11/27/2008 - SMule: Ocarina for iPhone

One of the annoying things about owning an iPod Touch instead of an iPhone is that I can't use any of the applications that require a microphone for input. For example, the latest version of the Google application uses voice recognition to decipher what you are searching for but just speaking your query. Also, I would love to try out those apps that recognize any song you're feeding into the microphone. But this app might just trump them all.

The ocarina may not be the most popular wind instrument in the world, but it has gained fame amongst gamers for being the title instrument in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the game, Link uses the Ocarina to cast spells that range from teleportation to changing the weather to time travel. As the game exploded in popularity, so did the ocarina. I remember them selling ocarinas within the pages of Nintendo Power.

It took some real ingenuity to design an application for the iPhone that mimics the functionality of the ocarina. This can only be done because the microphone can pick up sounds such as blowing, and because the screen is multitouch. Of course if you are going to demonstrate an ocarina application, you must play a Legend of Zelda song: