It’s a new year and we’re back with another exciting update packed with features and upgrades musicians everywhere will love. There are dozens of new actions for the Shortcuts app, half-page turn position indicators, a new tier of forScore Pro with family sharing, significant localization improvements, and more.
With forScore 14.4 and Cue 2.4, we’re also introducing a new version of the Cue remote control protocol built atop Apple’s modern networking frameworks. It provides a better experience, from faster discovery of nearby devices to more reliable connections, and the old version of the Cue protocol is still available if you need to connect to devices that haven’t updated (or can’t).
forScore 14.4 and Cue 2.4 are coming soon, but you can try them out for yourself today by becoming a beta tester. Otherwise, be sure to check back soon as we put the final touches on these incredible updates and get them ready for release this Spring.
forScore 14.4 Sneak Peek
After the release of iOS 18 we began receiving reports that some users were unable to interact with system-provided panels shown within forScore. We recently discovered that this is related to the way forScore provides its Sepia effect and have changed this feature with forScore 14.3.2 to restore all normal functionality. Rather than applying to the entire window, including menus and other panels presented within it, the sepia effect now only applies to elements within forScore’s main view.
The sepia effect is created using standard UI elements and does not, to our knowledge, use them in unintended ways. Until Apple explains any changes they’ve made with iOS 18 or offers updated best practices, this is our only option for avoiding the issue. If we can safely reverse this change in the future, we will do so.
Today we’re happy to announce the immediate release of forScore 14.3, the latest major update to our sheet music reading app for iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Vision Pro. This update brings new widgets, updated icons, better support for accessories and shortcuts, a redesigned split view interface, more actions in the Shortcuts app, hundreds of new stamps for Pro subscribers, and much much more. We’re very excited to be bringing all of these new and updated features to you with this free update for all users. Thank you for your support, now let the music play!
Available now for iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Vision Pro
This is not the article I wanted to write this morning, but here we are: forScore’s next major update is ready but we have no idea when it’ll be available. After months of planning and many hundreds of hours of work, Apple’s App Review is now the bureaucratic blockade that we cannot work around.
What’s the problem?
App Review has rejected forScore 14.3 three times in a row, providing the same copy-pasted response each time, ignoring our replies and questions entirely. They claim forScore uses the TrueDepth APIs (which it does, to provide the Face Gestures feature) but that its privacy policy is either unavailable or inadequate—they don’t specify.
forScore’s privacy policy has been available for years at forScore.co/privacy and has dealt with this specific topic. We don’t collect any data, from this API or others, and the information supplied about the position of your face is only used live to provide this feature when you specifically enable it. Moreover, App Review is not legal review and their opinions concerning our privacy policy should be limited to whether it exists (it does) and if it addresses certain sensitive APIs (again, it does).
What have we done?
We restated the facts, resubmitted our app, asked follow-up questions, and got the same inhuman response each time. We appealed the rejection, plead with our one contact in Apple’s Developer Relations team (not every developer is lucky enough to have one) to escalate our case, and then we sat for four days hearing nothing but silence.
forScore 14.3 was submitted within 20 minutes of it becoming technically possible to do so, about a week ago in preparation for this big day. We’ve been given no potential path to move forward despite the fact that this feature, and our privacy policy, have not changed in years and many updates have been approved under the same circumstances.
Where does this leave things?
forScore 14.2 is compatible with iOS 18, iPadOS 18, etc. so this isn’t an immediate issue for forScore users. This is a terrible situation for us, though, as it squanders all of the work we’ve done all summer long in good faith. Our best hope right now is that it’s temporary and that we never get this same app reviewer again. That’s not a good foundation upon which to run a business, and I know Apple can do better than this.
Hoping to return soon with better news,
Justin
Update Sept. 23rd 2024: This update has now been approved. Our privacy policy remains unchanged.
Today we’re happy to announce the immediate release of updates to all of our Music Box apps, making sure they’re fully optimized for Apple’s upcoming OS releases. They each sport new dark mode icon variants, and Onyx even adds two new Control Center widgets so you can launch the app or hear a note with just a quick tap. These updates are totally free, as always, available exclusively on the App Store.
