Amidst some of the gimmicky options, some serious tools are making their way to Apple’s mobile platform. Case in point: Faber Acoustical, a developer of audio analysis and acoustical tools for the Mac, has new iPhone apps for generating and analyzing signals.

SignalScope is a real-time spectrum analyzer and oscilloscope. Interestingly, it’s not just for sound – you can even analyze signal from the built-in accelerometer. That should make this a prized educational tool. You can zoom in and pan analysis displays with multi-touch gestures and save images to the iPhone photo album. US$24.99.

SignalSuite is a signal generator with basic waveforms, session saving, and per-channel left/right control. “Suite” is a bit misleading, as it’s just one app. (Well, I guess it’s a suite of waveforms.) But it should be useful for testing purposes. US$9.99.

Faber Acoustical iPhone Products

Thanks to Tommy Birchett for the tip. He writes, “I’d love to see a synth that takes advantage of the iphone’s multi-touch and motion detection for changing frequency, amplitude, pan, etc. maybe even utilize the GPS somehow.” I agree – and if we see better sound synthesis capabilities on other mobile devices (Android, perhaps?), this could be a possibility on mobile platforms in general.

We did see one accelerometer-controlled synth in the form of iPhone Synth, as spotted in our iPhone round-up. That isn’t an official App Store app (yet, at least), but it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves.

In other news of “serious apps,” on Create Digital Motion we take a first look at a DMX controller for lighting rigs and other devices. It’s really a full-blown app, with a price to match — US$99.99.

Luminair: Gorgeous DMX Controller on iPhone, iPod Touch Runs Your Rocking Light Show