I just spent the last 20 minutes toying around with Scribbles, a new drawing application for Mac OS X. Let me do away with the formalities and jump right into it:

Scribbles is flat-out cool.

First off, Scribbles doesn’t do a whole lot in comparison to most graphics apps out there.  In fact, it’s probably the simplest graphics app you’ll ever see. And yet, underneath that amazing simplicity, you’ll find some unexpected power.

When you launch Scribble for the first time, you may notice that some things are missing. Like words. All of the controls in the main window have no text labels. That said, the user interface is incredibly intuitive. It took me only a few minutes to get the feel of what everything does. You will also notice that the user interface is absolutely slick. You get the feeling that every tiny little detail was thought out. The window controls are beautifully rendered. And there are a fair share of clever little touches. For example, when you click on the brush control, you get a brush control pane taking up the contents of the window. To get out, click the big “X” close button. The close button is in the exact location of the brush panel button, so if you just want yo peek at something, you don’t have to move the mouse. This works for all the other drawing controls.

My masterpiece. Click for larger.

This is no MS Paint clone, mind you. Despite its exceedingly simple outward appearance, Scribbles has some real power behind it. Anything you draw within Scribbles is rendered smoothly; there are no jaggies and no pixelation, even if you zoom in. Your drawing canvas is limitless. Do you want a larger canvas? Simply move the area you’re viewing using the move tool or resize the window. Oh, and did I mention that Scribbles supports layers and transparency levels for layers?

Lastly, Scribbles integrates with a user gallery that you can upload your creations to.

If you want to see Scribbles in action, see the video at the bottom of this page.

Scribbles is great. It’s a fun diversion for adults, and a great way for kids to get their feet wet with drawing apps and have some fun while they’re at it. Scribbles can be yours for $19.95, though a free trial is available. Take a few minutes and take it for a spin, and if you like it, do support the developers. They’ve done some awesome work!