iPad steel drum played with conductive fiber mallets

Jobs told us, "If you see a stylus, they blew it," but what if the stylus is a steel drum mallet? Someone built an iPad app, as you can see above, that is designed to imitate the look and sound of a steel drum. It needed something a little extra, though, ... like actual mallets to play with. So, they made a mallet out of conductive cloth, which is a special fabric that enables the iPad's surface to recognize the touches. Wrap the end of a drumstick in fabric, tie it off, and you're good to start drummin', mon!

That's good stuff. There have to be other great uses for this kind of cloth, too; while a stylus isn't ideal most of the time, there are certain times when specific tool-like metaphors (maybe a brush for a painting app?) would work better than just a finger. What else can we use to control the multi-touch screen?

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Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDQUwqmY-Gc&feature=player_em…

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Jobs told us, "If you see a stylus, they blew it," but what if the stylus is a steel drum mallet? Someone built an iPad app, as you can...

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ayman

iSteelPan (for iPad) and iTaiko (for iPhone) are now both ready for download in the App Store.

June 16 2010 at 4:27 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

MikeWard1701

This brings back fond meories of playing in my schools steelband. Happy days :)

May 20 2010 at 8:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Steve

How do you do a steel drum demo and not play a little St. Thomas? Seriously.

May 20 2010 at 12:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

heydavila

As a Steel Pan player/instructor AND an iPad owner, color me VERY impressed! I think I wet my pants when I saw this video. True story... -_-

May 20 2010 at 11:25 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Pants

Jeff obviously works in Times Square... Nice one...

Uses for conductive cloth.... Hmmmm... Let me see....

IPHONE/IPAD READY GLOVES, MAYBE???

Duh...

May 20 2010 at 10:57 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jeff Harris

Oh no! As if real steel drums aren't bad enough, NOW it'll be iPads playing the Godfather theme in the subway!

So why not mention the name of the App? It could be fun!

May 20 2010 at 10:34 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

3 replies to Jeff Harris's comment

Bastian Nutzinger

I am continually amazed of the myriads of different applications people come up with for this device.

It seems to be the developers and digital creatives equivalent to what a blank canvas is for a painter... amazing.

Keep it going!

May 20 2010 at 10:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

betafrog

Seem's a pretty stupid idea,

a) the cloth will more than likely scratch the shit out of the screen

b) what happens when he gets too enthusiastic and puts the drum stick through the screen?

May 20 2010 at 10:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

4 replies to betafrog's comment

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