So the iPhone's got a pretty big screen, right? Bigger than most phones anyway. But when trying to get it to be a playable musical instrument you're going to want more real estate - 3.6" just isn't enough. Yet, curiously, MiniPiano does a rather fabulous job at doing what it claims to do by keeping things simple and by doing one thing really, really well. It's responsive, sounds fabulous on headphones and, despite only really being an iPhone application, reeks of a quality instrument.

By far the biggest limitation is that we're just talking about one octave here, i.e. 13 notes (12 plus a duplicated 'C'), so despite the multi-touch support you obviously can't play a proper piano piece. But you can try out melodies, you can try out new chords and harmonies, you can try out rhythms and patterns and, most importantly, you can feel extremely stylish while you do it.

With the black of the iPhone fascia, the black of the MiniPiano 'frame', plus the light 'reflecting' off the black notes on the piano, with the latter altering realistically as the note gets pushed 'down', allied to the very realistic piano note sampling, and microsecond-perfect response times, even when many notes are pressed at the same time, we're talking a quality musical experience here.

There are no gimmicks, no extra settings, nothing to ruin the simplicity of the instrument and, while at the same time secretly wishing for a simple recording facility, you can't help but respect the developer's vision here. And, hey, it's free - a must have for stylish musical doodlers everywhere.