Guitar Tuner - Ukulele & Bass 4+

Does exactly what it says on the tin

It's a guitar (and ukulele) tuner. Whether you need a reference tone, a chromatic tuner, or to tune to a standard or common tuning for the instrument, this app gets it done. Nice UI, very intuitive.

The only reason I'm giving it four stars rather than five is that if it could also handle bass, mandolin, banjo, bouzouki and other stringed instruments in the same way as it handles guitar and uke - or if it allowed me to create a custom tuning of my own in order to mock up the mandolin or banjo - it would fit my needs perfectly.

UPDATE: since my initial review, 12-string guitar and 4- and 5-string bass have been added, and this app has absolutely become my go-to for tuning, and I’m bumping it up to five stars for that. If the mandolin and banjo could be next, it would be absolutely perfect.

What a shame, and the developer clearly doesn’t get why

Been a minute since I picked up my guitar and ukulele. This was always my go-to tuner. The free version. The one you could click to avoid a trial by clicking the x in the top corner or whatever it was. Now you are forced to either use the free trial of death ($8/week after three days) or pick a new app, which I will be. If this app is making money, it is by scamming people who either do not realize there is a weekly fee, or didn’t remember to cancel their trial. No one would knowingly pay more than $400 a year on a guitar tuner app masquerading as a free service on the App Store, and Apple should honestly do the right thing and remove the service like they did other insane fee charging apps.

What makes it worse, and the reason I’m bothering to write a review, is that the developer clearly either does not understand or care based on their responses to other reviews on the matter. We aren’t daft; we understand what a three day free trial means. We understand we can cancel it, but what is confusing is that you would purposefully neuter your app and then act completely ignorant as to why such an insane and immoral change as a forced premium-to-use model and sketchy free trial period/fee would upset years-long users.

Developer Response ,

Hi there, thank you for such an in-depth response! Your feedback is essential for us to continue improving Guitar Tuner. In fact, we'd love to hear more from you directly. Would it be possible to drop us an email at support@gismart.com? Our team would love to hear some more of your great ideas! Speak to you soon!

Ridiculous. Also I’m salty.

This ridiculous, for lack of a clean word to use that truly shows how ticked I am, app refused to let me bypass their intro without subscribing to their premium “trial”. The “trial” automatically begins drawing money after it is over and is darn (again, lack of a word) near impossible to turn off. How do I know? My second plan after closing out the app and clicking back on it again (The intro only appeared again) was to sign up for their subscription and immediately cancel. The instructions say you can close it out through iTunes. Okay, 1. iTunes is an incredibly hard platform to manage, as anyone without a computer science degree who has spent five minutes trying to work the thing out will agree with. and 2. This is an APP. iTunes is for music! That’s why it had “Tunes” in the name! And lastly, I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY TO PUT ON MY CARD TO EVEN SIGN UP FOR THE THING! I’M DOWNLOADING A FREE GUITAR TUNER APP, DO YOU THINK IM ROLLING IN DOUGH HERE? ALSO, THE PREMIUM FEATURE IS $8.00? Seriously, this app is ridiculous. Maybe if they got rid of this marketing scam at the beginning of the app I would be able to actually see the rest of it, including the actual tuner portion. DON’T BUY UNTIL THIS SCAM IS OVER.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for the time spend on sharing with us your user experience. Please accept apologies for all this inconvenience. If your intention is to unsubscribe, please follow the link for a step by step guide: https://support.apple.com/HT202039 But you can also enjoy our free version of the app choosing a limited version of the app. You're always welcome to contact us at support@gismart.com for the assistance. Have a nice day!