76 Synthesizer: Stupidly cool iPad app interface

Swedish designer Jonas Eriksson designed this incredibly amazing interface for an iPad app called "76 Synthesizer" which may or may not even exist (the internet isn't giving me a straight answer, stupid internet). I can't find it in the app store anyway, which is a shame because I'd buy it just to show off the great design more than I'd actually use it.

Note to other iPad and iPhone designers: THIS!

i like stuff

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petezombie

I can’t wait till touch screens are cheap and I can afford to make ridiculous, multi-touchscreen, Frankenstein musical instruments!
max

this is actually sort of a rip off of propellerhead’s reason software interface. the whole window is made to look like a stack of synthesizers and you can flip around to the back to make different connections and toy with components with wires just like that app.
Rob Beschizza

DROOL.
Anonymous

but how does it sound?
Rob Beschizza

But Max, tell me you don’t want that exact softsynth in your Reason.
- max
  
  what i would really like is to have nice synth software for my iphone. what i would really really like is a way to jack my guitar into an ipad. that will be the day
Sam

I don’t know… I mean, it is very beautiful, but is it really the most practical use of a display? I mean, the physical metaphor only works so well, and there are user interface choices that any designer would make if they weren’t constrained by the laws of physics – and replicating the old choices on a new device is just continuing the same mistakes for no good reason.

I mean, remember when audio players for computers had a separate “pause” and “play” button? Because on a physical tape deck they had to be two buttons. It took over a decade before people realized, “OH, on a computer it can be the same button, and it can switch tasks…”

Single rotation knobs, analog VU meters, etc., all had their place on physical synths, but why chain yourself to that design on a computer? That never made sense to me – great interface design is about rethinking the interface for the device it is on. Even remaking a Reason or Fruityloops interface wouldn’t be the best idea, because that was designed for a computer with a keyboard and mouse, not a touch screen.

Anyway, not to rag on the design, like I said, it really is beautiful, and I can see why some people would want to use it like that, but I’m concerned about interface designers who take the physical metaphor a little too far…
- dreamwieber
  
  That’s a tough one (how far to go in the physical direction…). It’s encouraged as a UI approach, I think mainly because the pixels are so tight on the iOS devices, so a little bit of texture often is more pleasing than overly flat colors. Although, there are some pretty rad star-treky interfaces out there that embrace the super flat aesthetic.
  
  I for one don’t like knobs, because unless they’re fake (and touching them simply reveals a slider) they’re not very easy to interact with on a touch screen. But they look beautiful in this design!
  
  Incredibly beautiful design, but would have to see this in action to know if it’s good UI. IMOHO UI is 90% clarity and ease-of-use, 10% looks (if you want a product that people will continue to use for a long time).
- Buckets McGaughey
  
  You are a righteous individual, Sam. I for one am really tired of this tendency, and it seems especially prevalent in music-related software. It holds everything back and it needs to stop.
Ogre

Korg’s ims-20 app (which is on the app store) is similar

http://soundcloud.com/apps/ims-20
shadowfirebird

I disagree. You say that you don’t know that it’s a real app — so how can you say that it’s a good user interface?

If the app does not exist, then by definition it’s a very bad user interface. It doesn’t interface the user with anything.

Conversely, if the app does exist, you still don’t know if it’s a good UI — you’ve not tried to use it.
Snig

I wonder if you can mod it to make the numbers all go to 11.
von Bobo

wow.. starting to turn into an apple blog :(

Anyone know of websites similar to boing boing that I can check out?
- holtt
  
  von Bobo, check out http://lookslikegooddesign.com/ – cool site with lots of nice high quality design inspiration.
  - peterbruells
    
    Not a good ecommendation, though, since the same offending item is on the home page therem too. :-)
- wrybread
  
  Interestingly Von Bobo goes out of his way to advocate for Sprint products here and here. So its not the fact that BoingBoing advocates a product that bothers Von Bobo, but that its a product Von Bobo doesn’t like.
  
  Von Bobo, maybe you should give the editors of BoingBoing a list of other products that personally offend you so they can avoid making that same mistake twice?
  - von Bobo
    
    of course I have reasons for doing what I do, don’t we all?
    
    no reason to get bent up wry, I just asked a question.
    - wrybread
      
      I didn’t mean to get pissy. But I do think you’re going to have a hard time finding a blog that completely avoids the subject of Apple. For example the Looks Like Good Design blog that someone recommended covered this same app a few days ago:
      
      http://lookslikegooddesign.com/ipad-app-jonas-eriksson/
- gobo
  
  One or two articles about new and innovative apps (that could be developed for iOS or other devices) does not an “Apple blog” make, drama llama.
holtt

Sweet! Reminds me of the user interface design from the Fallout games, minus the grungy post apocalyptic retro style.
Rob Beschizza

There’s what, three items in the last 70 that are about apple or iOS software? And like 80 of the last 70 about wikileaks.
- xian
  
  Fucking WikiLeaks fanboysâ€¦ anyone have a blog I can check out thatâ€™s not all starry eyed over Julian Assange?
Anonymous

Check out the Korg synth app. Super Awesome!!!!!!!
Anonymous

The name on the actual product logo is SyntheSEIZER – which is somehow even more cool…
Algo Ritmo

I believe there’s an iPhone version of Rebirth.. not sure about Reason. But this is pretty, pretty, pretty nice.
narrowstreetsLA

Time to bust out one of my favorite words: skeuomorphic!

UIs trying to directly imitate physical controls are usually meh at best. But DAMN this one is gorgeous!
holtt

As a result of this post, I have….

a) downloaded a trial version of Reason just to check out the UI

b) Learned the word skeuomorphic

c) Learned that in fact the style of user interfaces I particularly love are known as Skeuomorphic User Interfaces.

d) Found this interesting article that discusses skeuomorphic UI specifically with synthesizer apps.
holtt

Er, this…

http://userexperience.evantageconsulting.com/2010/11/ui-guidelines-for-skeuomorphic-multi-touch-interfaces/
DaveP

this doesn’t look very functional.
ikoino

Beautiful. Functional? Hard to say. The first question I ask of a UI design is: explain this in context of Fitt’s Law and GOMS?
funwithstuff

@max

Haven’t used it, but recent iPad apps showed off AmpliTube, acting as a guitar amp:

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/amplitube-for-ipad/id373750924?mt=8

You’ll need an adapter, but it works. There are lots of synths and DJing apps too. If you wanted to, you could get rid of most of your music gear and get a few iPads instead. :)