News

Going Abroad

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It’s something we’ve been waiting a long time for, and now we’re finally ready: forScore is packing its swimsuit and sunblock (or galoshes and umbrella, depending on where you live) and heading your way. Or, in less colorful terminology, we’re localizing our app and translating it for all of our patient customers who speak languages other than English.

To accomplish this monumental task, we need your help! If you speak English and a second language fluently, and you’d be willing to volunteer a little bit of your time, get in touch with us so we can give you the details. You can do as much or as little as you like, and we’ll be cross-referencing your results with a few other translators whenever possible, so there’s no pressure. As for the rest of you, well, we’ll be sure to send you a postcard!

Announcing Beat Keeper

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Today we’re happy to announce the release of our newest iPhone and iPod Touch app, Beat Keeper, which brings forScore’s incredible metronome to the small screen.

It features the same gorgeous design and intuitive controls, an all-new visualizer, and the ability to create presets for your most common settings. It even works in silent mode, putting an end to noisy interruptions.

While most of forScore’s features are interdependent, some of them really shine on their own: they don’t need a large screen, and they’re great for musicians who only own an iPhone or iPod Touch. They also fund their own development, rather than diverting resources that would otherwise be used for fixing bugs and ensuring stability. We think you’ll love the results. [iTunes]

iOS 5 Compatibility

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With the release of iOS 5 right around the corner, many of you are likely wondering if it’s safe to update or if you should hold off for a little while. We’re happy to report that as of today, with version 3.1.3, we’re ready. We’ve done a lot of work to prepare for this release, and although there’s no way we can know for certain that we’ve caught every change, we don’t anticipate any major problems. If you rely on forScore—or any app for that matter—you’ll need to decide when the time is right to upgrade, but we think it’s going to be a seamless transition.

There is one important difference with the latest version, however, that results from policy changes on Apple’s behalf: we’ve had to remove our automatic backup feature entirely. It’s an unfortunate change, since we firmly believe that this feature does nothing but benefit our customers (even if it breaks a few rules in the process.) In the end, however, we have no choice but to adapt and move on. We work hard to make forScore the best it can be, and we’re looking forward to the future and all of the great iOS updates we’ll get to yell, sweat, and eventually cheer through. We hope you like it.

Thanks, Steve

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For the man who changed our lives and made our company possible: thank you. We’ll miss you, Steve.

Chamber Music Day

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San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, a non-profit organization that “aims to make chamber music a vital part of the cultural life of the San Francisco Bay Area,” will be hosting their fourth annual Chamber Music Day—a free day of live music in San Francisco. We’re excited to be sponsoring the event, and encourage our readers in the area to check it out. Chamber Music Day is October 16th, at de Young Museum from 10AM until 5:30PM. [SFFCM]

Announcing Pitch, Please!

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Last week we released forScore version 3.1, featuring a completely rewritten metronome and an all-new pitch pipe. The response has been tremendous, and today we’re excited to announce the launch of our newest app, “Pitch, Please!” for iPhone and iPod Touch. As promised, we’ve brought our newest forScore utility to the small screen for everyone to enjoy and use.

We’ve worked hard to make ours the best pitch pipe around: it looks great and it’s a breeze to use. It features two high-quality sound sets and a smooth tone generator for even greater precision. It has a three-octave span and supports C-C and F-F ranges. Best of all, it’s just 99 cents, so now there’s no excuse to be caught without a pitch pipe ever again! [iTunes]

3.1 Arrives

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We’re happy to announce the immediate availability of forScore 3.1 which fixes an issue with annotation responsiveness and makes two big changes:

The first is the addition of a pitch pipe—something that people have been asking for since we first released forScore last year. We’ve always understood the value of integration, since switching back and forth between apps on the iPad can be a pain, but we also didn’t want to just add a “me too” feature. We wanted to make something really special, and we think that with the extra time it took we’ve done that. In fact, we love our pitch pipe so much that we’re going to be releasing it as a standalone iPhone app in the coming weeks.

Our metronome, on the other hand, was included right from the start but has always been better in theory than in practice. Although the interface has stayed the same for the most part, we’ve rewritten the code a number of times to try and find some way of making it more accurate—with limited success. We know that a metronome isn’t something you can do halfway, though, so we kept at it even with all of the dead-ends.

With 3.1, that has all changed. We’ve rewritten the interface from the ground up so that it’s easier to use (no more trying to let go of that slider without moving your finger), we’ve added time signature support, and you can tap the screen to set the tempo by ear. Most importantly, though, it’s incredibly accurate and won’t slow down even when you’re using large files. It’s a whole new generation of one of the most important features of forScore, and we think you’re going to love it.

forScore 3.0.5 Available

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Accompanying today’s release of our newest app, forScore: Darkroom, is another minor forScore update—version 3.0.5. We’ve been working hard on a string of maintenance updates over the past several weeks that have focused on refining the big changes we made with 3.0 and fixing bugs, and 3.0.5 is no exception.

It’s packed full of improvements and even incorporates some of the ideas we implemented in forScore: Darkroom, like the option to export files in grayscale as well as full color. And, with iOS 5 right around the corner, we’re continuing to make minor adjustments that’ll ensure a smooth transition for all of our customers. As always, forScore 3.0.5 is a free update for existing users, or just $4.99 USD.

[Update: Some of the changes that we made in 3.0.5 to improve two-finger tap detection inadvertently affected annotation performance. We sincerely apologize for this oversight, and have already submitted a fix to Apple for approval. Please do not install this update if you rely on annotation.]

[Update 2: Version 3.1 has now been released, fixing this issue.]

App Store Reviews

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Without being a developer, you may not realize just how disproportionate sales figures are to the number of ratings and reviews an app gets. We’re not going to dive into sales data, but we’ll venture to guess that apps get, on average, less than 2 ratings for every hundred sales (assuming they’re not actively asking people for feedback). What’s worse, apps get less than one review for every two hundred sales.

If you’re reading this, then you’re probably a forScore user or considering becoming one. Either way, your final purchasing decision will likely depend at least in part on the reviews in the App Store. Most shoppers don’t just look at these and make a decision based on them alone, but isn’t it scary to think that your opinion of an app depends on the opinions of the 0.5% of people who actively decided to review an app?

Many developers try to solve this problem by asking their users to rate or review their app from within the app itself. Now, as much as ratings and reviews can conceivably help boost sales and in turn benefit overall development, we’ve never been keen on the idea of prompting people to give us their feedback within the app itself. In fact, we’ve never asked for reviews before at all. You bought the app, so you should be able to use it without getting nagged for anything that isn’t designed to help you, the customer.

On the other hand, we know how useful these reviews actually are, and so we’d like to ask for a few minutes of your time to help potential customers understand the real pros and cons of using forScore. Maybe there’s something you didn’t realize from our marketing or from other reviews that you think is important to know, or maybe you just want to give us a shout-out! Just know that Apple doesn’t allow you to review an app if you downloaded it with a promo code. (Sorry, AirTurn promotioneers!)

Thanks for reading, and thanks as always for your support.

Visit forScore’s App Store page on your iPad or in iTunes to leave a review. (If the link opens in your browser, use the “View in iTunes” button.)

Page Turners

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Now that there are several page turners available for the iPad, we’ve been getting a lot of questions from people who are trying to decide which one is right for them. We’ve had a chance to test out three of them: AirTurn’s BT-105, PageFlip’s Cicada, and Bili’s Footime.

Design

The Cicada and Footime page turners are all-in-one units with the pedals built into the device itself, while the BT-105 can be used with a variety of third-party pedals. While this makes the BT-105 the most expensive option, it’s also the best for musicians who already own pedals or who are accustomed to a particular brand.

Connection

The BT-105 and Cicada both connect to the iPad over Bluetooth, although the Cicada requires an additional step of entering in a code (a simple task if you read the manual, but not the most obvious aspect otherwise). The Footime page turner, on the other hand, connects to your iPad via USB which is more reliable but requires the additional purchase of Apple’s iPad Camera Connection Kit ($29). Unfortunately, this dongle/cable combination means that the iPad can no longer stand upright, so you’re forced to use your iPad in landscape orientation or fashion your own music stand with a hole in the bottom.

Power

This is perhaps where these three page turners differ the most. The BT-105 has a built-in battery that can be recharged with the included USB cable, while the Footime is powered directly from the iPad. The Cicada can be powered by two AA batteries, the included wall charger, or over USB.

Verdict

While the Footime turner is the most reliable (because it doesn’t require any additional power source and doesn’t rely on wireless connectivity to function), the dongle makes actual usage difficult and the additional purchase makes it the same price as the Cicada.

The BT-105 is the most flexible option for musicians who are more discerning about the pedals they use, but it relies on a power source that can’t be easily swapped out right before a performance, making it imperative that you charge it up in advance.

Though all three of these options are great and have different strengths and weaknesses, we were very impressed by the PageFlip Cicada. It was much smaller than we expected (the images on their site don’t give you any real sense of relative size, but it’s very compact while still being totally usable). The pedals are built-in and the batteries are replaceable, making it the best option for us. As with all things, your mileage may vary.