I guess NaNoWriMo has officially started! And … I don’t care. I’ve once again changed my mind, and will probably not participate this year. I have a bunch of other stuff I want to do, including finishing my album that I’ve been working on for over a year now. I’m still about 10 minutes of music away from completing the thing. I’m currently working on the last section of an unnamed orchestral piece. I’m orchestrating / composing the climax and end, so it’s almost done. Then I have four other pieces started that need finishing, though I don’t believe all of them will make it onto the album. One will probably be called “The Journey Ahead” and I am fairly sure that it will indeed appear on the album as I think it really fits with the spirit of the other pieces. And one will probably be called “Castle Sky” … that’s my long 15-minute orchestral piece (and still unfinished, but I don’t think it will be much longer).
Oh, I started a new project, one that I know I’ll finish eventually because it requires hardly any work at all from me. I call it: The Mozart Listening Project. The objective: to listen to the complete works of Mozart while following along with the scores. As you can see on the side, I made a page about it. Because it is just so important. I just started working through his symphonies. Got a long way to go.
Lastly, I was chatting on a music forum on Friday, and someone mentioned the new Verizon phone coming out called Droid, which will compete with the iPhone (though, of course, that’s some very tough competition). Looking at the Droid rekindled my interest in creating an app. It was something I looked into in college, when Google’s Android OS first came out, but somehow lost interest. (And as far as I can tell, one must have a Mac to use the iPhone SDK, so I don’t think I’ll be trying to develop for the iPhone anytime soon … though, from a business perspective, that’s currently where most of the phone app market is, methinks.)
Anyway, I’m downloading the newest Android SDK and will perhaps try creating something with it. Having long been interested in game development, two things excite me about the phone app market: 1) It’s rather new, and is still at a stage where a single developer can develop a sellable app by himself. In most of the video game industry (except perhaps online Flash games), those days are long gone, never to return. And perhaps one day the phone app industry will be like that too, but it isn’t now. And 2) it can be very lucrative. Actually, I’m not sure how lucrative it is. I’ve heard that some iPhone apps are making millions. But that’s only a very select few out of tens of thousands, so I suppose it’s like saying that the music industry can be very lucrative. Well, yes, it can be, but only few a very select few. Still, I’m guessing the phone app industry is more lucrative than the indie artist industry. Unfortunately, I’m sure it’s even less lucrative for non-iPhone developers at this time, but who know? With Google’s more open platform, Android or some similar OS might come to dominate the phone industry, just like Windows now dominate Macs, despite Apple’s oh-so-witty ads. In fact, I predict that will happen in the next decade or so … Apple may still dominate the iTunes / iPod industry, but the iPhone might meet its demise with a collection of other phones that run the same OS and are thus compatible with the same programs…
And… I guess that’s all I have to say.
3 Comments
W. William Wobbler · November 1, 2009 at 3:53 PM
“but only few a very select few”
You’re stupid.
Don · November 2, 2009 at 10:56 AM
“but only few a very select few”
this is probably a good pin point responce if you consider the point of veiw. You have to take a look at how many artists out there are producing how every many songs and then the fraction of those that are lucky to make it to the listener and the lower fraction of that which make a profit.
S P Hannifin · November 3, 2009 at 4:24 AM
ah, yes, typo, should be “but only for a very select few”
Anyway, I’ve heard developing apps for the iPhone described as a “gold rush” and perhaps it will become like that for Android as well (perhaps it already is in some respects). Because a single programmer can access and work with the Android SDK, it will probably become (if it’s not somewhat already) over-saturated with competition, just as the music indie band market is.