If you are into music or just want to play some on the go, these 12 iPad musical instrument applications are worth checking out:

Pianist Pro: one of the best iPad Piano apps, if not the best, around. It has superb graphics and has a ton of features for beginners and professionals. Alternative instruments are available through the app.

iBone – the Pocket Trombone: the name is pretty self-explanatory. I have to say this is much easier to play than the real thing. Use it to play music or impress your friends.

Guitarist for iPhone: the perfect app for guitar junkies. It’s a pretty realistic guitar simulator for iPhone and iPad that enables you to play and record your own music.

3D Drum Kit for iPad: one of the best drum apps for iPad that teaches you how to play drum like the pro. Has 50 built-in demos and 10 drum kits to get you started.

iDulcimer: a very fun musical instrument app that lets you play the hammered dulcimer with your fingers on your iPad. It’s very realistic and responsive.

Accordéon: if you can’t own the real thing, this app is the next best thing. It was even used during iPhone OS 4 keynote. Another fun musical instrument app for music lovers.

Saxonotes HD: a very powerful music application that teaches you how to play the saxophone. Has a pretty attractive interface too.

Chinese Zither: if you are a fan of Guzheng, you can use this app to play it to your heart’s desire. It’s a pretty interesting instrument.

Bodhran Drum: if you are a fan of bodhrán, this is the app for you. It’s very responsive and pretty fun to play. It looks awesome on iPad.

Sitar Jam: Sitar is one sweet instrument to play on iPad. This app offers you that capability. It lets you record your own music too.

Air Harp: Air Harp for iPad is quite fun to play and does not require you to be a musician. It has a very attractive look and feel to it.

Harmonica for iPad: another fun music instrument app for iPad. It’s a virtual 10-hole diatonic harmonica that is very entertaining to play with. You don’t have to blow it.

Feel free to add your favorite musical instrument apps below.

The developers behind Tangled 2 Doodle have already developed a couple of other apps around the same concept. Unlike the movies, this sequel is as good as the original, if not better. The game is pretty simple to learn. You want to untangle the lines and make sure they do not overlap. It’s simple to do when you are dealing with a couple of dots. It does get very complicated as more dots are added to the game.

Tangled 2 Doodle has 3 modes. In Regular mode, you just follow the rules and untangle all the lines to clear each level. It has 30 levels in this mode, which will keep you entertained for a while. When you are done with these levels, the Random mode will provide you with even more challenges. The Action mode is pretty exciting. In that mode, you’ll have to untangle the dots one by one before there are too many of them on your screen. Waste time, and you’ll end up with an almost impossible puzzle.

We did have a chance to test the other products offered by the developer. Tangled 2 Doodle has been redesigned completely and has cool music and new graphics. It is also compatible with OpenFeint, so you’ll have plenty of reasons to solve as many puzzles as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Nothing is more frustrating than dealing with puzzles that are very easy to solve and are designed to make you feel good about yourself. Those are a waste of time. With Tangled 2 Doodle, you may be able to solve the first few puzzles, but sooner or later you are going to have to use some of your problem solving skills to untangle those dots. Some of the puzzles that you will get with this app are truly a nightmare to deal with (makes solving them more gratifying). If you want to sharpen up your mind or get over a tough day, Tangled 2 Doodle is just what the doctor ordered.

Win Tangled 2 Doodle (contest is over)

The good developers behind Tangled 2 Doodle have been kind enough to provide us with 3 promo codes to give away to iPhoneness readers. The rules are quite simple:

• Follow @iphoneness on Twitter and tweet the following message (or click here): Freebie Alert!: Tangled 2 Doodle #Giveaway –> Follow @iPhoneness and visit http://www.iphoneness.com/tangledgiveaway to win
  
• Support this giveaway’s sponsor by visiting http://billylavoie.blogspot.com.
• Include a link to your Twitter message in the comment section.
• Optional: we want your feedback. Please come back here if you have won (or own this app already) and let us know how’s been your experience with the game. How would you improve it?

The first 3 people to complete the above steps win. Please use the promo codes as soon as possible (if you are a winner). Please leave a valid comment with a valid e-mail  or your entry is void.  This is a limited time giveaway. We reserve the right to end it at any time (with or without any winners).

So how’s an Apple search engine will work? After all, the search business is not exactly one of Apple’s core competencies. According to Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster Apple has enough data to work with:

We believe Apple could utilize data unavailable to Google, data generated by the company’s App Store, to create a mobile centric search engine, which would be a unique offering to Google’s search engine.

Apple may lack the experience to build a search engine as powerful as Google. But one does not have to look further than Facebook to figure out the importance of “data” in this digital world. Facebook has made a few mistakes along the way, but it has used its data to its fullest to become one of the most popular sites on the planet (challenging the top dogs in the process).

The future of search on touch-based devices is much different than what we have today. There needs to be a fundamental difference between mobile search experience and what you get on a desktop PC. Apple is in the position to deliver that experience and set itself apart from its competitors. Considering that Apple devices are becoming faster and more developers are jumping on Apple’s development platform to build their own apps, Apple may be able to take something from its search engine. But it’s too early to tell whether Apple would go forward with such a project. Let’s call it a solid rumor at this point.

If you are a serial traveler and want to use your iPhone to get more things done on the go, here are 10 travel apps for iPhone that are worth a look:

1. TripDeck: a cool travel app that lets you manage all your itineraries on your iPhone. Helps you keep track of your flight schedules and deal with delays and cancellations.

2. Zagat to Go: the best guide to restaurants and local stores on iPhone. Has plenty of options and can find you what you need fast.

3. Kayak: Kayak is a cool service that lets you change your flight at the airport or find a hotel.

4. OpenTable: gives you access to over 10,000 restaurants, which you can reserve tables in fast.

5. Packing: helps you get ready for your trips and pack everything you would need. It’s a good task manager as well.

6. Magellan Roadmate: if you are planning to drive in a new city that you are not familiar with, Magellan Roadmate GPS is a good app to own.

7. Postman: a cool little app that lets you create postcards from the pictures you take on your iPhone and send them to your friends and colleagues.

8. Call a Taxi: takes the pain out of the process of catching a Taxi. Saves you time and effort.

9. Airport Guide: makes it easy to find your way around any airport. Comes with complete maps to help you get around more easily.

10. Appbox Pro: one of the most useful apps available on iTunes. Has a bunch of tools that could come handy on the road (e.g translator).

What’s your favorite iPhone app for travel?

iPhone may be an impressive device all by itself, but it’s even more impressive to see all the companies that are jumping on board and offering their innovative app using the iPhone platform. Even news organizations are realizing the potential for this market, which is why they are jumping in one by one. CNN is the latest news organization that has jumped into the iPhone app business. It has just released CNN Mobile that is designed to keep iPhone holders informed with the latest CNN news on the go. CNN Mobile comes with videos, push notification, local news, and everything else you need to stay informed. The people at CNN seem to be optimistic about the fortunes of this app:

This is a major event for CNN…The impact that mobile can have is increasing. This app is really going to be an important indicator of where CNN is going moving forward.

CNN Mobile is very easy to use and provides with an easy way to skim through the news and even upload your own video to iReport. You can also customize what you want to see and filter out the junk.

The Video tab provides you access to the latest live streams from CNN. So whether you are in an airport or just waiting for a cab, you can listen to the latest CNN news on the go. You can also save stories and videos and view them at a later time. But perhaps the most powerful feature in this app is CNN iReport. If you happen to be close to where an important incident occurs, you can capture your video and upload it to CNN, hoping that they will actually show it during their daily programming. The app has a lot of positive, but CNN seems to be too optimistic about the potential of CNN Mobile. Otherwise, how do you explain the $1.99 price tag on this app? It’s true that CNN and other cable news organizations don’t give too much for free. While this app is very affordable, CNN and other news companies do tend to put their own spin on the news and report only the news that “they” deem important. The app has a lot of potential. It’s easy to use and the video upload feature is a plus. But I am just not sure anyone should be getting their news from CNN, Fox, or MSNBC these days.

Your take: would you pay $1.99 for CNN Mobile or similar applications?

Fast and Furious and Star Trek are two new applications that show this trend. Are these apps going to dominate the iTunes’ bestsellers chart? Nobody knows. But it just goes on to show that you can always leverage the latest news and developments in Hollywood and even around the world as to develop a killer iPhone app. It’s not too hard to guess that someone is already working on an action game where the Navy SEALs battle the Somalian pirates, and I’ve got a hunch that game can go viral if it’s designed well.  This is not the only tactic to go viral on iTunes, but it’s worth trying if you are out of ideas. The more coverage your inspiration gets on TV, the bigger opportunity you have to make it in this field.

Who would have thought a couple of years ago that Apple would people to download its iPhone apps a billion times. That is just a staggering number. It’s true that the actually number of iPhone users is a small fraction of this number, but this number goes on to show the brilliance of Apple’s iPhone strategy. Apple competitors should be watching this petrified. Most of these folks have focused on the hardware side of things, while Apple has been building up its software platform. That’s why the iPhone is so hard to kill.

Apple will pass 1 billion downloads in the near future. But where does it go from here? We know iPhone 3.0 comes with more gaming features, and the application side of things will be improved as well. My hunch is that Apple’s international efforts will help it pass the 2B download mark faster than it took Apple to get to 1B downloads. The next natural step for Apple is going fully international and expand in more markets. From what we have heard about iPhone 3.0, that’s exactly what Apple is doing.

Puzzle games are extremely popular on the iPhone platform. Many of them have gone to top the best sellers chart on iTunes. And there is a simple for that. Puzzles are stimulating, and they do kill time. So if you are bored, you can get over it fast with a nice puzzle. ParkingLot is another puzzle for the iPhone platform that involves you getting your car out from a jammed parking spot. Sounds familiar? We have all been there before, and it’s a challenge even in the real world. But of course, this game goes beyond anything you see in the real world. You have 12 packs of more than 450 puzzles to solve, and you have the option to make things very difficult for yourself in this game.

The graphics are great, and the puzzles get truly interesting as you solve a few couple. I don’t know about you, but I always love a challenge when it comes to parking cars, and while I don’t have time to spend all day parking my car in real life, I can easily tackle all kinds of situations on ParkingLot. Overall, if you are looking for a challenging iPhone puzzle that is not only fun but simple to understand, you won’t go wrong with ParkingLot.

iPhone has quickly become one of the best mobile gaming devices on the market. Thanks to the creativity of iPhone application developers, there is something for every gamer on iTunes. But it’s always a bonus when you get a popular social media game launched on your phone. Zynga, the makers of Scramble on Facebook, have brought Scramble Live to iPhone fans. Zynga is not new to this field. They have created card and virtual world games on MySpace and Facebook, but now are bringing their innovative games to the iPhone.

What I like about Scramble Live is the fact that you can play against folks who are playing the game on Facebook. Going beyond your handheld device simply makes the competition more intense. Overall, Zynga is one of those companies that iPhone application developers should watch to master the art of writing and launching simple, yet viral, iPhone applications.

You can download Scramble Live for your iPhone here.

I have always believed that most people don’t pay too much attention to all the free stuff that they get their hands on. There is just something about freebies. You don’t have to spend money to get them. And if you are not parting way with your money to get them, it’s easy to forget them. Wired has come out with a piece that proves my theory. According to Pinch Media, 80 percent of iPhone owners forget about their free applications after one try. That is an staggering number.

Think about it. Most free iPhone applications get ignored after the very first try. If you are an iPhone developer, that could be heartbreaking. I have always thought that giving away applications for free is great and helps you go viral, but you should test different prices and listen to the iPhone nation before giving away all you have worked for. Now, you don’t have to charge $20 a pop to make folks remember your app. Why not start at $0.99? If someone’s not willing to pay that much for your app, maybe it’s not worth it after all.