Fancy creating an interactive magazine or eBook quickly on your iPad complete and ready for publishing - no computer required? Then Deezine may be the app for you.

No, this is not as comprehensive as iBooks Author on the Mac, but Deezine does look like a good choice for those wanting to create interactive, fairly good looking content (e.g. articles, magazines, portfolios, small eBooks, product brochures or even class assignments) on-the-go with their iPad. Nothing else needed (except the free Deezine Reader app for iPad)

Check out Mark Wallace from Adorama's video review below.

Appstore Link: Deezine ($3.99 / £2.49)

Whilst we have a lot of great museums and display spaces here in the UK, we know that there is a whole world of Art installations and collections that we will never see.  The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) for example have one of the worlds best collections of French Impressionist paintings apparently and this collection is showcased in the AIC's first app French Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The app is interesting because, as well as being a virtual tour of the collection (not all of which is viewable at any one time in the Institute itself) there are additional features that visitors to the Institute would not get on their own, such as extra descriptions of the paintings and artist biographies. The app offers a good deal of information for students of French Impressionism too, with the artwork being viewable on your iPad to study.

The HD version of the app is available with a 33% discount for at least today (we are nearing the end of their two week introductory period) making it just $3.99 (£2.39) in the app store. The iPhone version is offered with 50% off at $1.99 (£1.19).

Below we take a look at the company behind this app and how creative organisations can deliver enhanced content like this to mobile devices. But first, here are some of the key features of the French Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago app:

• High-resolution images of 100+ iconic works—drawn from the original scans that only the Art Institute has—from the museum’s world-renowned collection
• Informative and engaging entries on each painting by the museum’s curators
• Biographies of the 22 artists whose works are represented
• Videos related to the art works and to the history of the collection
• Narrated virtual tours of select Impressionist galleries at the museum
• A photo-rich history of the development of this magnificent collection
• Exclusive detailed descriptions not available in the galleries

The Business Model for Creative Institutions

As well as the app itself, our interest was aroused by the video below regarding the business model and service offered by the Developers of the app Toura, a New York based company who provide a solution called Toura Mobile App Producer. This enables their clients to create multi-media tours and guides which are then distributed via the iTunes App store, as well as to Android, Nokia and BlackBerry platforms.

This method of content creation from existing resources such as current CMS systems is an interesting and developing form of digital publishing, which of course has been given a massive boost by devices such as the iPhone and more specifically the iPad with its larger display.

Watch the video below for more info on how Toura developed this model, how the process works, their funding, and their expansion plans in this industry:

Spanish band Jubilee (MySpace link with lots of Flash on the page) have made this very nice looking video to show how they recorded their song 'The Preacher' using just their iPads, the built-in microphone and recording-studio-in-a-box app StudioTrack from Sonoma Wire Works.

It is a lovely song and very impressive sounding given the way it was recorded, so we thought we would share it with you before we go off into the weekend.

We will be posting our thoughts on StudioTrack very soon so if you have used StudioTrack on your iPad and want to let us know what you thought, either email us using the link to the right of your screen or leave a comment below. We may even use your comment in the review when we post it next week.

If you are one of those people that used to sketch spaceships and aliens in the corner of your text books at school, you will love this app from Engineous Games.

Sketch Nation Shooter has been developed for the iPhone primarily, but it is a game/engine that will run on the iPad too.  It allows you to literally draw your own characters and then play with them in the game.

You have the choice of drawing something then capturing it with the iPhone camera, or using something from your image library (for those with just an iPad and scanner/digital camera).  You sketch your main character, enemies and big boss (even the game background and layout if you want), adjust a few parameters, and off you go.

As an added feature, you can submit your design to the Facebook group from within the app, and download other users' designs to play on your device for free.

If you are stuck for something to do this weekend, or you're trying to entertain irritable children, get creative and then blow up your designs with Sketch Nation Shooter.  We think it is a great device for integrating creativity in drawing and digital content creation for all ages.

For an idea of what can be done with this game, check out the videos below.  At just 59p in the App Store you can't go wrong.