Input - the App that never happened

Posted by DarrellPringle on April 20, 2012 09:20 am 3

INTRODUCTION

I thought I’d take the time to post a little overview of an App project I was working on (back in 2010) after spotting a similar app featured on Engadget yesterday. This project took up a few months of my life so I thought I’d share it - it’s a shame just to bury it in an archive somewhere!

THE PITCH

The app I conceptualized was called ‘Input’. I studied Film & Video Production at college and used a variety of jog wheels, controllers, color coded keyboards and mixers as Input devices for editing so I thought why not recreate them digitally. You’d have a versatile input tool that morphs to support the Mac app you’re currently using.

iOS was actually designed with this concept in mind as Apple shunned the idea of fixed keyboards and claimed it was much smarter to allow the input device to change based upon your current task + you can add keys in software updates.

So my idea was to take that concept & run with it. You’d lay the iPad down in landscape mode and a receiver app installed on the Mac side would communicate which app is currently in focus on the Mac and the iPad would then present a series of inputs designed especially for that Mac app.

Input could morph in to a Mixer, Launcher, Instrument, Keyboard, Trackpad, GesturePad, Remote Control, Games Controller & much more..

SCREENSHOTS

Here are some screenshots from the original PDF pitch document along with a couple of other mockups.

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OUTRO

The truth is I’m a concepts guy (I have zero knowledge of programming and I’m not really a designer although I think I have a keen eye for design so I try to work with that). I worked on this project with some really nice people in the USA who are REALLY good programmers but they were just too busy to help make this project a reality.
Does anyone here think the concept of ‘Input’ is a good one? Is it still relevant? Would you use it? I still really like it and I hope to see someone bring this to life one day soon.