ago I was at a conference for church tech workers. There were almost 1000 of us there, and I don’t recall seeing a single non-Apple laptop or tablet in attendance. I would say a good percentage also had iPhones. That is a huge market that Android hasn’t even set foot into, and needs to badly. At this point Apple might be so entrenched that Android might not ever be able to get a foothold, which makes me sad. But enough about that, I so excited about what can be done with these apps for my iPad. I can’t wait to see what cool things I can do with them in the weeks ahead.