Today we’re happy to announce the release of forScore 11.0.2 which adds a brand new content provider to forScore’s Services panel: Noteflight. Noteflight is the world’s first and best online music notation software and offers a marketplace for buying and selling music. With this update, you can now download any of those purchases directly into your forScore library as standard PDF files.
We want to thank Noteflight for partnering with us—the hard work they’ve done to make this integration possible and their enthusiasm throughout the process makes it clear to us that they understand the importance of making high-quality, purchased content available to musicians without forcing them to change how they work.
forScore 11.0.2 is a free update for all users, available now for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Get it exclusively on the iOS App Store.
It’s a huge week for us and the response to forScore 11 has been great, thank you all so much for your incredible support! We’re working through a backlog of emails and doing our best to answer questions as quickly as we can, but we wanted to address a few of the most common ones here to help get the word out.
Drawing preset width
The new variable width drawing algorithms at work when you use an Apple Pencil or Logitech Crayon produce thicker lines in general than previous versions; if you want to make them thinner, adjust the Variable Width option in forScore’s settings panel. (We’ll be making some adjustments with version 11.0.1 to improve the effect, so be sure to try these different settings once you’ve updated to find the right fit for you at that point.)
Downloading forScore onto a second device
forScore 11 is a universal app and you can install it on multiple devices for free if you’re signed in with the same Apple ID. Currently, an App Store bug makes it appear as though you have to pay a second time to download it which is not true. If you go through the purchase process you will not be charged. Learn more here.
Business model/subscriptions
We’re not changing our business model, forScore remains a paid up-front app with free updates for life. forScore Pro is an additional, optional service that isn’t right for everyone. Visit this page to learn more about our approach to subscriptions.
Where did Versions and/or Devices go?
A few things moved around in forScore 11 but these features aren’t gone. Devices moved into forScore’s settings panel and Versions is now a legacy feature that can be re-enabled for users who need it (Cloning is a better choice for new users).
Nine years ago today we released forScore 1.0, and we’re back on this anniversary proud to announce the immediate availability of our latest major update, version eleven.
Now a universal app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, forScore 11 is the most flexible version of forScore yet. It sports a refreshed design, new features like score layers, and forScore Pro: our optional auto-renewing subscription that lets those who need it get even more out of forScore. If you haven’t seen everything that’s new, be sure to check out this page to learn all about it and head to the App Store to get it.
A lot has changed over the past nine years, and it’s a privilege to be back here once again announcing a bunch of new features and enhancements with a long, exciting road still ahead of us. Thanks as always to our beta testers and to all of our customers for supporting us and enabling us to continue bringing you free major updates; we couldn’t do it without you!
Available now for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch
When we released forScore 1.0 in 2010, we had no idea how successful it would become. We debuted a limited first pass and then went on to reiterate with the support and feedback of our customers to improve it, expand it, and to create innovative features that have since become standard across the market. We did this all by relying on a single up-front purchase, offering all new features and updates for free to existing customers, until this year when we decided to also add an optional auto-renewing subscription. Here’s why:
Apps take work
We get dozens of emails every single day (more on weekends), and we do our best to help as quickly as we can. Sometimes, though, a customer might need a lot more from us than others and it’s not fair to all of our users to halt development any time one person needs a little extra assistance. This subscription, first and foremost, gives us the breathing room to do right by everyone.
Developing an app takes countless hours of hard, active work. We might look like a big company, but in reality forScore is just two people—one of whom works part time. The other person designs the app, creates new features, fixes bugs, maintains this website, tests and updates all of our apps for the latest major and minor iOS releases, and much, much more.
All of our customers have benefitted from that work, whether they bought forScore yesterday at its current price or back in 2010 for just a fraction of it. We believe strongly that all of these customers should be able to continue using the app in perpetuity based on the features available when they bought it, and in almost every case they should also be able to benefit from new and improved features without an additional charge, but…
Some features aren’t for everyone
We often get highly specific or advanced feature requests that don’t make sense for most people. They’re not helpful and could even be distracting or confusing for casual users, so we’ve always had to say no to them until now. By offering a subscription, we can make sure that only people who understand what these features are will be able to access them.
Our customers want it
If you hate the idea of a subscription, that’s completely valid. There are also people who reach out to us occasionally to ask if there’s any way they can continue to help support the app on an ongoing basis. We’re not making a judgement call either way, but we trust our customers to make that decision for themselves.
Apple wants it
When you buy an app from the App Store or an in-app purchase, Apple keeps 30% of the sale amount (and provides a lot of services to developers for that fee). As a special exemption for auto-renewing subscriptions, Apple drops that percentage to 15% for customers who subscribe for longer than one year.
Each year it seems like the “best” business model for apps changes, but with this move Apple is making it clear that they think that auto-renewing subscriptions are a key part of maintaining sustainable development in the long haul and they’re putting their weight behind it. If we ignore that now, our competitors will get a leg up on us and we’ll be playing catch-up later.
You might not
If you don’t want it, that’s fine! In fact, we don’t think the majority of our customers will. We believe there’s value in offering a more complex experience to those who need it without making our app unusable for causal users.
It’s optional (really)
We built our company by selling apps for a fair price, as a single up-front purchase and with the promise of free updates for life. Maybe subscriptions are the future, but that’s no certainty. We want and need to offer a subscription to remain competitive, but we’re not jumping overboard—forScore’s subscription is entirely optional. It offers extra services, conveniences and shortcuts that help some of our customers get more, but it’s not a barrier to normal use in any way.
No current features require subscribing, and we don’t plan on changing that. When you buy forScore, you do so based on the features it advertises and you should be able to use those features for as long as you want them. We clearly distinguish subscriber-only features from the rest, but if you feel like we’ve misrepresented anything let us know.
Subscriptions make a lot of people uneasy, and we understand that. We won’t nag you to upgrade, send you push notifications, or use any of the terrible tactics that so many companies employ because we hate them too. forScore Pro is there if you need it, and if you don’t you never have to give it a second thought. We aim to use this tool to provide something unique and we hope you’ll be a part of that whether you subscribe or not.
Today we’re happy to announce the immediate availability of free updates to all of our Music Box apps: Pitch, Please!, Beat Keeper, Cue, and TuneWave. Each of these apps sports a lightly refreshed design that improves legibility and fits in better with modern versions of iOS. Beat Keeper also features a new master on/off button, while the fine tuning in Pitch, Please! now works when using clarinet or piano sounds, not just the tone option as it previously did.
All of these apps are available for purchase separately or at a discount as part of the forScore Music Box bundle, and of course all four updates are totally free for all existing users so be sure to check them out on the App Store!
Available now
Available now
Available now
Available now
