With the iPhone 4 sporting a new operating system and Apple’s A4 1Ghz processor (which it shares with the iPad), the question has to be asked; will the iPhone/iPad be fast enough to be a reliable simple synth for live use?

Of course, there is a plethora of synth apps, from Theremins to drum machines, available for the iPhone, and if you just want a common-or-garden General MIDI synth there’s Crimson Tech’s Wavesynth, which is perfectly serviceable.

On course, the only problem has been that while a touchscreen interface is cute, and maybe even useful in a musical situation, it’s not exactly the same as, say, a real music keyboard. That’s where Line 6’s new MIDI Mobilizer comes in. It’s the first MIDI interface for the iPhone. So far, however, it only works with Line6’s own app which essentially allows you to record and play back MIDI data, It can’t really be used to control other apps on the iPhone. Yet.

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the dots are joined and we can start using the iPhone/Touch/iPad as a tiny little synth module, for just dialling in a string pad or whatever. I’m not saying it’ll be any good, but I like the notion of turning up at a gig with just a MIDI controller and an iPhone or iPad. A 1Ghz processor should be plenty to do some reasonably simple sample playback, considering that it wasn’t that long ago that a 1Ghz processor in a desktop was considered state of the art.

Til then, I’m still dragging the laptop around I guess!