News

Apple Pencil & Hover

| News

This week we introduced forScore 14, and today we wanted to talk a little more about something that may not seem like a big deal: Apple Pencil hover detection. This feature was introduced last fall with Apple’s latest iPad Pros featuring M2 processors, and unfortunately we got no advance notice that it was coming so we couldn’t take advantage of it until now.

With this hardware upgrade, apps can detect when Apple Pencil’s tip is near the screen but not touching it. This allows developers to add things like preview indicators, advanced gestures like pinching to resize the preset before you draw, and more. That’s already a great upgrade, but there’s one more thing that really elevates the annotation experience in forScore—instant annotation.

Instant annotation is a combination of settings that makes it easier to annotate without entering and exiting annotation mode. This requires forScore knowing when you want to start annotating (easy: when Apple Pencil touches the screen) and when you’re finished (much more difficult). Our solution to this was to provide a setting to automatically exit annotation mode after a period of inactivity. That works, but if you happen to try and draw just as forScore is saving your changes you’ll see no markings appear on the screen.

For this feature to really work well, forScore needs to be able to predict when you’re finished annotating with more accuracy and that’s where hover detection comes in. Now, instead of waiting for a set amount of time, forScore waits until Apple Pencil is far enough away from the screen that it can comfortably assume you’re finished drawing. It removes a lot of guesswork and dramatically improves the reliability of this feature.

Hover detection isn’t something most people can take advantage of just yet, since it’s only available on Apple’s latest and greatest iPads, but as this feature trickles down to other devices in their lineup we think it’ll really make a big difference for musicians who annotate regularly and quickly.

forScore 14

| News

Today we’re incredibly proud and excited to announce the release of forScore 14, the latest major update to our sheet music reading app for iPad, iPhone, and Mac.

After a decade of evolution the metadata panel and tuner have been completely replaced, rewritten from scratch to be more flexible, modern, and powerful. Apple Pencil hover detection supercharges the annotation experience, secondary windows get far more capable, and forScore sports a brand new icon with several alternatives and older versions. With forScore Pro you can do even more like wink to turn pages, and you can now try out Pro features with a 30-day pass that doesn’t auto-renew. All that and more.

Thanks as always to our beta testers, and to all of you for continuing to support forScore and allowing us to keep providing significant free updates like this.


forScore 14

Available now for iPad, iPhone, and Mac

Sneak Peek: forScore 14

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Today we’re incredibly excited to give you a sneak peek at our latest major update to forScore, version 14. This big update features significant updates to some of forScore’s most important components, including a total rewrite of the metadata panel that focuses on flexibility and opens up all sorts of possibilities for the future. This version also includes an all-new tuner, significant annotation enhancements thanks to Apple Pencil hover detection (available on M2 iPad Pros), another huge push forward for secondary windows, and more.

There’s one last thing—a few, actually. After thirteen wonderful years, it’s time to change things up and introduce an all-new forScore icon. There are alternate versions available to forScore Pro subscribers, including a beautiful icon designed by the legendary Matt Skiles. Of course, the older icons are still available so switching back is easy if you prefer the classics.

forScore 14 will be released later this spring, but you can try it out for yourself today by becoming a beta tester. Otherwise, be sure to check back soon as we put the final touches on this incredible update.

forScore 14 Sneak Peek  

Spring Updates

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Today we’re happy to announce major updates to our Music Box apps and two minor updates to Nocturne and Piano with Friends. These free updates involve six apps spanning three platforms: it’s a huge batch of updates so let’s jump right in!

• A complete rewrite of our tuner using SwiftUI for a beautiful native experience across all platforms, TuneWave offers improved audio analysis presented with an even easier to read design. It features the ability to adjust the microphone’s input level for better results depending on your instrument and surroundings, includes a lock screen widget for easy access, and it comes bundled with a watch app for the first time ever (for no additional fee). It’s the biggest update to TuneWave ever, and we can’t wait to hear what you think.

• Pitch, Please! is now called Onyx and sports an updated design with four themes (two of which support light and dark modes) and an updated screen widget for instant access.

• Beat Keeper has been renamed as well: Modus is our new metronome and features a lightly updated design and minor improvements that’ll keep the beat going no matter what.

• Featuring a new split view layout for menus and sepia mode for the first time ever, forScore’s remote control app Cue is ready for the perfect duet.

All of these updates (and the minor updates to Nocturne and Piano with Friends) feature brand new icons, several alternates, and the previous versions in case you prefer them. These updates are free and all available now for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS, so be sure to check them out today!


Cue

Available now


Onyx

Available now


TuneWave

Available now


Modus

Available now


Piano with Friends

Available now


Nocturne

Available now

Podcast: Scoring Notes

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Justin recently sat down with Philip Rothman and David MacDonald for the Scoring Notes podcast to talk about forScore’s origin, evolution, and the principles that guide its development. Check it out by searching for Scoring Notes within your preferred podcast player, or visit the Scoring Notes blog to read the episode description and give it a listen!

Employee of the Month

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Hi, I’m Justin, and I make forScore (more on that in a moment). Thanks to ongoing controversy at Twitter, a decent number of forScore users have started migrating over to other services. I’ve sparingly maintained a forScore account on Twitter for some time, and I just started one on Mastodon. I plan to experiment a bit, but you can generally expect the same thing from either account: it mostly serves to get the word out about the biggest news and updates concerning forScore and its sibling apps and isn’t regularly monitored for responses or equipped to handle support requests. If you prefer, you can also use this site’s RSS feed to see all news posts.

So that’s the update, but let’s back up a bit—who is this fellow and what happened to the rest of the company? Due to a number of important but boring reasons, I started using the royal “we” to voice all forScore communications. It was a necessary decision back in 2010, and it’s a hard habit to break. But the truth is that I created forScore and have been its sole developer ever since. I also handle pretty much every aspect of running the business and making apps except for support, which I entrust to my partner Isaac.

Moving to a new social network gives me an opportunity to revisit how I approach talking about myself and about my work, so I’m trying to be more singular and authentic going forward. If you’re interested in learning more about me personally and don’t mind unvarnished opinions, feel free to follow me at mastodon.social/@ambulephabus (I don’t expect to be on Twitter for the foreseeable future). Just know that I won’t be ‘on the clock’ in that personal arena and will not be engaging in topics or questions that cross the line into business.

I just want to say, personally, thank you for your support over the years. Your passion has kept me going all this time and I sincerely appreciate it. I look forward to becoming a stronger part of this community very soon.

iPadOS 16 & macOS 13

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Apple’s major OS upgrade cycle wraps up next week with the release of iPadOS 16.1 and macOS 13, so we’re getting ready with a few updates of our own. forScore 13.1.5 brings important updates and minor improvements to iOS and iPadOS, and brings all of the great upgrades in 13.1 to the Mac so you can enjoy them across all of your devices.

We’ve also updated some of our smaller Mac apps to get them ready for macOS 13 Ventura: free updates to Cue, TuneWave, and Pitch, Please! are all available now so be sure to install them to keep everything running smoothly.

Minor Updates

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Just over a week ago now Apple released iOS 16 and we introduced forScore 13.1, the biggest update we’ve ever done. We’re so grateful for your patience and feedback while we work to address the bugs that slipped through. We always test our updates as much as we can but going from less than a hundred testers to over a hundred thousand users in an instant is always bound to uncover things we just didn’t see on our own.

There’s a tough balance to strike between fixing every bug as quickly as we can and releasing too many updates in a row, but sometimes we just have to push through. It has been an exhausting week (especially for an app built and maintained by a single developer) but we’re happy with the progress we’re making. Right now we’re aware of a performance issue affecting people with a very high number of files and we’ve added some diagnostics capabilities to 13.1.3 to help us identify and resolve it. So expect a 13.1.4 relatively soon, and then things should quiet down until iPadOS 16 comes out in a few weeks.

There’s one last thing we’d like to point out for those who aren’t aware: although automatic app updates are enabled by default, they’re optional. If you require a near-constant level of stability and even a few days of bugs can severely impact you in professional or educational terms you should turn this feature off and update when you’re ready. You’ve got some control over how this process works and you should use it if you need to.

Thanks once again to our incredible audience, your continuing support and enthusiasm are what drives forScore forward.

forScore 13.1

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Today we’re happy to announce the release of forScore 13.1 for iOS and iPadOS—a huge update that’s been in the works for almost a year. Nearly all of it has been completely rewritten to ensure that it makes the most of today’s hardware and OS features and that it can take full advantage of everything Apple offers going forward.

This update is fully optimized for today’s release of iOS 16, and is ready to shine on iPadOS 16 when that’s released next month. It introduces big upgrades to forScore’s multi-window capabilities and it unlocks new capabilities on devices that support Stage Manager—the most dramatic change to multitasking in years. Many of these changes will also be included in forScore 13.1 for Mac, coming next month alongside the release of macOS 13.

Thanks as always to our beta testers, and to all of you for continuing to support forScore and allowing us to keep providing significant free updates like this.


forScore 13.1

Available now for iPad and iPhone

Pitch, Please! 3.2

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iOS 16 and watchOS 9 are coming on Monday, and our standalone pitch pipe app Pitch, Please! is ready to take full advantage of them.

Our free 3.2 update features an Apple Watch complication for watchOS 9 that gives you instant access to your pitch pipe right from your watch face, and the watch app has been optimized for the new Apple Watch Ultra.

We’ve also created a iPhone lock screen widget for iOS 16 that launches the app with just a tap and looks great alongside all of the other changes coming to the lock screen this year.

If you’re getting new devices or planning to install Apple’s major OS updates this week, be sure to check out these great new features!


Pitch, Please! 3.2

Available now