The design is consistent with the iPad's idea of portability. Synth's on-screen keyboard lets you use two octaves at a time, which is a reasonable amount of keys for some riff work. (With the type of music that goes on the radio nowadays, I would be very surprised if more than one octave was even needed. I kid, of course.) Also, since Synth has five-note polyphony you will be able to do chording work as well.

Let's get back to Synth's ability to record samples. I love this idea. This makes absolute sense for on-the-go music production, as well as in-house/studio creation. For those on the go, sometimes you just hear things that inspire you and you want to capture them right away. Or you might also just want more than the 40 instruments included with the program.

Synth's best feature may be its ability to record directly to Garageband or Logic. The developers have told us that you should be able to connect an auxiliary cable going from the headphone jack of the iPad and into anything like a line-in on a MacBook Pro. Moreover, the developers have told us that the iPad's audio output port can easily be connected to mixers and other musical equipment. We didn't have the required equipment on hand to play with this, so I'll leave it up to you to try it and report back!

Not bad for $1, right?