Pantone has recently released myPantone, a new color guide app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The $9.99 app allows you to choose from these PANTONE color system libraries:

• PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM (coated, uncoated and matte)
• PANTONE Goe (coated and uncoated)
• PANTONE Pastels (coated and uncoated)
• PANTONE FASHION + HOME (paper and cotton)
• Includes sRGB, HTML and L*a*b* for all colors

You can capture and extract colors from photos and snap to the closest PANTONE Color using images loaded on your iPhone or directly from images taken by your iPhone camera. The app will automatically generates harmonious color combinations, and you can use it to cross-reference PANTONE colors to other PANTONE color libraries. Once you have created your color palettes you can then share them via e-mail an HTML image of your palette or e-mail color palettes that can be used in the Adobe Creative Suite (.ase files), QuarkXPress and CorelDraw. Users can also upload to the myPANTONE.com palette sharing web site.

Other features include text and voice annotation of palettes, posting of notifications of new palettes to Twitter and Facebook and GPS tagging of palettes.

The disclaimer on the iTunes App Store states: “PANTONE Colors displayed here may not match PANTONE-identified standards” so this is probably best used for a reference on the go as opposed to a full-fledged swatch solution. One plus side to the iPhone is that Pantone knows the exact screen the colors are displayed on, so they have a better chance of calibrating what’s seen on screen to their actual colors.

I haven’t yet had a chance to demo the app, but once I do I’ll compare to my physical swatch books and see how they hold up. Even if they were close, it would be very handy to not have to lug around swatch books when meeting with clients, even if just to choose general families of color swatches.

If you’re ready to plunk down your ten bucks, you can head over and pick up a copy of myPantone at the App Store.