There is a new tuner available for iOS. It is not free, and it appears to incorporate a strobe. Does this mean that it will be taken down, as PitchLab was? I am naturally reluctant to fork out 10 bucks for something that may disappear!
David
Hi David,
If you refer to my recent post, you will see I discuss the fact that Petersen sued PitchLab for violating the patent they hold on strobe tuners. Laywers with both greed and sharp teeth. If they went after that little fish, I am sure they will kill all the other little ones. You have been warned!
Good question. One wonders just what aspect of stroboscopic tuning Peterson has patented. The original patent was by Conn in the 1930s, surely expired by now. Might Peterson have patented digital emulation of the original spinning discs and stroboscopic lights? There were a number of display options on PitchLab that didn’t use a strobe emulation. Seems like it would have been pretty easy to simply disable those.
Just a couple days ago, my PitchLab app, which had been working on my iPhone SE up till then, ceased to work: the iPhone, in its wisdom, uploaded it to the cloud (presumably to save space: I guess I hadn’t used it for a month or so), and it couldn’t be downloaded again. Fortunately I had Airyware, and it worked fine, though I was very fond of PitchLab.
These apps are particularly great for when the instrument is WAY off pitch. They find where the pitch is and follow you until you get it right. Enormous saving of time and effort.
PitchLab is still on iPhones where they have been backed up, but indeed not available on App store.
However I have found a promising replacement: Airyware Tuner. It has some unusual temperaments built in and allows for customising also. Pitch variable as you wish. So far, it appears to be quite accurate and spot on. Worth a try?