Create your iPad studio

Just a year ago in Computer Music we rounded up the 100 Greatest Mobile Apps and stated, “we still don’t think that mobile music making offers all the flexibility of a decent, hardware and software hybrid studio based around a powerful computer”. How a year changes everything, or certainly the “powerful computer” part anyway. Apple’s latest Pro iPads have the same M1 chips found in the company’s desktop and laptop machines, so the devices are very much on par power wise with your standard computer. Plus most of the latest iPads have USB and even Thunderbolt compatibility meaning you can plug in and play a range of interfaces, keyboards and more. And as we shall see, there are many such devices, and even more apps to run on iPads to make the mobile studio experience just that more, well, pro!

And to clarify, of course Apple’s iPhones also offer the same kind of music making power – the latest iPhone 13 chips are right up there, if not quite at the same level as an M1 – but we are really just talking about the iPad in these