We’re a few days into 2019, but it’s worth taking a moment to see what guitar apps have been popular in 2018.  There are some old standards and couple newbies.  And, most importantly, these apps are continuing to be popular and well-reviewed in 2019!

Enjoy the list, and hopefully you find a new tool or inspiration.

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Top 2018 Guitar Apps for iOS

1. GuitarTuna: Guitar, Bass tuner

GuitarTuna is fast, accurate and easy to use. GuitarTuna has been downloaded over 80 million times, which makes it one of the most downloaded tuning apps in the world.

2. Yousician Guitar, Piano & Bass

Yousician is a lessons app that has thousands of song lessons for guitar, piano, ukelele, and even voice. The interface is very easy-to-use, and a little addictive. Not hard to see why this has been so popular.

3. Ultimate Guitar: Chords & Tabs

Ultimate Guitar is widely known as THE place to get guitar tabs on the internet. They have a huge library, and most songs have multiple versions uploaded and commented on by users.

The Ultimate Guitar app gives you access to not only the tabs, but to chord resources so that you’ve got all the tools in hand to learn that song you’re addicted to.

4. Guitar Tuner – Ukulele & Bass

“Guitar Tuner – Ukelele Bass” (AKA “DoubleTune”) is an odd one. First, it has two names. While the app is called Guitar Tuner, the description in the app store calls it DoubleTune.

Second, it is both a tuner and a guitar game. The tuner side of it is really powerful, capable of tuning any stringed instrument. The game side looks a lot like “Guitar Hero” ported into a slimmed down iPhone app.

Conclusion: I’m not sure why this is so powerful, but there must be some reason everyone is downloading it, right?

5. Fender Tune – Guitar Tuner

Fender Tune is the 5-star rated, easy-to-use, super-accurate tuner app for guitar, bass & ukulele from Fender.

The Fender Tune app is offered as part of the recently launched Fender PLAY online guitar lesson platform (see their other app listed below). So I’m guessing a lot of folks are downloading this as part of their lesson toolkit when they start up Fender PLAY.

6. Guitar Lessons – Guitar Tricks

Guitar Tricks is a popular online guitar lesson platform. Part of their unique appeal is a system for moving you through different levels of playing both in terms of basic ability and different styles.

The app gives you on-the-go access to their popular and fun lessons.

7. Guitar Lessons | Fender Play

As mentioned above, Fender Play is a complete learning app for guitar, bass, and ukulele.

The Fender Play app gives you easy access to these lessons, where you’ll be able to play your first song in minutes with their bite-sized lessons, featuring popular songs.

8. Guitar Tuner Easy tune chords

CoachTuner is a free chromatic instrument tuner that allows you to quickly tune your guitar, bass, and ukulele using the built-in mic of your iPhone/iPad/iPod.

9. Coach Guitar chords tuner tabs

A unique approach to guitar lessons, Coach Guitar delivers visual teaching with colors. They show you how to play popular songs without music theory. An easy way to learn some guitar without digging into theory, tabs, or other written music.

10. ChordBank – Guitar Chord App

ChordBank let’s you learn and look up guitar chords and scales. Play electric and acoustic guitar, right on your iPhone or iPad. Record riffs, and share them with friends. This one has been a long-time favorite.

Bonus Round:

11. GarageBand

Apple’s iconic and long-lived GarageBand is always a favorite, as well. If you’re not familiar with it, GarageBand tturns your iPad, and iPhone into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio — so you can make music anywhere you go.

Conclusion

It’s interesting to see that app-based guitar lessons have been surging. I know I’ve used Truefire’s app to learn some Tommy Emmanuel stuff myself.

Tuners have always been popular, of course. But in previous years, I’ve noticed more of an emphasis on similar “utility” types of apps like chord libraries, tab apps, metronomes, and others. There’s a few still in the top 10 for sure (Guitar Tuna itself, at the #1 spot), but the ratio has gone down.

All in all, it’s great to see more and better tools to help guitarists play and improve.