APP OF THE DAY: Swarovski Refract lets you play with lights, sounds and colours

I’m sometimes a little sceptical when big brands launch apps, assuming they’ll be a bit weak and act like interactive ads instead of entertaining us or giving us something useful.

Although Swarovski’s latest application, Swarovski Refract, isn’t going to change the world, it’s a pretty, interesting and fairly addictive application that works well on the iPhone, but looks even better on the iPad.

You basically have to create a triangle with three sparkling points on the screen then move them around, resize them and add more to change the sounds and colours. Yes it all sounds a bit abstract and weird, but give it a go yourself and you’ll be drawing fake little crystals all evening.

The app has a cool story behind it too, as it’s the creation of one of Creative Review’s one to watch for 2011, digital and human interaction specialist Marek Bereza and musician BobbyKrlic. So it looks good, sounds good and a lot of thought has clearly been put into how the audio and the visual elements will work together to create a lovely piece of art, which also happens to look a bit like Swarovski crystals.

Available from iTunes for Free.