MSA Remote for iPhone from Memo Akten on Vimeo.
Apple, apparently unclear on what multitouch clients actually are, have chosen to reject Memo Akten’s brilliant-looking MSA Remote client for the iPhone/iPod touch. The free(!) app could empower installations and performances with the standard multi-touch protocol TUIO, as used on the Reactable (and, thus, by Bjork, among many other folks).
This is, sadly, the kind of second-guessing developers Apple has been doing far too much. But it’s also clear that Apple is a company that listens – when people shout and complain and gripe. So in that spirit, I’m shouting and complaining and griping, on the more-trafficked music site:
Apple Rejects Free iPhone Tool For Artists Because of “Minimal User Functionality”
Please help us by spreading the word. Apple’s mobile device is too good to let it be crippled by bad judgment. And it’s equally important to say, loudly, vendor restrictions are not a feature. I hope that promising platforms like Google’s Android benefit from their comparative openness, because I believe it makes a different to art – not for philosophical reasons, but for concrete, practical ones. And this is a perfect example.