apps

Free iPhone app for guitarists from Gibson

I love advertising as much as the next content creator, but using sponsored iPhone apps always makes me feel a little bit like the Zune tattoo guy. That's true even when they're from a company whose products I admire, like Gibson guitars. (I'm the longtime and very satisfied owner of a Gibson L-4A.)

Nonetheless, the Gibson Learn and Master Guitar app, released today, offers considerable value for a free app. It's got a chromatic tuner for getting in tune, a metronome to help you stay on tempo, and chord charts for some basic open and barre … Read more

Netflix considers an iPhone app

Netflix currently offers its streaming software through the browser, and on all three major gaming consoles. Could the iPhone be next?

The DVD rental and streaming service is at least considering it. The blog Hacking Netflix reported Monday night that some customers are being asked if they would use a Wi-Fi version of the streaming software on their iPhone.

Here is the text of one of the questions in the survey:

Imagine that Netflix offers its subscribers the ability to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on their iPhone. The selection availability to instantly watch includes some new releases, lots … Read more

Zune HD gets Facebook app, finally

In what can only be described as the most anticlimactic app release known to mankind, the Facebook app for Zune HD is now available. Originally promised to arrive by the end of 2009, the fabled Zune HD Facebook app has maintained a Yeti-like elusiveness.

Was it worth the wait? Not hardly. An app would need to lay laser-shooting golden eggs to be worth six months of prolonged anticipation. Fortunately, just like Microsoft's Twitter app (which actually arrived in December), the Facebook app is free to download and contains no advertising.

Like any Facebook app worth its salt, the new … Read more

CNET TV Apple Byte: New iPad goodies?

CNET TV's Brian Tong takes us through the week in Apple including Apple's decision to pull "sexy apps" from the App Store, a report that shows AT&T may not be quite as bad as we all thought, and why it's still okay to "Wobble".

Be sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums. Do you have questions, issues, or stories you would like to see on MacFixIt? Email Us.

Photos app view orientation lock: David's iPhone tip of the week

The iPhone accelerometer is, for all practical purposes, a good addition to a handheld device. However, sometimes it can be annoying, especially when trying to show off your favorite picture. The picture can flip between portrait and landscape modes over and over again as you move the phone or hand it off to a friend. The orientation change is enough to make you dizzy, but not if you use this tip.

Go to the Photos app and select a picture and while it is displayed, in either landscape or portrait mode, just tap and hold onto the picture with one … Read more

iPhone app teaches you scales and modes

Music theory is a stumbling block for many amateur and would-be professional musicians. Major and minor scales are basic, and pentatonics and harmonic minors come up a lot in certain types of rock music, but when it comes to the modes, everything starts to sound like Greek--literally. (Modes are basically a major scale from one key played in a different key, and many have Greek names like Dorian and Phrygian.) If you're forming your first punk band, you probably don't care. But if you want to play with more sophisticated musicians, you have to know your scales and … Read more

Gmail runs into importing issues Thursday

Google encountered problems with Gmail Thursday morning for a "significant subset" of users using POP to get messages into Gmail.

The company posted a notice on its Apps Status Dashboard that was picked up by Techcrunch notifying Gmail users of "difficulties or delays receiving mail fetched via POP from external mail providers to Gmail." The problems began at some point this morning, and a more recent notice said that Google has fixed the problem for "a majority" of users.

Google said your e-mails that get imported from other accounts aren't lost; they're … Read more

FOWA: It's like summer camp for coders

MIAMI--It's not fancy, nobody talks about "monetization," and there are no "breakout sessions" on the schedule.

Despite, or perhaps because of this, dozens of young Web developers swear by the annual Future of Web Apps conference in Miami, an annual winter event put on by tech events firm Carsonified. They came from up and down the East Coast, from local tech start-ups in Florida and even from Europe--for the most part, hailing from locales well outside Silicon Valley, hoping to soak up a bit of that insider knowledge.

Many in the developer community say that … Read more

Facebook still pitching itself to open-source crowd

MIAMI--The overwhelmingly young and male audience at the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) event this week tells you that it's one of those conferences where the attendees don't tend to be marketers, finance guys, or advertisers: they're the kids who write the code.

A company like Facebook obviously wants to be there, and at past FOWA events it's used the soapbox opportunity to market developer initiatives like its application platform and Facebook Connect log-in tool. But this year the focus was instead on open source, with relatively recent hire David Recordon taking the stage rather than … Read more