Hi Don, you may or may not know of the many great Ipad ios music apps out there.(Others may not either, I don't know)
And I'm not just talking lyric/pdf apps. Check out some of these great synth apps. Morphwiz and samplewiz, made with Jorden Rudess's (of Dream Theater fame) input.
I personally love the Magellan synth to the point of buying an M-Audio midi keyboard controller to use with it. Check it out on Youtube. For a measley few bucks an awesome synth to use on your tablet. there are more tutorials for Magellan. It is a very deep synth app with numerous great features. Research.

Android is not capable of these type apps because of the latency issues Android has.
I strongly resisted making this kind of info public here, rather keeping it myself, b BUT I have received SO much help here and from other forums, so I decided to go ahead and share. Many of you could give a rats ass about any of this anyways. And thats ok. Me, I love having more tools for music, that, and I perform with a band and not as a one-man-band atm. So I may have more use for these kind of apps.

Yep, nailed it in one!! I would love to be able to run and play around with all the synth and drum machine options available on the iPad (and a few on the Android system, although Android needs a lot of work in this area imo)...but as you said, ONLY if I was playing keys in a band situation

Don I am with you...maybe not a love affair...laptop is still a no brainer..better device....for me..

I went with the "android", because it offered me more important features not possible from Apple.....like 250g storage...besides the "hype" turns me off(Apple)...If ipad works for you guys ..be happy..

My Toshiba 11.3 is still my best option....and as for typing, I am worst than UD...I need the real keybed...


On the other side I have the new Razr phone from Motorola....it is working out great....love just saying what I need to type...and everybody can enjoy their text life....and with "icecream sandwich" how could I go wrong..

Doesn't UnRealBook do mp3's and charts at the same time?

Yes, but I don't use MP3's much - mostly my own two or three part midis...simply because I get a bit tired of the same arrangements and sounds over time, and mp3's are such a pita to change! And vA recognises midi markers - up to 12 I think!! And I know Diki, that you and I are on the same page as far as markers go!!

SMF's I can change on a whim even at the gig!!

I have been in private discussions with several developers of chart reading apps to fully develop the midi potential, so they are looking at it.

Whilst core midi is in iOS, it is the clocking aspects of transmission and running as a background app that they have difficulty with apparently. Getting the midi file to playback and transmit to external gear, at the SAME time as the chart is displayed.

This works fine with the iPad music player playing audio files, as the music player can even be used when the screen is closed. Part of the core iOS system and specifically designed TO be run in the background if necessary.

But using a sequencer to send externally, requires full "focus" so the developer somehow needs to find a way to have it run in the background, while a user is reading the chart.

And the app developers who own the midi sequencing apps want WAY to many $'s to licence out the to chart reader app developers...

Plus there have been a few app developers who have even said "....midi, what's midi?" they know ALL about audio and mp3's and the like, but midi? Nope!

Dennis