Looking for an all-in-one app to help polish up your axe skills?  Try the Planet Waves Guitar Tools, which crams an impressive amount of content to aid in your ever-improving fretboard mastery.

Designed to be useful for beginner to intermediate musicians, the app has a library of over 7,000 chords, complete with charts and a listening feature (you can hear the chord by "strumming" the touchscreen).  Searching for a chord is particularly clever, giving you a scrollable fretboard right on the screen.  Place your fingers on any part of the virtual fretboard and the app will automatically bring up the corresponding chord.

Planet Waves also includes thousands of scales, modes and arpeggios, each of which you can choose for your practice sessions.  Pick one and go to work on your progressions using the app's scrolling virtual fretboard -- you don't even need to be on a real guitar to get your practice time in.

There's also a tuner with two modes -- a strobe and a needle, both of which come with dozens of presets.  It uses the iPhone's built-in mic and operates much like your standard low-cost tuner.   Additional features include a metronome and search service for locating  music teachers and stores in your area.

Planet Waves Guitar Tools crams a hefty amount of guitar-playing content.  If you're a beginner or intermediate player, we can't imagine you needing any other resource than this app.  Even more advanced players might actually find it somewhat beneficial. You can get it from the App Store, priced at $8.99.

[Planet Waves]

Aspiring guitar players can now get a new free Gibson app on their iPhone.  No, it won't turn your handset into a Les Paul as other apps are inclined to do.  Instead, it just bundles a number of free tools that six-string instrumentalists of all levels may find of value.

It comes with five different sections - tuner, metronome, chords, lessons and Gibson.com.  The tuner is a chromatic software that can track whatever note you're currently playing (which it receives via your iPhone's mic) and indicates whether you're flat, sharp or in tune.  It starts in "All Notes" mode, but gives options to allow for alternate tunings.  Very useful, especially if you've got a bad ear for sound.

The metronome is just a regular metronome app, which allows you to choose a specific BPM rate.   Tapping the screen three times will adjust the tempo according to your speed.   The chord area, on the other hand, gives you access to 30 chord charts, a great resource if you need help figuring out which finger goes where on the fretboard.

Need guitar lessons?  The app comes with very useful ones, drawn off the award-winning Learn and Master series from Legacy Learning Systems.  It comes with a variety of instructions for new licks, riffs and sequences - a definite value for new and struggling players.  Gibson also promises plenty of updates for this section, with more video lessons slated to come.  Finally, Gibson.com is the app's news area, where they list Gibson-related products and special events.

Overall, the free Gibson app is a definite download if you're at all planning to learn the guitar.  Even intermediate and slightly more advanced players might find it of value, too.

[Gibson App]