14 Predictions for 2014: 2 - There will be hardware ...

The second of my predictions for 2014 is around hardware. This time not really about iOS or even Android but around more experimental hardware, or rather hardware that encourages experimentation.

The reason for this is simple. In 2013 we saw a lot of this kind of hardware, some from successful kickstarter campaigns and others from well known manufacturers. In 2013 these are the hardware projects we saw:

• The Touchboard. Which was a very successful kickstarter campaign and came from an already established startup called Bare conductive.
• Patchblocks. Another successful kickstarter which will bring a sort of modular hardware with a software component that isn't unlike puredata.
• Bastl Trinity. Another modular development that looks and sounds very interesting.
• Korg's littlebits synth kit. This came as a surprise, but then most things from Korg do. Their synth kit has already been very popular and I think we'll see this develop and expand.

All of the above have been very popular and encouraged a lot of interest from more than just the traditional music tech sites. It's because of this I think we'll see more and more of these kind of experimental hardware platforms.

Where I think things will get even more interesting is where we see these hardware platforms integrate themselves into the mobile OS world. I'd really like to see that happen.