[gui-talk] What we're missing out on:

[tribble]

Hey al -- thanks for posting this one! This has to be the most creative 
(albeit inaccessible) app that has come out in a while.
I forwarded it on to another list.
Great article.
--le

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "albert griffith" <albertgriffith at sbcglobal.net>
To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 5:54 PM
Subject: [gui-talk] What we're missing out on:


I debated on whether to post this but we're out of the loop in many
instances where technology is concerned and this is definitely one of those
times.  My hope is that hearing about some of this stuff will get more of us
motivated to keep pressure on our organizations to make accessibility a
priority. Check out the short article below!
***separator:

So Many iPhone Apps, So Little Time

By DAVID POGUE
Who was it who wrote, in March 2008, just after Apple announced its
intention to create an online app store for the iPhone, "You're witnessing
the birth of a third major computer platform: Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone"?
Oh, right--that was me.
Anyway, there are now 15,000 programs available on the App Store, and so
many more are flooding in that Apple's army of screeners can't even keep up.
I keep meaning to write a thoughtful, thorough roundup of the very best of
these amazing programs, but every day that I don't do it, the job becomes
more daunting. (But don't worry. I'll get around to it.)
For the moment, let's use a single program as a case study. It's one of the
most magical programs I've ever seen for the iPhone, and probably for any
computer. It's Ocarina, named after the ancient clay wind instrument.
OcarinaOnce you install and open this program, your iPhone's screen displays
four colored circles of different sizes. These are the "holes" that you
cover with your fingers, as you would the holes on a flute. Then you blow
into the microphone hole at the bottom of the iPhone, and presto: the
haunting, expressive, beautiful sound of a wind instrument comes from the
iPhone speaker.
Different combinations of fingers on those four "holes" produce the
different notes of the scale. (You can change the key in Preferences--no
doubt a first on a cellphone.) Tilting the phone up or down controls the
vibrato.
Ocarina has become a mega-hit. YouTube videos show people playing their
favorite songs on this thing with amazing skill. (The "Stairway to Heaven"
arrangement, featuring four people playing their iPhones in harmony, is
especially memorable.) The software company's Web site, Smule.com, even
includes sheet-music pages that show you how to play well-known songs on
Ocarina.
Ocarina takes advantages of the iPhone's microphone, speaker, touch screen,
graphics and tilt sensor. Incredibly, though, it also exploits the iPhone's
Internet connection and GPS, as well.
If you tap the little globe at the bottom of the screen, the screen changes.
Now you see a map of the world--and you start hearing the Ocarina
performance of one person, in one city (indicated by animated sound waves on
the map), who's playing the thing *right now*. Sometimes it's the halting
fumbles of a rank beginner; sometimes it's a lovely melody played by someone
who's got the hang of it. You can hit a Next button to tune in to another
stranger, and another, all around the world.
It's a brain-frying experience to know that you're listening to someone else
playing Ocarina, right now, in real time, somewhere else on the planet. (And
then you realize that someone, somewhere might be listening to *you*!)
The best part of this story isn't just that someone has turned a cellphone,
for crying out loud, into a musical instrument with fantastic expressive
potential. It's that hundreds of thousands of people have bought this
program in just a few months--for $1 apiece.
Apple, which runs the store, keeps 30 percent of each sale. Even so, Ocarina
demonstrates that a programmer can make a staggering amount of money from
the iPhone store. It's a crazy new software model that I don't remember
seeing anywhere else. It's not a boxed software program for $600, or even a
shareware program you download for $25. It's a buck a copy.
The beauty here is that at these prices, there's very little risk in trying
something out. How many software programs have you bought for your Mac or
PC? Two? Four? Well, the average iPhone owner may wind up installing 10, 20
or 30 programs. In all, according to Apple, iPhone owners have downloaded
500 million copies of these programs. Half a billion--since last July.
There's a lot of gloom in the tech industry (and every industry, for that
matter). But even when the economy is crashing down around us, there's still
amazing power in a single good idea. And the one on display here--pricing
software so low that millions of people buy it without batting an eye--is
turning a few clever programmers into millionaires.





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