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The best creative and productivity apps for students
So you've picked out a shiny new laptop, tablet or phone to take with you to school this year. Well, it's nothing without some apps. Your hardware may come with the basics, but there's a whole world of tools for creating things, getting organized, tracking your life and -- in some cases -- just staying sane. (That's easier said than done come finals time.) Our top choices here will help you get your life in order and also exercise those all-important creativity muscles. You may not be going after a degree in music production, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't stay up all night jamming in Ableton Live. All told, we've got picks for visual art, photo editing, meditating, getting better sleep, making an album in your dorm room, writing the next great novel (or term paper) and much more. We've also tried to cover a variety of price points -- in fact, many of these apps are free, at least to start. But in a lot of cases, stepping up to a premium subscription or full purchase will make them that much more useful, so we've outlined exactly what you get for your money and what you can get before you have to pay.
J Dilla-inspired sampler makes it easy to create beats on your phone
If you ask Elf Audio's Marek Bereza, many music samplers are too fussy -- you're focused more on making tiny edits than, well, making music. He's trying to remedy that with his new Koala sampler. Inspired by the late J Dilla's knack for creating tracks with a BOSS SP-303, the iOS app is not only designed to be easy to understand, but doesn't give you ways to micro-manage your tunes. You just record samples with your device's mic, create sequences and perform those sequences with effects like pitching and stuttering. You can resample if you'd like to put your audio bites through effects, such as dropping them down an octave.
