Today we’re very excited to announce the immediate availability of our next major updates, forScore 9.0 and forScore mini 2.0. Over the past several weeks, we’ve given you a sneak peek at what’s new and improved, from completely new features like Buttons and Dashboard to the improvements we’re making to the metadata panel, stamps, and our audio utilities.
Those are the biggest changes, but these updates include a whole lot more like a new full-screen menu option in the accessibility section of the settings panel and an improved page caching system that makes reopening recent files much faster. All of these changes add up to make these the best versions of forScore yet, and we hope you love them.
We’ve also done a lot of work to get ready for iOS 9 and to take full advantage of the new split-screen multitasking modes. Although we’re not allowed to ship full support for these modes just yet, the changes we’ve made to prepare have been extensive and exiting. We haven’t just made sure everything works all right, we’ve taken a lot of time to figure out how we can best use the available space without cramming things in. We’ll have more on this soon, but it’s very cool.
Of course, these great updates could never have happened without the amazing support of our customers, so thank you once again for your tremendous enthusiasm and feedback. As always, these updates are completely free for all existing users, so be sure to check out forScore 9.0 and forScore mini 2.0 today!
Our next big update is just around the corner, but we still have one last sneak peek to share with you. If you haven’t had a chance to check them out, be sure to read our other sneak peeks unveiling our new Buttons tool, combined audio utilities, Dashboard, and big metadata updates.
Stamps are a big part of what makes forScore’s annotation capabilities so unique and robust, and although we include a bunch of symbols by default, the most powerful part of the Stamps feature is your ability to create custom stamps. You can draw them with your finger or you can use an image, but until now you’ve had to use iTunes on your PC to transfer the image to forScore’s documents directory first. Now, with forScore 9, you’ll be able to import images directly from iOS’s Photos app. That means you can use an app like Safari to find an image, 
save it to your photo library, then use the stamp creator to turn it into a stamp all without returning to your computer.
The ability to create your own stamps is huge, but one problem some people run into is that they want to create stamps for things like chord diagrams and 48×48 pixels is just too small (using a retina display bumps the detail up to 96×96 pixels, but the physical dimensions are the same). Now, we’ve bumped that limit up to 72×72 or 144×144 pixels and we’re automatically upgrading all of forScore’s default stamps.
Finally, we’ve added the ability to save and reuse swatches in the color picker that’s used throughout forScore. That means you can quickly switch between your favorite colors when tinting stamps and shapes, changing the color-coding of buttons, setting a color for a group, and more.
We know that details matter, especially when we’re talking about something as important as annotation. Even the tiniest tweaks can have a big impact over time, and we think these great improvements certainly fit the bill. We’re very excited to bring you these improvements as well as everything we’ve unveiled over the past few weeks (and a few things we still haven’t had time to cover) just as soon as it’s ready. Stay tuned!
Our sneak peek at forScore 9 continues today with a look at some big changes coming to the metadata panel and menus. Of course, metadata is a huge part of forScore; it’s what allows users to work with thousands of scores without getting bogged down by endless lists and similar names.
There are a lot of ways you can sort, separate, and search for your scores, but many of our users want something more. Some need an ‘arranger’ field, while others would prefer a reference number or year. Unfortunately, there are only so many different pieces of information we can make room for before things start to get unusably complex. That’s why we’re doing two things that we think will really help.
First, we’re adding a new top-level category type called ‘Labels’ which can be used to add comma-separated values to your scores just like you can now with composers, genres, or tags. Of course, ‘labels’ is a pretty generic name and that’s by design because of the second big change we’re making.
The Genres field has always been customizable if you knew where to find the option near the bottom of the settings panel. It’s something we added long ago, but it never quite felt like enough. Now, we’re making most of forScore’s metadata fields renameable and you no longer have to venture off to the settings panel to do so. Just tap on the name of a field to change it. That includes composers, genres, tags, labels, rating, difficulty, time, and key, so now you can set everything up just how you like it.
That’s not all, though; we’ve put a little extra bit of info down at the bottom of the metadata panel in the Layout section. You’ll still see the current and total number of pages, but you’ll also find the current item’s filename, file size, and usage statistics (if you’ve allowed the new Dashboard feature to collect that information). You can tap the usage text to cycle through your totals for today, this week, or this month. If you’re viewing a score you’ll find the page offset field and margin adjustment slider, and if you’re viewing a bookmark you’ll be able to edit its start and end page number.
We know there will always be people who want more fields and people who use few or none of them. We think this is the best way to provide additional capabilities without sacrificing clarity and usability, and we think it’ll make a big difference for many of our users. All that and more is coming soon with forScore 9, so stay tuned!
We’re working hard to get forScore 9 ready for release this summer, and today we want to give you a sneak peek at a big new feature called Dashboard.
Dashboard brings a whole new level of personalization to forScore, and we’ve never done anything like it. If you allow it, Dashboard notes which scores, bookmarks, and setlists you view and for how long. With that information, it can do a few interesting 
things that give you valuable insights into your playing habits and help keep you on track.
The Analytics tab of the new Dashboard interface gives you a clear overview of your usage. It can display items (scores and bookmarks) or setlists, and it can show the number of times you viewed them and for how long. A timeline totals these statistics for each of the past ninety days, and you can tap on any day to see which items or setlists you played, ranked by time or number of views. You can even tap one of those items to see how often or how long you played it over the past ninety days.
The Reports tab allows you to create templates and generate PDF reports based on certain criteria, such as unit of time (day, week, or month), length of time (e.g. the past three weeks), and whether to show items, setlists or both. They can be item- or setlist-specific, or they can show everything. Once you set up a report template, you can quickly generate a PDF with just a tap and share it with your colleagues or an instructor.
The Goals tab allows you to create goals and track your progress per day, week, month, or all-time. The main view gives you a quick overview of your progress towards each of your goals, and you can select one to edit it or show more detailed information. A timeline along the top shows your statistics for each day, week, or month, and you can tap any of them to share your results with friends or colleagues via email, iMessage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. It’s a lot of fun, and brings an entirely new shared experience to forScore.
These tools provide a whole new level of personal accountability and can help you make meaningful progress based on real numbers. We’ve never collected this kind of information before, so we’re being extremely careful about maintaining our customer’s privacy. That’s why forScore only tracks your usage if you explicitly allow it to do so, and never shares that information under any circumstances—it’s stored locally on your device and never transmitted anywhere.
All of this is coming this summer with forScore 9, along with our new Buttons tool and consolidated audio utilities. That’s not all, though, so check back soon for even more!
Our next big update is coming this summer, and today we’re excited to show you another change we’re making with forScore 9.
Since the beginning, forScore’s metronome has been a core feature and an invaluable tool for many of our users. Later, we added utilities like the pitch pipe and tuner, but with little room in the control bar along the top of the screen these new additions were buried in the tools menu.
With forScore 9, that’s changing: the metronome, pitch pipe, and tuner are now all accessible from the main view. A segmented control allows you to switch between them quickly, and forScore updates the toolbar icon and remembers your choice so it’s always just a tap away. We’re proud of the work we’ve done to make these utilities easy to use, and now we’re giving all three of them a chance to shine.
That’s not all, though! We’ve also added a new accessibility setting that lets you customize the metronome’s ‘tick’ and ‘tock’ sounds. If you’ve ever had trouble hearing the default sounds (or if you simply prefer a different style), just add two .wav files to your forScore library and select them in the “Metronome sounds” section of the accessibility panel.
This summer we’re releasing forScore 9, and we can’t wait to show you what’s new—so we aren’t! Over the next few weeks, we’ll be giving you a sneak peek at some of the biggest changes we’re making.
With this major update, we focused on making forScore more flexible and personal than ever before. Our audience continues to grow at an incredible rate, so customization and personalization are essential to ensuring that forScore can meet the needs of each new user. We’ve got a lot of big things to show you, and we’re kicking things off today with a powerful new feature called Buttons.
Like the essential Links feature, the new Buttons tool allows you to place tappable, colored dots anywhere on the page. Instead of simply handling repeats, however, buttons are far more versatile and powerful. They can be programmed to perform one of seven major functions, with plenty of options that give you a wide range of new ways to make your musical life a little easier.
The first two actions allow you to control forScore’s metronome: start or stop the metronome (after a customizable delay, if needed) or change the tempo partway through your piece. The third allows you to start or stop the current audio track (again—after a delay, if needed), and the fourth plays a note with the pitch pipe.
The fifth option allows you to send a set of MIDI commands, including program changes, Song Select messages, or raw hexadecimal codes. There’s also a new type of MIDI entry: delay. Now you can specify a number of milliseconds to wait between sent commands. This new delay entry is not only available for buttons, but also for commands sent automatically when opening a score or bookmark.
If you’ve used forScore’s Notes feature and the “remind me” option, you’ll be familiar with dropdown note reminders. Now, you can program buttons to show these same kinds of reminders on command.
Finally, the Navigation action allows you to move to the next or previous score or to perform either a half- or full-page turn (the opposite of what would normally happen, depending on your settings).
Each button uses a customizable, action-specific color to make buttons instantly recognizable. We think buttons are going to be a fantastic new way to control forScore’s many functions, and we can’t wait to share them with you later this year. Be sure to check back soon, though, since this is just the start of what we’ve got coming in forScore 9.
An update to one of Apple’s support documents today suggests that a public beta of iOS 9 is coming soon. As with any iOS beta, we do not suggest installing prerelease builds on any device that you use to run forScore. This is especially true for iOS 9.
The three private beta versions of iOS 9 that Apple has released to developers so far have all exhibited an issue that makes forScore unusable. The issue is very clearly on Apple’s end, and the bug report that we filed has been marked as a duplicate (meaning that we’re not the first to report it and that Apple is definitely aware of the problem). Until this problem is fixed, forScore will frequently become unresponsive until the home button is pressed or double-pressed.
Rest assured that these problems will be fixed by the time iOS 9 is released this fall. In the mean time, please do not install any beta versions of iOS 9 unless you’re using a dedicated device or you don’t plan on using forScore until the fall (gasp!).
We’re happy to announce the immediate availability of our latest update, forScore 8.4. This update includes the much-anticipated Groups service that was unexpectedly delayed earlier this year. If you haven’t had a chance to read about Groups, be sure to check out our original sneak peek as well as some important details to know before deciding if this service will work for you. This update also fixes several bugs, so be sure to check it out today on the App Store!
[Updated March 2018: the Groups service has since been discontinued, learn more here.]
June 19, 2015
| In Depth, News
There has been a common notion in the media for the past year or so that the iPad just isn’t doing very well. If you look at Apple’s quarterly earnings reports and iPad sales, it’s obvious: people are buying less of them than they once did. That’s a hard fact, but it shouldn’t be sensationalized as the premature death of the post-PC era—especially just as things are really starting to heat up.
Long upgrade cycles, the introduction of the iPhone 6 and 6 plus, and a resurgence in PC sales after a long period of processor stagnation have all played their part in slowing the iPad down. But arguably the biggest problem with the iPad today is that every major exclusive software innovation it features was introduced way back in 2010. Every iOS update since then has made the iPad more like the iPhone, and it’s a tough sell when almost everything that makes iOS on the iPad unique is five years old. Fortunately that’s about to change in a big way.
This year’s WWDC, Apple’s annual developer conference, just wrapped up last week. Apple unveiled iOS 9 and, although it’s lighter on big features than previous releases, a lot of the new stuff seems to be focused squarely—if not exclusively—on the iPad. New trackpad-like features don’t appear to be iPad specific, but Apple clearly had bigger screens in mind when designing them. The headlining features, though, are all iPad-specific: picture-in-picture, slide over, and split screen multitasking. In fact, that last one is exclusive not just to the iPad, but to the newest iPad Air 2.
Last year’s introduction of the iPad Air 2 should have been a bigger deal. With an incredibly powerful 3-core CPU, 2GB of RAM, and touch ID, it was even thinner and lighter than the previous year’s model. Yet it ended up being little more than a footnote in the media. After all, what good was all that power without some new software features to help users take advantage of it? Developers soon discovered that some of the changes made in iOS 8 seemed to indicate that a split screen mode was in the works, but that it simply wasn’t ready for prime time. This year it is.
Just as long as there have been rumors of a split-screen mode for the iPad, there have also been rumors of a larger iPad, generally dubbed the ‘iPad Pro.’ Of course, there’s no reason to believe that just because one of these rumors panned out, the other will as well. We’ve been working hard to get ready for iOS 9’s release this fall and although the beta is not stable enough for everyday use, the Split Screen and Slide Over features make a lot of sense on the existing iPads that support it. That could be the end of it, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Many people seem to immediately dismiss the idea of a larger iPad because it doesn’t make sense for them, but the whole reason product lines exist is to satisfy the needs of unique groups within the larger market. The iPod Classic could never have suited the needs of everyone who bought an iPod mini, nano, or shuffle, and the iPad isn’t perfect for a lot of people. Which people? Yes, you already know where this is going: musicians. Many forScore customers want a device with a bigger screen, and although it has seemed like the rumor that would never come true, the pieces all seem to be falling into place. We won’t know for sure until this fall, but iOS 9 seems like a big part of this puzzle and we can’t wait to see what comes next.
Today we’re happy to announce the immediate availability of forScore 8.3 and forScore mini 1.2. These updates add tighter compatibility with the new AirTurn PED by offering direct Mode 1 communication in addition to the standard keyboard modes already supported in previous versions (with some potential issues). Learn more about connecting your PED to forScore here, and be sure to check out AirTurn’s new page turner if you haven’t had a chance to already. As always, these updates are free and available now on the App Store.