A revision of works on the methods of writing and apodization of fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) is presented. The possibilities of apodizing FBGs recorded by holographic methods with phase masks and Lloyd interferometer using laser radiation with a Gaussian intensity profile are considered. FBG reflection spectra are numerically simulated for different parameters of the writing beam and configurations of the experimental setup. Side-lobe suppression and FBG spectrum smoothing are experimentally demonstrated. It is shown that this effect is due to equalization of the average value of the induced refractive index in the FBGs. FBG applications, in particular, as frequency selectors in fiber lasers (tunable, narrow-band, and multiwavelength) are described.