This week I’ve given our picks a creative vibe, selecting four different apps that let you engage with your artistic and cultural side. My top pick for the week is Xewton Music Studio, plus I’ve been looking at Snapture, GraffitiGeo and McSweeney’s.

Xewton Music Studio ($19.99)

Armed with an iPhone, there’s never been so much choice for making music on the move. Despite all the choice, the recording app I keep coming back to is FourTrack. It’s a fully-featured 4 track recorder, complete with bouncing, panning, metronome and Wi-Fi sharing.

When it comes to full on audio sequencing and sketching out bigger ideas, I head for Intua’s BeatMaker. The app costs twenty bucks, but for producers it’s definitely worth it: this is about as close to Ableton Live as you’ll get on your iPhone.

Now it looks like I might be adding Xewton Music Studio to my iPhone audio app lineup. Rather than put the focus on electronica, like Beatmaker, Music Studio is essentially a sequencer designed with traditional composers and songwriters in mind.

Xewton Music Studio includes 21 instruments, a 128-track sequencer, piano-roll note editor, real-time effects and lots more. Although the app may well take some time to learn, it’s powerful enough to potentially become a useful composition tool for many musicians.

Snapture ($1.99)

With Flickr, QuadCamera and PhotoForge handling all of the photo processing on my iPhone, I wasn’t sure if there was room for another camera app. Arriving at the App Store by way of Cydia, Snapture is a very tempting and feature-packed photo processing tool. Tempting as it is for my 3GS, this recommendation is for 3G users only.

The app rolls in a raft of useful functions, such as High Speed Multishot and Level Aid. Plus, once you’ve taken your photos, you can stay within the app to browse and manage your library.

It’s worth noting that the app currently doesn’t make use of the 3GS iPhone’s tap-to-focus functionality. While Snapture works well enough on Apple’s latest device, I would urge 3GS owners to hold out until the app integrates this much requested feature.

GraffitiGeo (Free)

Last Summer I signed a two-year contract with Sonera and received a white iPhone 3G. After arriving home and spending far too long trying to decide if I should film the unboxing (I didn’t), I tore away the packing, activated my iPhone and headed for the App Store.

One of the first apps that I downloaded was Graffitio, an old-school bulletin board that included geo-location support. After tagging various locations and adding a few messages, I got a little bored. The app’s long lists of tiny text felt too plain for my iPhone.

Released this Summer, GraffitiGeo takes the location tagging concept even further. The app feels like a fun version of Dopplr — as a tool, GraffitiGeo is useful for finding food, events and places of interest. And it’s surprisingly compelling as a toy too, as you’re able to form gangs and earn achievements. Definitely one to check out for iPhone owners in big cities.

McSweeney’s (99 cents)

McSweeney’s has always been a reliable destination for deliciously absurd, charming, silly, classy and fun literary offerings. While there are longer pieces to delve into, my favorite is a very short piece by Mike Ward called, E-mail Addresses It Would Be Really Annoying To Give Out Over The Phone.

Regular readers of McSweeney’s monochromatic online offering will be used to getting their fix for free. Although the iPhone app isn’t free, it includes access to a weekly fix of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

The most promising aspect of McSweeney’s iPhone app is that it includes a six month subscription to the Small Chair. Every single week for the next six months you’ll receive scrummy multimedia blips — songs, videos, stories and such — from clever creative folk like Spike Jonze, Chris Ware and Jonathan Ames.

That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with a fresh selection of App Store recommendations.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

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The infamous color picker is present among many of the built-in OS X applications and is quite a powerful tool once you dig into it. With the ability to store your favorite colors in “wells” and use them between applications, the color picker can quickly become an indispensable tool in your daily workflow. Here’s some tips and plugins to supercharge the color picker.

Color Picker Basics

Not all applications support the OS X color picker, but to see if one does, look in Format, View, or Window menus for an entry called “Show Colors.” The color picker is not just limited to the Apple-developed applications, as third-party apps such as Coda, Billings, Daylite and others also include support.

The color picker features “tabs” across the top dividing it into the standard color wheel, color sliders (allowing to you fine tune a color by RGB, HSB, CMYK, or Grayscale sliders), color palettes, image palettes and crayons.

You can pick custom colors by tweaking them in the color picker, or by using the magnifying glass to “pluck” a color from anywhere in the system.

To apply a color, simply highlight text and click the color you want. Or drag the color onto an object.

As mentioned earlier, you can organize your favorite colors by dragging them into one of the wells at the bottom of the picker. If the default amount is not enough, simply click the dot and drag down to allow for a total of 250 places to store your color swatches.

Add Some Kuler

Users of Adobe’s Kuler service are quick to tote how great it is to be exposed to a wide array of beautiful color schemes shared among the Adobe community.

Using a free plugin called Mondrianum by Lithoglyph, users can now add Kuler integration to the standard OS X color picker. With quick access to search color schemes by keyword, browse them via Cover Flow, or quickly set them as your desktop background, Mondrianum is a great tool to add to your color picker.

Want a True Artist’s Approach?

With Painter’s Picker ($19.95, with a demo version here), you can add an artist’s color wheel to the color picker, giving you the ability to quickly choose complementary colors, analogous colors, and the like. More advanced options allow for precision modification of the brightness, saturation and more. As someone who moves between different types of media (web to print), I enjoy the ability to see the nearest CYMK colors and nearest web safe colors when working on projects.

What the Hex?

Developers out there will love the “Developer Color Picker,” a free plugin from Panic that quickly allows users to convert selected colors to NSColor, UIColor, CGColorRef, HTML or CSS declarations. The plugin itself is very barebones in style, but is priceless in terms of functionality.

Shades, Schemes and More

Shades ($18 from Chromatic Bytes) is another great plugin for the standard color picker, allowing users to quickly see related color shades. In the words of Chromatic Bytes, “you choose a center color, a step size and a color coordinate to hold constant. Shades then draws a grid of related colors.” This gives you something more akin to traditional paint chips and is useful for finding similar colors.

Another great application for creating and managing color schemes is Color Schemer Studio. While it does not run as a plugin to the OS X color picker, it is a very powerful standalone tool and a great compliment to some of these other plugins. A great feature of this application that really stands out is its ability to extract a simplified color palette from a photo. That’s just the tip of the iceberg and for more details, read our review of Color Schemer Studio here. This application is $49 and more information (including a demo version) is available from its website.

Color Pickers Everywhere

Most modern OS X applications support the color picker, but for those applications who are in the dark, you can use a little AppleScript trick to run the Color Picker as its own application.

Open up the AppleScript Editor (inside the Applications → Utilities folder) and type in the following code:

choose color

Then save this as an application. Now when you run it, your traditional OS X color picker will appear. Drag and drop colors around to your heart’s content!

If you have any other tips or tricks to share about the color picker, I’d love to hear them!

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And it’s running Android.

In short, it’s a mobile device that beats the pants off the iPod touch — in hard, cold specs, at the very least. The Egg is built using the new wave of multimedia hardware and software from ZiiLABS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology. Here’s the blurb from the official website.

“The Zii EGG is an energy efficient handheld StemCell Computer based on the powerful ZiiLABS ZMS-05 media-rich applications processor. Besides its multi-touch 3.5-inch LCD screen, it can also output HD video at up to 1080p. The ZMS-05’s 24 floating-point processors deliver up to 8 GFLOPS of raw processing power, while the StemCell Computing’s flexible architecture allows stunning display of 3D graphics on a small handheld battery powered device.”

Although the Egg isn’t a mobile phone, it soon could be. ZiiLABS is allowing third parties to develop for and re-brand the device. The only thing stopping this from being a mobile phone is a cellular transceiver, and they’re not so hard to find. And because it already runs Google’s Android operating system, it won’t take a lot of software jiggery-pokery to get the thing making calls.

Even without cellphone functionality, the current specs of the Zii Egg put the iPod touch to shame. And with the Zii Plaszma and Android platforms as a foundation (both of which are open-source and free, therefore very attractive to OEM’s in today’s economic climate) the Egg promises real future innovation and creativity in a market that has, since 2007, only been playing catch-up with Apple. Using the Egg, Apple’s competitors might get their 15 minutes of fame. Remember, this is a first-generation release that already boasts more bells and whistles than any of the top devices already available on the market. OEM’s have a great starting-point, and they didn’t have to do any of that pesky, expensive R&D work to get to it.

Although you can’t buy it in the shops, it is available to developers and OEM’s as part of a pre-order kit for a paltry $399. For a device that truly comes close to the iPhone in size, style, function and development promise, this may be the first to truly deserve the title “iPhone Killer.”

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Today, Apple released a huge update for its Pro series of audio/video editing applications, including both the Final Cut and Logic Studio suites of applications. People (and businesses) who need the extra muscle of Pro applications (as compared with the iLife suite, for example) will be happy to note that with this latest update, Apple has dropped the price for Final Cut Studio by a very respectable $300, from $1,299 to $999 for the full studio package, or $299 for existing users to upgrade.

Final Cut Studio

Final Cut Studio includes Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, Color 1.5, Compressor 3.5 and DVD Studio Pro 4. While all of the applications included in the suite received an upgrade, Final Cut Pro bears the most significant changes over its previous iteration.

New features include iChat Theater support, so that you can actually edit collaboratively in real-time while working remotely. It’s a great way for Apple to leverage existing tools in an innovative way to provide a truly useful function for people editing media, since collaborators don’t even need to have Final Cut installed. There are also new Change Speed and Share windows, which give you better control over video speed changes and the ability to preview your content when exporting for web, Blu-ray or Apple devices.

There are also new and improved versions of Apple’s ProRes codec. ProRes 422 (Proxy) helps with offline editing; ProRes 422 (LT) provides broadcast quality at reduced sizes; and ProRes 4444 gives you the highest quality possible for editing.

Motion 4 now allows you to add light sources to cast reflections and shadows on any surface, and offers new text, tilting, and depth of field tools. Color 1.5 should now work with a wider range of effects, and includes native support for RED ONE camera files. Compressor 3.5 now has Job Action features to make it easier to export to open and export a file to various destinations and work with Automator workflows. Finally, Soundtrack Pro 3 brings new tools like Advanced Time Stretch which boasts all-new audio stretch and compress algorithms, and Voice Level Match, which matches volume from the vocals of one clip to another.

Logic Studio

Logic Studio comes in at a respectable $499, and includes both Soundtrack Pro 3 and Compressor 3.5, mentioned above, in addition to Logic Pro 9, MainStage 2, and WaveBurner 1.6. It also ships with all six Apple Jam Pack loop sets and tons of bundled plug-ins, instruments and effects. Current Logic Studio or Logic Pro users can upgrade for $199, while those with Logic Express will have to pay a heftier $299.

Logic Studio brings a lot of new stuff to the table, with over 200 new features. Some highlights include the new Amp Designer amp modeling software, which comes with 25 amps, 25 cabinets, and three mics to allow users to customize the sound of their guitar tone, which was lacking in Guitar Amp Pro, their previous modeling software. Pedalboard works with Amp Designer to bring 30 stompbox effects, which can be arranged on a virtual pedalboard.

Flex Time, a new feature for Logic Pro, allows you to manipulate timing so that if one of your tracks (or part of the track) is slightly off with the others, it’s much easier to drag the affected area to try to correct the timing, and Logic Pro will compress or expand the areas nearby to accommodate the change.

Early impressions from Apple Pro users at Macworld and CNET seem to indicate that many of the changes introduced with the new versions make working with audio and video significantly easier than in previous installments. Apple really has put the focus squarely on usability improvements this time around, and it shows. Both suites are available immediately from Apple’s web site.

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Like the X-Fi (xtreme fidelity, in case you were wondering) external audio card whose technology it uses, the Sound Blaster for iTunes is an external, USB peripheral. It’s main purpose is to enhance the quality of your iTunes music library, and anything else you may use iTunes for, including internet radio streams and movie audio. Curiously, it also claims to improve the quality of things like Pandora, and basically any sound your computer makes, so I’m not entirely sure what the difference is between this and, say, the X-Fi Go.

Upon closer inspection, the Sound Blaster for iTunes does boast the somewhat ambiguous quality of “enabl[ing] you to use the iTunes interface.” Also, it works as a transmitter for Sound Blaster’s wireless stereo system components, including regular speakers connected to their Creative Wireless Receivers, and directly to the Creative T20W Series II speakers, which have a receiver built in. I actually have a pair of the Creative T20 Series II speakers (the non-wireless ones), and I’m more than happy with them, so the prospect of wireless ones is intriguing.

When it’s released later this year (target is Spring 2008), Sound Blaster for iTunes will retail for $99.99. Considering the Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook is the only current option for laptops that comes with the wireless transmitter built in, and requires an ExpressCard slot, all for $89.99, it’s not too bad a price.

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Seemingly not content with having fathered an entire musical genre, pioneered generative music, produced U2′s Where The Streets Have No Name, collaborated with Bowie and generally rubbed-shoulders with a raft of modern music legends, Brian Eno has now released his first iPhone app dubbed Bloom ($3.99).

Developed by Peter Chilvers, in collaboration with Eno, the app is described as, “Part instrument, part composition and part artwork…” The idea is that anybody can play with Bloom and coax gentle melodies and ambient soundscapes out of their iPhone.  Having downloaded the app, plugged a pair of speakers in to my iPhone and cranked up the volume, it took only a few moments to compose an authentic ambient piece that sounded like a convincing out-take from Eno’s Music for Airports.  It works and it is a joy to toy with.

Being a sound-based app, the screenshots on the store do it absolutely no justice, Bloom ends up looking somewhat staid.  It’s in hearing Bloom and experiencing the ambience that it creates, that you truly understand how magical it is.  According to the App Store product page, “… Bloom’s innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen.”  Setting aside the marketing spiel, Bloom is utterly unique — a truly enchanting experience, like nothing else I have experienced on the iPhone, this is an app that will make you smile.

Those familiar with Eno will have seen this app coming a mile off — he’s always been keen to exploit the latest technologies and platforms for his artworks, all the way back to creating Mac-compatible Media Art distributed on CD-ROMs. These days there are several Eno-inspired tools and toys available on Apple platforms.

Arty folk with a bit of a creative block may want to check out Oblique Strategies. Originally developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt as a deck of cards, each card features obtuse, odd and frequently stimulating tidbits of advice to re-energise the flow of creative juices; favorites include, “Not building a wall, making a brick,” and, “Move towards the unimportant.” The virtual Oblique Strategies decks are available both in widget flavor and iPhone/touch app flavor, for free.

Back on the desktop, TAB readers inspired by the ambient experiences offered in Bloom should investigate the joys of generative music a little further. For his seminal ambient album Generative Music 1, Eno made use of a piece of software called Koan to generate the album. With Koan, you’re able to feed the software a few basic variables and values and it’ll pumps out a piece of unique music at the other end.  The software has long since evolved and is now superseded by Noatikl, available for OS X.

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Many people have done some very creative things with the Mac minis, and while I don’t have any sales numbers from Apple, it is possible that all these creative minds have helped Apple decide to keep this machine on. After all, we know what happens when you see that prominent Apple logo on the top of the Mac mini.

For instance, Peter Green made a Mac Mini Laptop. Not quite as svelte as the MacBook Air, but you can’t hate a man for trying.

Someone made a Mac mini robot, with a now-extinct iSight.

If you got really crazy, you could make it a toilet paper dispenser (what?):

In addition, Macminicolo.net is there to provide you with a place to store your Mac mini as a server. They are running a contest to give away a year of colocating and a Macbook air. [Full disclosure: I entered the contest, and I really hope they pick me as the winner!]

Matt Burriola even installed his Mac mini in his Mazda 3. It sits over in the glovebox and is controlled by a 7″ Xenarc touch screen. Adding it to your car is not for the newbie; it takes a lot of time and know-how to be able to do that.

My personal favorite is the Mac mini Millennium Falcon. Derrick Hixson took the shell off the mini and put innards inside a toy replica of the Millennium Falcon. Then he added an iSight in the turret as well.

What other creative uses have you seen for the Mac mini? Sound off in the comments.

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