Description
Music magazine from Roland and Boss - two of the world's leading brands of musical instruments and music production gear.
What's New in Version 1.1
Faster download speed
iPad Screenshots
Customer Reviews
How iPad magazines should be done
I used to get PowerOn in print when there was a Roland Planet near work, but never had much success getting them by post after that shut down. So it was great to see I could download an iPad version.
It's a huge download (269meg) so it took a minute or three but I had something else to do while it got on with that, and it was worth the wait.
All the usual kind of content PowerOn was good at. Of course, it's a Roland shop window but it also includes short articles of a more general nature. This issue, for example, includes a piece (all too brief!) on Neil's Peart's use of Roland gear, as well as something on making sense of the recording maze. I was particularly impressed by the proper 'further reading' list on the Smart Music article - some great resources to follow up on.
One possible addition/improvement, might be to include, for example, tutorials on getting the most out of advanced features of the TD-20 brain, or navigating the (difficult) interface of the Micro-BR. The manuals show you the absolute basics but not examples or why you'd want to do some things.
What's great, however, and makes the most of the electronic nature of the periodical is the ability to listen to examples of the products Roland is selling and see videos - sales, performances and 'fun'. Even gadgets and gear I wasn't that interested in came 'alive' as I listened to them - so as a promo for Roland it definitely hooked me! Throughout the issue there are also other things to look out for as extras which you couldn't do in print - pull out side bars, buttons and so on - which make you want to explore further.
Navigating around the many pages is simplicity itself and pretty intuitive. I did expect to tap on the contents page items and go to that page but instead you use a nifty slider which does the trick just as well.
One of my old issues is autographed by a drummer I met at a Planet - not sure how that will work with an iPad edition and not sure how I will save an article of interest for future reference, but as a demo of how iPad magazines can work, and as a way of checking out the latest Roland gear, this is great. I look forward already to the next issue and will while away far too much time browsing through this and drooling over lots of cool tech displayed to great advantage by the iPad. Well done editor Martyn Hopkins on the excellent execution.
Great use of the iPad for a magazine
This is exactly how magazines should be on the iPad. A decent Internet connection and the size of the file is no problem. Even though it's a promotional mag it's great for free.
Slick as you like.
- Free
- Category: Music
- Updated: 07 December 2011
- Version: 1.1
- Size: 4.3 MB
- Language: English
- Developer: Roland UK Ltd
- © Roland UK 2011
Requirements: Compatible with iPad.Requires iOS 3.2 or later.
