I for one think this idea or a mixed physical and digital distribution model would work. I think I've seen one instance of an open source DAW coming on a boot CD-ROM, to minimize the inconvenience of setting up an OS especially for digital audio production. Or, you could download it and burn it as an ISO file. Digital audio/video people are sometimes totally superstitious about their gear and maintain absolute internet quarantine on their main hardware. Physical distribution for Pandora could have the same rationale: a specialized OS with a full suite of applications or that could serve as the basis of the development of audio applications. The dual SD slots are particularly appropriate for this idea. You could also offer the software as a download purchase, only support a few models of high speed SDHC cards, and distribute the OS.
I think it would depend on what you were offering. People would certainly be interested in getting software on an SD card if they have a reason
1.- to run the software on an especially optimized OS
2.- or to run the software on a supported SDHC card
3.- and/or to use up lots of storage space in the process of using the software (e.g., high quality audio files).
If you could turn out audio software that includes audio recording or multi-track recording, even on a basic level, then it would make a lot of sense to get it on a separate SD card. Especially for the size of the audio files involved. And, performance would benefit from a faster SDHC card as well. Audio plug-in support (VST?) would be great, but maybe too hardware resource intensive?
Even if you stayed in the realm of MIDI, the ability to optimize the OS for audio software with low-latency USB audio I/O and MIDI device drivers, etc. would probably attract a number of people who wouldn't be interested in a gaming device. You could basically be selling the application just for the support you would offer, ease of use, priority of feedback for suggested hardware support, etc.
That would be quite a large project though.
By the way, I just posted a question on the forums earlier, but what is your impression of the capabilities of the Pandora for audio production? A lot of the early software for MIDI was for the Amiga OS. I have Nanoloop 2.0 (
http://www.nanoloop.de/) for the GBA, and while it's excellent, it could really use a touch screen interface. Alternatively, if you wanted to check out the Monome (
http://monome.org/), you might find some interest from their users. I think, given the quality of the DSP, the Pandora could get quite a large draw if it had the abilities to act as a central sequencer/sound generator and to act over wifi as a controller (MIDI or OSC) or sound generator. Some people prefer special purpose hardware for digital audio and video functions. I would love to see something like energyXT (
http://www.energy-xt.com/) on a more basic level on a Pandora.
On the most basic level, the Zoom H4 multitrack recorder (
http://www.samsontech.com/products/prod ... rodID=1901) goes for $250 right now. An application that, along with some universal USB audio i/o driver (similar to ASIO), could do the same thing would be both
1.- worth money
2.- awesome.
Plus there's all those people who do digital video art.
If you think about it, if you could turn the Pandora into a really good dedicated reverb, for instance, the system would be worth as much as really good reverb systems are worth. And then there's this open source guitar stomp box (
http://www.howleraudio.com/index.html). He seems to have something going on there. Maybe the hardware could even be used as a USB audio i/o.
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