iPhone App - Guitar Toolkit

As a guitar player the Guitar Toolkit iPhone App looks very useful. It's a paid for piece of software, but even at £5.99 ($9.99) it seems like excellent value. Especially when you compare the cost of buying a real tuner, let alone a metronome, pitch pipes and chord dictionary.

Guitar Tuner

I really like the user interface for this app. Great visual display, which reminds me of high-end pro gear and a useful "L.E.D" to show you when you've got it right. Featuring a chromatic tuner, the iPhone's built in microphone will easily pickup an acoustic guitar. An un-amplified electric may be a little too quiet to be heard though. Possibly holding the iPhone on the body of the guitar might work though. In use, this tuner is one of the best I have ever tried. The tuner works in three different modes: all notes, standard tuning (EADGBE) and alternate tunings, from which you can select from an array of really useful tunings, such as Eb (Hendrix) or Double Drop D. Fantastic, and very easy to use. Excellent.

Tones

Another useful and well implemented utility. Tones shows the six strings of a guitar (EADGBE), which when you pluck them emit a useful ear tuning reference. A useful and easy way to tune an electric by ear. You can even strum the strings together which is cool. Tones - Like pitch pipes but without the spit.

Metronome

This is a really useful metronome, perfect for practising with. Nice varied sounds, adjustable tempo and also a tap tempo mode which will analysis any beat you tap into it. You can also set "No Time Signature", 2/4, 3/4 or 4/4" time signatures, and also enable "Flash on ticks" if you like your beats in a visual way.

Chords

The Chords section includes over 260 chord diagrams for helping you find useful chords and shows the fingerings.

Guitar Toolkit Conclusion

A very useful toolkit for any guitarist. . The Guitar Toolkit somehow transcends any other tuner, metronome, pitch pipes and chord dictionary that I have ever owned. It's also more environmentally friendly, creating less clutter than a case of dusty old gizmos which are often misplaced. Fantastic.

Like Shazam it shows the potential that the iPhone holds for iPhone App developers and is a great example of a well designed iPhone App.

Learn more from the Guitar Toolkit Official Site.

iPhone App - Shazam names that tune

Like many others, I have been waiting for the Apple iPhone 2.0 software upgrade. No, it didn't bring copy and paste functionality to my phone, but it turned it into a computer. Sure, technically it has always been a computer, but now with the introduction of the Apple App Store, mere mortal iPhone users can actually browse, search and download apps straight to their iPhone. Like all good cheapskates I tried a few of the free apps first, and many are just a complete waste of time, but some, drum roll, Shazam, just completely blew me away.

Meet Shazam

The idea is that you play music at your iPhone from any source: computer, radio or anything else that produce an audible sound. Shazam will listen for 30 seconds, then send it to the Shazam HQ, where it will return with a neat listing of the song.

From there you can tag the song, with images, or even take a picture of the location of where you first heard the song. You can even email it to a friend, to share the experience.

Shazam is not an app, it's magic for your iPhone.

What is really great is that this app even works when you try and show it to someone. Unless the song is from an underground radio station, and playing at a different tempo than originally - Shazam will find it.

Conclusion: Shazam, a free but essential music app for your iPhone.

iPhone in the UK

Steve Jobs announced a new product on the 9th January 2007, the Apple iPhone. Not just a phone, it was an emailer, an iPod music, image and video player, it could log into the internet using Wi-Fi and over the phone network, can take pictures, hold your addresses, get youtube, Google Maps and runs on Mac OS X.

Clarkson likes it.

Jeremy Clarkson already owns one. Mind you, he also owns a Lamborghini. He loves his iPhone, it's apparently as good as Sky+. I, and my fellow citizens of the UK (apart from Jeremy Clarkson) will have to wait till 02 minutes past 18 hours on Friday 9th of November 2007 to see if we are smitten too.

I will probably be waiting outside my local Apple Store at least several minutes before lift off. Just in case Santa, misses my note as he is playing with his iLapland edition of the iPhone.

Merry Christmas

(well it will be if 02 are as good as Vodafone...)

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Apple iPhone - Have Apple reinvented the phone?

Apple Computer Incorporated's CEO Steve Jobs announced a new product on Tuesday 9th January 2007 at MacWorld, that could be as revolutionary as the Apple Macintosh or the Apple iPod. 1984's Macintosh certainly changed personal computing, but the new Apple iPhone could revolutionise your whole life.

The Apple iPhone is not just a phone. It is the world's first wide-screen iPod; it runs Mac OSX, it switches views from landscape to portrait automatically when you swivel it; it displays your photos; it takes photos, it is a contact manager. It is the natural convergence of everything digital, the ultimate smartphone.

Smartphone

It does proper push email like the Blackberry but instead of tiny plastic keys, Apple have created their take on the touch screen. It seemed to work well with Steve Job's keynote and I like the way it works with the iPod too. This is the point Apple have created a device, pointed to by David Siegel in 1999. This new iPod, is first and foremost a great communicator. It can send and receive emails, host conference calls, dial and receive telephone calls, when the phone rings, your music stops, when you end the call, it starts again.

Safari built in

If it is as good as a phone as a Nokia, then Apple surely have created a winner. A really fantastic, portable device. Available in 4 or 8GB versions, this looks like being the must-have gadget for 2007, especially at Christmas, and Santa, I know what's on my list. Do you want it now?

Apple might just have reinvented the phone

If it works, as well as it looks, I believe Apple Computer International may have just, as they claim, reinvented the phone. We will know come June in the USA, Europe in Q3, and Asia in 2008 for ourselves if Apple have cracked it. I think it is significant that Apple have reinvented their name too. From Apple Computer International to Apple, Inc. I like to think this will allow them new possibilities.

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