Wish to play guitar? These two iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps are important

I’ve played guitar as a hobby since I was in junior high. While the instrument hasn’t changed, the tools I use to make it possible have — sort of. In addition to the built-in GarageBand app, these are the two must-have iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps I use for playing guitar for fun.

Back in 2005, I used a Korg guitar tuner that looked a lot like this and tab printouts on paper from the school library to find my way around my instrument.

Two decades later, I can visualize guitar tablature in mixed reality with Apple Vision Pro while figuring out a tune.

But you don’t need AVP to have the best experience when fiddling around on guitar for fun. Two apps have long been in my iPhone and iPad tool bag when it comes to playing guitar.

Tune your guitar

First, GuitarTuna sticks in my head as the go-to way to keep my guitar in tune. Something about the clever name just makes it a core memory, and typing in “tuna” to find it with Spotlight is part of my guitar ritual. If it’s not already part of yours, it should be. The app is free for iPhone and iPad and super intuitive. It will try to sell you a subscription and teach you how to play songs, but I swipe and dismiss those things. I’m just there to tune my guitar and leave the app.

GuitarTuna if the app came to life

Look up how to play something

Next is Ultimate Guitar Tabs & Chordswhich is the app version of the website I was browsing in school twenty years ago. (It has a built-in tuner function, but it’s less straight-to-the-point than GuitarTuna.) The fun of Ultimate Guitar, whether it’s the website or the mobile app, is that you can probably find your favorite tune that you want to learn in tablature or chord form. In the 2000s, it was finding the highest ranked version of a Green Day or blink-182 song that just played on MTV to print out and memorize when I was 15. These days, I’m usually using my iPhone and Apple Music.

Actual picture of me circa 2005 doing guitar stuff

There are plenty more music-related apps that make learning and playing guitar and other instruments much more accessible than 20 years ago, but these two are the essential must-have apps on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Have your own top picks? Share with us in the comments!