Side A vs KnowYourNeck
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Side A
Experience your Apple Music library through a retro cassette tape interface. Design custom tapes, create mixtapes with liner notes, and share them with friends. Record songs as they play and relive the nostalgia of physical media.
- Cassette tape music playback
- Customizable tape design
- Mixtape creation
- Share mixtapes with friends
- Record songs from radio
- Share currently playing song
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Side A plays your music as cassettes. **Requires an Apple Music subscription.** See what's playing right now on a beautifully detailed cassette tape: spinning reels, worn labels, and a cassette player frame around it, powered by your Apple Music. But Side A isn't just a pretty player. It's a full tape deck. DESIGN YOUR OWN TAPES Pick a shell, write on the label in retro fonts, choose your ink color, and drop a photo behind the jewel case. Every tape is yours. MAKE MIXTAPES Build a mixtape from your Apple Music, name it, add handwritten liner notes, and give it a cover. Just like the old days. SEND A TAPE TO A FRIEND Text someone a mixtape. If they have Side A it opens right up and plays; if they don't, they get a gorgeous web page with the tracklist and your liner notes. "I made you a tape". SHARE THE SONG YOU'RE ON One tap turns your now-playing song into a clean, tappable card you can send anywhere. RECORD OFF THE RADIO Tape songs as they play: grab the last few tracks and turn them into a mixtape, just like catching a song off the radio. A note from us: We're a small team of Gen X kids who grew up on cassette tapes and Walkmans. Instead of lugging an actual tape deck to the gym, we wanted to glance at our phones and see our music spinning on cassettes again. Side A is our love letter to that era. It's a passion project, and we hope you enjoy it. If you have feedback, issues, or ideas, we'd genuinely love to hear them. Rewind your music. — Your tapes, mixtapes, and recordings are stored on your device — content is only uploaded when you choose to share it.
KnowYourNeck
Explore the interconnectedness of musical scales and arpeggios on a guitar fretboard. Visualize chord tones, target notes, and practice with visual overlays for backing tracks. Offers tools for learning intervals, scales, and chords, with advanced features for Pro users.
- Overlay multiple arpeggios
- Identify target notes between chords
- Play along with visual fretboard overlay
- Visualize intervals and scales
- Display chord voicings and inversions
- Real-time pitch detection
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Most guitar apps show you one scale or arpeggio at a time. KnowYourNeck shows you how everything connects. WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT • Multi Arp — Overlay up to three arpeggios simultaneously. See the chord tones for an entire progression on the neck at once, so you can practice connecting lines and navigating changes instead of just memorizing isolated shapes. • Target Notes — Identify which notes are safe landing points between chord changes. Overlaying a scale against an arpeggio shows you exactly which degrees work as target notes when you land on a new chord — the key to sounding musical instead of mechanical. • Play Along with Visual Overlay — Practice with backing tracks while the fretboard changes with every chord in your progression. A preview shows the upcoming scale or arpeggio before the change hits, so you can prepare your line in advance. Available in Jazz, Blues, Rock, Funk, Bossa, and Drone styles. EVERYTHING ELSE YOU GET • Intervals — Visualize the distance between any two notes across all six strings. • Scales — Every common scale and mode mapped across the full neck with color-coded degrees. • Chords — Triads, Drop 2, Drop 3, and Shell voicings with every inversion drawn as a grip across the neck. • Lick Builder (Pro) — Tap out note sequences on the fretboard and save your lines. • Quiz Mode (Pro) — Test intervals, chord tones, and scale mastery with detailed accuracy and speed stats. • Pitch Detection — Play a note and the app identifies it on the neck in real time. • Zen Mode — Full-screen fretboard with no chrome, for focused practice. BUILT FOR LEARNING Toggle note names or scale degrees. Switch sharps and flats. Show or hide open strings. Chromatic color mode to spot patterns fast. Whether you're working on your first pentatonic or learning to navigate a jazz progression, KnowYourNeck shows you the neck the way it actually works — as a connected system, not a collection of boxes. Free to explore. Upgrade to Pro for the Lick Builder, Quiz Mode, and Play Along.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: KnowYourNeck at Free against Side A's $2.99. Side A's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2). On rating, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
KnowYourNeck is free to download; Side A costs $2.99 up front. KnowYourNeck sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Side A asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Side A against 5.0 for KnowYourNeck. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 3 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Side A ships an update every 10 days, KnowYourNeck every 11 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Side A | KnowYourNeck |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (3 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 3 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days — better | Every 11 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 69 MB | 79 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | FREDERICK AARON GOODIN | Adam Rhodes |
Customer experience
Side A
KnowYourNeck
In-app purchases
Side A
No in-app purchases
KnowYourNeck
- KnowYourNeck Pro$4.991 Month
- KnowYourNeck Pro$49.991 Year









