iPhone development team Hige Five (of which CM contributor David Newman is a member) have just released Aura, an ambient music generator for iPhone/iPod Touch. Inhabiting the same conceptual space as Bloom and SynthPond, Aura gives you four pad sounds and four melodic instruments to play with, all controlled via a beautifully designed interface that strikes a good balance between functionality and aesthetics. There's also a 'listen' mode to turn to when all that screen tapping feels like too much effort, in which the software generates random ambiences under its own steam, with no user input required.

At only 99c/59p, Aura certainly gets the CM seal of approval – it's fun to use, satisfyingly creative and sounds great. Check it out in the video here, and get it on the App Store here.