Create an immersive storm experience on your iPhone

You can't beat the feeling of a lovely thunderstorm happening outside while you're nicely tucked up inside. There's something brilliant about knowing that nature's doing its worst to rearrange the landscape design out there, but you're not about to get soaked or zapped by a billion volts from out of the sky.

The problem is that a decent storm doesn't tend to come around that often, unless you're fortunate enough to live up an Alp. For the rest of us, there's Thunderspace, a fab-looking app that does its absolute best to simulate the experience of a thunderstorm, combining lightning flashes (using the iPhone's camera flash) and stereoscopic 3D thunderstorm audio from Emmy-award winning nature sound recordist Gordon Hempton. It's certainly an interesting alternative to still life photography...

For best results you'll want to use a pair of headphones, naturally, and if you want to use it to help get to sleep there's a handy timer you can set to switch the app off.

Two storms - Roof Garden and Waterscape - are included, with another six available via IAP, and while it's not exactly cheap if you want to collect them all, Thunderspace is such a refined piece of ambient delight that it's hard to begrudge the asking price.

Key info

• Works with: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
• Price: $1.99/£1.49
• Developer: Franz Bruckhoff
• Version: 1.4
• App size: 44.8MB
• Age rating: 4+

Words: Jim McCauley

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Is Thunderspace a perfect storm? Tell us in the comments below.