🔗 Apple honors StaffPad with annual Apple Design Award - Apple

Old news now but I just wanted to give a shout-out to StaffPad for winning an Apple Design Award this year. It is so completely deserved in every way. If you want to hear more of my thoughts on StaffPad, try one of the following posts:

First Impressions of StaffPad

StaffPad Comes to iOS (Reflections on App Store Pricing and Touch Screen Operating Systems)

Music Ed Tech Talk Podcast #7 - Working with StaffPad

Read more about Design Award winners below. They are very focused on pro apps for the iPad this year.

Apple honors eight developers with annual Apple Design Awards:

StaffPad, from StaffPad Ltd., brilliantly converts handwritten musical notations into digital sheet music. Designed for composers who want an easy solution for writing and composing music digitally, the app uses Apple technologies such as Apple Pencil, drag and drop, and Core ML to transform each bar into beautifully typeset music notation that can be edited using intuitive touch or Apple Pencil tools.

🔗 Institute for Composer Diversity: State Repertoire Lists (Wind Band)

The Institute for Composer Diversity is curating special lists from their database, and their first one features wind band music! I am especially excited that this list includes works for beginners, an area that I find it typically challenging to program for. There is a lot of beginning music on this list to pick from.

State Lists — Institute for Composer Diversity:

Required state repertoire lists exist differently in every state in the U.S. and ICD, along with our partners in On The List and many others, wants to help to make sure those solo, chamber, and large ensemble lists appropriately provide students with music from many diverse voices. We’re starting with wind band works, but will grow this project to include choir, orchestra, jazz ensembles, and chamber works!

The lists below comprise a growing list of works for wind band composed or arranged by either a woman composer or a composer/arranger from an underrepresented heritage which have been selected by one or more U.S. state for repertoire lists. K-12 schools are required to perform works from these lists at district-and state-wide band festivals and competitions. Most of these works are in our Works Diversity Database (and those that aren’t will soon be)!

🔗 Gizmodo: 6 Free Final Cut Pro Alternatives for Making Your Own MoVies

While Final Cut Pro still gets my vote, this list will probably be useful to my music teaching friends looking to make virtual ensemble videos.

6 Free Final Cut Pro Alternatives for Making Your Own Movies

Video editing is easier than it’s ever been, with the barrier to entry becoming less pricey every year. As long as you have some decent footage to work with, you can turn it into something presentable—and dare we say professional—using programs that won’t cost you anything. Here are six of the best free video editors to help you unleash your inner Oscar-winning director.

🔗 Concertino- classical music front end for apple music

As much as I love IDAGIO for classical music streaming, it is mostly solving the metadata problem for me. In other words, the issue of being able to sort and filter by time period, composer, conductor, etc.

I still find Apple Music's library for classical to be decent, and I already pay for it.

I am looking forward to trying out Concertino in the coming days.

Concertino - Classical music front-end for Apple Music

Transform Apple Music into a magical classical music jukebox - browse composers, genres and periods, create playlists of multi-movement works, start no-nonsense radio stations and much, much more, for free!

🔗 New version of Logic Pro released today

Major upgrade to Logic Pro today. New non-linear loop composing, new drum machine, and sampling features... it sure does feel like this release is a response to some of the features that make Abelton Live such a compelling experience. 

From the Logic Pro page today…

Logic Pro - Apple:

Live Loops is a dynamic way to create and arrange music in real time. Kick off your composition by adding loops, samples, or your recorded performances into a grid of cells. Trigger different cells to play with your ideas without worrying about a timeline or arrangement. Once you find combinations that work well together you can create song sections, then move everything into the Tracks area to continue production and finish your song.

We redesigned and improved our most popular plug-in — the EXS24 Sampler — and renamed it Sampler. The new single-window design makes it easier to create and edit sampler instruments while remaining backward compatible with all EXS24 files. An expanded synthesis section with sound-shaping controls brings more depth and dynamics to your instruments. The reimagined mapping editor adds powerful, time-saving features that speed the creation of complex instruments. Use the zone waveform editor to make precise edits to sample start/end, loop ranges, and crossfades. And save hours of tedious editing with new drag-and-drop hot zones.

Quick Sampler is a fast and easy way to work with a single sample. Drag and drop an audio file from the Finder, Voice Memos, or anywhere within Logic Pro X. Or record audio directly into Quick Sampler using a turntable, microphone, musical instrument, or even channel strips playing in Logic Pro X. In a few steps, you can transform an individual sample into a fully playable instrument. And with Slice Mode, you can split a single sample into multiple slices — perfect for chopping up vocals or breaking up and resequencing drum loops.

The new Sampler and Quick Sampler seem especially interesting. Making these kinds of (usually advanced) workflows dead simple is something that Apple is unmatched at when it comes to software design.

🔗 Dorico SE - A free version for everyone

Users who have been previously intrigued by the professional score editor Dorico but has been afraid to try it can now rejoice! Dorico now has a free version, Dorico SE, for all users. It only has basic functionality, but I suspect you will want to take the plunge after getting familiar with it.

Most people I know are hesitant to take the plunge on Dorico either because of its price (hard to beat free software like Musescore and Noteflight), or because they are hanging on to the comfort of Sibelius or Finale. Well now you don’t have to pay a dime to try the latest and greatest score editor. Seriously, it blows the others out of the water.

My only complaints:

1. Annoying installation (but Avid’s is still way worse)
2. Only one computer (so sad)
3. No iOS app... but who has one other than Notion?

Try it today.

🔗 Black Friday App Store Deals (MDMDeals.com)

One of my favorite things to browse on Black Friday are app deals. I love exploring new software in my free time away from school, and there’s nothing cozier than purchasing a new app and downloading it right from the comfort of my bed or couch.

If you're looking for App Store deals today, look no further than this post from MDM Deals.

The best Black Friday sales on iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps, movies, and more! - Discover great deals on fantastic apps & movies:

This Black Friday, there are over 6,000 iOS, iPadOS, & macOS apps on sale in just the App Stores. I’ve spent dozens of hours going through them all to find you just the ones worth your time and money.

My favorites on this list are:

• TextExpander

• Deliveries

• BeFocusedPro

• Pixelmator Pro

• Pocelmator Photo

• Paprika Recipe Manager

• Cardhop

• BusyCal

• Fantastical 2

• 7 Minute Workout

• LaunchBar (though I prefer Alfred)

• Screens 4

• PDF Expert

• Civilization VI

🔗 Affinity Photo for iPad, great Photoshop competitor, is 50 percent off

For anyone looking for a serious photo editing power tool, Affinity Photo can’t be beat. Click here to take advantage of the deal.

I presume this is happening because Photoshop for iPad finally launched this week. Photoshop comes as part of one of Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription plans. My wife and I subscribe to Creative Cloud because she uses Illustrator for design work (Illustrator was recently announced to be coming to the iPad next year).

That being said, I think there is very little reason to use Photoshop over a one time purchase like Affinity unless you are …

a. really familiar with the features and interface of Photoshop

b. depend on sharing PSD files with others in a professional or collaborative environment

Affinity Photo is a great catch. Pick it up if you are looking for a mobile based photo editing tool!

🔗 Omni Apps are Adopting Apple’s Standard iOS Document Browser this Fall

Adopting Apple’s Standard iOS Document Browser - The Omni Group

In 2019, we think it’s time to retire our custom document browser in favor of using Apple’s built-in document browser—and with our iOS 13 updates this fall we’ll be doing just that. Instead of seeing our custom file browser, you’ll be presented with the standard iOS document browser—just like in Apple’s own iWork apps. Using Apple’s browser, you’ll be able to store and sync your documents using Apple’s built-in iCloud Drive, or third-party commercial options like Box—or even in cloud- or self-hosted collaborative git repositories using Working Copy.

As a user of OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, and OmniOutliner, I am grateful that the OmniGroup is making this change. The Files app on iPad works very similarly to the Finder on Mac these days. So when I open or save a document on an iPad, I want to see that same interface. It's exactly the same as if I were on a Mac. I would never go to the File-->Open menu and expect to see anything other than the traditional Save/Open dialogue box that I see for every other app. This is standard on Mac. (Mostly. Some apps like Microsoft Office still refuse to use it.) So it is only fitting that in iOS, document based apps display the system provided interface for interacting with files.

In apps like Pages, for example, opening a new document displays an interface that looks and behaves like the Files app.

MindNode is an example of a third party app that uses the same Files interface as Apple’s own apps.

Apps like OmniOutliner show a custom interface. Fortunately, OmniGroup is changing this behavior in the fall.

PDF Expert is another example of an app that does not use the native file picker. Hopefully they will get the message and adopt it soon.

🔀 Top 10 iPad features we’d like to see in iOS 13 | Macworld

From Macworld...

Top 10 iPad features we’d like to see in iOS 13 | Macworld

The new iPad Pro hardware is great and Apple needs to invest in upgrades for iOS to take advantage of it. Here are a few ideas for new features.

No way 9 or 10 are happening any time soon. I am really hopeful for 6, 7, and 8. A resounding “yes, please!” to 3, 4, and 5. With regards to 2, I must be the only person who does not require external file support to get work done on an iPad. I would much rather Apple improve iCloud Drive and third party cloud drive support in the Files app. For the most part, I think these are likely to happen in order from 2-10.

I am looking forward to the future of iOS, whatever it is.