1. I Am T-Pain might be an obvious choice for top spot, but it combined technical innovation with stellar sales. Eschewing pure promotion, it let fans sing along with a selection of T-Pain songs while having their vocals Auto-Tuned on the fly. It also had good sharing features, used in-app payments to buy and download new tracks for use in the game, and recently added the ability to sing over any song in your iPhone music library. App Store 2. Little Boots Reactive Remixer was a branded version of existing iPhone app RjDj. Yes, it involved remixing three of Boots’ tracks, but in two cases that was done based on the user’s movement and external sounds – a properly interactive ambient experience. Or something. App Store 3. Hi, How Are You was a beautiful iPhone game based on the artwork of singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston. Described by the New York Times as “a kind of psycho-religious version of Frogger”, it was a great game backed up with Daniel’s visuals and music. App Store 4. Sonifi was one of the most fully featured ‘remix an artist’ apps, being designed by and for trance artist BT. It let fans mess with the beats, bass, melodies and harmonies of his latest tracks. The killer feature, though, was a two-player ‘Jam Link’ mode to collaborate over Bluetooth. App Store 5. Live Metallica (pictured) was an official app from the metal band that constantly offered a free stream of their latest gig, while also letting fans buy (no, NOT from iTunes) previous sets. Photos and notes from each show made it a must-have for fans. App Store 6. iDrum Underworld Edition was another of the best examples of the popular ‘remix your favourite artist’ app genre this year. It offered 13 tracks to mess around with in an intuitive square-tapping interface, with artwork from the band’s design chums at Tomato. App Store 7. Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness was a graphic novel based on The Man In Black’s life. It didn’t include his songs, but had a clever ‘search and insert’ feature to find his tracks on a user’s iPhone to play at the relevant points of the story. App Store 8. nin: access was the official iPhone app for Nine Inch Nails – one of the more tech-savvy artists in the industry right now. It gives fans access to the community and multimedia sections of the band’s website, as well as letting them chat and upload photos from their iPhone. App Store 9. The Presidents of the United States of America was an app by the band of the same name, offering four albums from their back catalogue as streams, as well as lost recordings, live tracks and other extras. App Store 10. Lady Gaga iOKi (pictured) was a karaoke app based on La Gaga, with instrumental and vocal remixes from four of her hits enabling people to sing along with her, then go it alone. In-app payments allowed new songs to be purchased and downloaded too, from Gaga and other artists. App Store see the rest here

> Have a great holiday and all the best for the new year! ~shootlife fam

When the weather outside is frightful and you dont have a fireplace, make hot chocolate! While it's certainly not the healthiest of drinks, nothing beats a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day. Now you can make café style chocolate with the push of button with the Bialetti Hot Chocolate Maker ($100). From the builders of renowned expresso and cappuccino machines, this nifty gadget has you add milk and shaved chocolate, then lets you sit back and watch as it's heated, frothed, and blended into a smooth, hot drink.

The North Face E-Tip Gloves ($40) “At first blush, these gloves’ futuristic design looks more suited for a gamer. The tip of the index finger and thumb are covered with so-called X-static fabric, which contains a layer of silver. Though the action was slightly more awkward than a human touch for the screen and slide wheel, we found these gloves the easiest to use among the ones we tested that still left our hands covered.” buy here

SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR LAPTOP USERS A clutter free working environment while still connected to all your peripherals. All peripherals and excess cables are hidden just under the sliding desktop surface. The storage compartment is therefore conveniently accessed from above. An elongated slot across the width of the desktop allows the necessary peripheral & power cables to enter/exit at any point, thereby keeping the desktop clear of clutter. Retailing at $600, BlueLounge offers a quality line of simple solutions for electronics and computers. Check it out here