Seen here is the Nota piano training app for the iPad, with a scale inset of the same app for the iPhone. The iPad's larger screen offers practical enhancements such as life-size keys, a two-octave keyboard, and the possibility of two-hand use. (Click image for full-size.)
Of all the questions surrounding Apple's forthcoming iPad tablet, the one I find the hardest to answer is, "What can it do that my laptop and smartphone don't already deliver?"
The question is tough to answer for two reasons. For one, until we see how developers are able to tailor their apps, we really can't say to what degree the iPad experience is going to differ from the iPhone or iPod Touch. More importantly, but harder to communicate, is how much the iPad's 9.7-inch touch screen fundamentally changes the nature of how we interact with it, compared with a 3.5-inch iPhone, or an unresponsive laptop screen.
Nota app for iPad (photos)
Nota is a piano training app available for the iPhone and iPod Touch; an iPad app is forthcoming. The company has shared these images of the iPad version with CNET.
In this image, you can see Nota's chord browser makes it easy to find a chord and play it on any key or invert it.
An interactive notes quiz allows beginners to quickly correlate the keyboard with written notation.
For beginners, Nota's slick interface makes it a joy to learn music. It covers the basics of music notation with a four-octave piano that displays the notes on a staff.
Nota's reference section includes a comprehensive reference of music notation displayed in a book-like format.
To demonstrate the practical effect of the iPad's large screen size, we've inset a screenshot of the Nota iPhone app at scale size. By contrast, the iPad's piano keyboard is nearly life-size, and allows for two hands; the iPhone version features toy-size keys and is only practical for one hand.
We've already glimpsed how one app developer was able to graduate his miniature DJ turntable iPhone app into a realistic, life-size audio mixer for the iPad. In a similar example, app developer Melvin Rivera shares a handful of final screenshots of his piano training app Nota, reconfigured for the iPad.
Arguably, piano and DJ apps aren't likely to be primary uses for the iPad, but both of these early examples illustrate how a change in screen size means much more than larger images. In both examples, I would make the case that the difference between the original iPhone app and its iPad counterpart is a difference between novelty and practicality.
Nota's developer Melvin Rivera had this to say about his experience programming for the iPad:
Of course, piano and DJ apps are both examples of apps trying to graphically represent and replace actual objects in the real world. It makes sense that larger screens do a better job representing life-size objects. Whether the iPad will do a better job than the iPhone when it comes to representing abstract data (your tweets, Facebook account, Internet radio stations) remains to be seen. Some apps will just be more practical on the small screen--or more specifically, on a small device. Yelp for iPad could be amazing, but it's the kind of app you want in your pocket, not on your coffee table.
