Music Ally

We’ve written a fair bit about promotional music apps on iPhone for artists like Pink, Snow Patrol, Lady GaGa and Soulja Boy. But what about iPhone apps that let you create music of your own? There are hundreds available, and as yesterday’s viral video from UK band The Mentalists showed, they can be put to innovative use.

We’ve put together ten of our favourites, based on our last few months of messing about on iPhone. They’re not all serious (Bebot – Robot Synth is marvellously silly), but they do hint at the potential for Apple’s handset as a music-making device. Each one comes with a YouTube video demo so you can see what we’re on about. Well, nearly each one.

1. technoBox (£5.99). It’s a 303 bass machine plus 808 and 909 drum machines in one app, with a tactile touch interface. As a technical achievement it’s hugely impressive, although if we’re honest, the appeal for us is simply blasting out squiggly acid bloops. Get it

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Forget the official UK charts app. Forget Titus Andronicus’ Loadin’ game. Forget Pink, Snow Patrol or Shazam. The best musical iPhone app in the world is called Bebot – Robot Synth, and the Music Ally office has just been brought to an open-jawed standstill by the sounds it’s making.

Watch the demo above – basically, it’s a little cartoon robot, and you swipe up to three fingers on the screen to create crazy synth noises, while tweaking various settings to make them sound even more crazy. And the robot looks like he’s making the noises. If you own an iPhone and have £1.19 spare, buy it now. Trust us, it’s great. Especially as it can be used on top of playing whatever music’s stored on your iPhone.

Daft Punk or Justice should so pay the developer to make them a branded version…