I didn't install for the reasons Listed. Sorry you won't find me using it or recommending it.
Yeah, you're right. I should've been on the up and up from the get go that if you don't have Unity installed yet, Guitar Tuna's going to need it. The platform itself is, like Prostetha said, above board, but unless you know what it is, suddenly being asked to install something you don't know what it is is off-putting, especially since it asks permission to use the camera. I can understand the need for the mic, for obvious reasons, but the camera? To be honest, that would make me nervous, too, even if I knew that the program would use only the mic.
However, the reason why we wanted to use Unity is because it gives reliable results, and having an unreliable tuner is useless. Unity allows GuitarTuna to work with the efficiency we are accustomed to, and we won't make substandard products. Our goal really is to help people keep their instruments in tune, because it will lower the threshold to actually picking the ax up and starting playing. An unused guitar gathering dust in the corner is a sad, sad sight. And if GuitarTuna would not give reliable results, it would be the exact opposite of what we're trying to do.
The silver lining here is that the smart phone version of GuitarTuna won't be needing an extra install. And as your cell phone goes with you practically at all times, you'll have a reliable tuner with you whenever you need it. (Been at enough parties to know that picking up a strange guitar that's completely out of whack is... well, it can still be fun, but not in the intended manner.)
The smart phone GuitarTuna will also be totally free. No ads, no nothing. Like I said, we just want the people to play more guitar.
@Prostetha: The target audience is both acoustic and electric guitars. However, the tuner will go nuts if you try to feed it with e.g. distortions, so electric grinders will have to tune with clean sounds. Probably the main user group for our tuner will be beginning players, as they're still unsure whether or not their guitar is in tune. We're trying to come up with ways to make the tuner extremely reliable even when you're on stage. If we can't overcome the high amount of ambient noise, we'll see if using a wireless/bluetooth mic with the phone/iPad will solve this issue. That would indeed be handy for experienced users.
Thanks a bunch for the feedback! Please, keep it coming - the best way for us to make the tuner as good as you want it to be is when you tell us what's wrong with it. We really want to do right by you.
-Jori Virtanen, community manager, Ovelin.com