If you’re in the market for an upgrade this year, you may be wondering how best to balance cost and performance. Many retailers now sell iPads (often at a discount), and used or refurbished iPads are a great deal for budget-conscious shoppers. Before you decide, consider this jaw-dropping chart from Apple comparing the performance of their various iPad models:
Of course, those are best-case scenario numbers. So how does upgrading actually affect your everyday usage with forScore? We gathered up a few of our development iPads and ran some tests to find out, and the short version is that if you’re still using an iPad 2, iPad mini, or the infamous iPad 3, you’ll see some very nice improvements by moving to a newer model. On average, everyday forScore tasks were almost 3 times faster on iPad Airs than they were on these older devices. Those seconds really add up and save you a huge amount of time over the course of a year or two.
In our testing, the iPad 3 actually fared the worst. Its graphics performance may be technically better than the iPad 2, but as the first iPad with a Retina screen it uses four times the number of pixels. The increase in detail more than offsets the improvements in performance, and no one looking for a used iPad should buy one of these. If you’re considering one of these as your first iPad and you really want the Retina screen, stick with an iPad 4 or newer, or if you need to save money consider the enduring iPad 2 (which is still the most popular model in use).
For shoppers with a little more room in their budgets, the iPad Air and iPad Air 2 really take the cake. These devices are incredibly fast and the difference between the two really comes down to whether or not you want to take advantage of iOS 9’s new split screen multitasking mode. If you want to be able to run two apps side by side, you’ll need an iPad Air 2. Otherwise, the two iPad Air models are relatively similar in terms of performance, so either will serve you well for years to come.
And finally, the long-awaited iPad Pro. Whether or not you opt for this newest member of the iPad lineup probably comes down to two factors: screen size and the new Apple Pencil. The former is fairly obvious, bringing each page of your music much closer to its original physical dimensions than with previous iPads. The Pencil promises improved precision and responsiveness, and is only compatible with the iPad Pro. If either of these two things matter to you and you can afford the price tag that’s seemingly proportional to screen size, absolutely consider this huge (sorry) upgrade.
Here are our recommendations:
- iPad 1: Not compatible with forScore, do not buy!
- iPad 2: Recommended only for customers with very tight budgets
- iPad 3: Not recommended
- iPad 4: Recommended
- iPad Air: Highly recommended if you don’t need Split View multitasking
- iPad Air 2: Highly recommended
- iPad mini: Recommended only for customers with very tight budgets
- iPad mini 2: Recommended
- iPad mini 3: Not recommended (very similar to the cheaper iPad mini 2)
- iPad mini 4: Highly recommended
- iPad Pro: Highly recommended, of course!
November 6, 2015
| Feature of the Week
In our previous posts exploring forScore’s MIDI integration, we’ve seen how you can send a series of MIDI messages automatically when you open a score, or you can choose to send them at a specific time by pressing a button. Often times, the messages you’re sending configure your devices and you’ll be reusing the same ones frequently. For those sets of messages, we created Presets.
To create a preset, open the Metadata panel and choose “Presets” at the bottom of the MIDI section. Tap the + button to create a new preset with the name you supply, then tap the circled “i” button to add some messages. The interface here works just like it does when you’re adding MIDI messages to a score or button. You can add a program change or song select message, type in raw hexadecimal codes, or let forScore listen for incoming signals and save them automatically. Tap the “Done” button or close the MIDI panel to save your changes.
If you’ve already set up outgoing MIDI messages for the current score or bookmark, creating a new preset will prompt you to do one of two things: you can either create a new blank preset and add messages from scratch, or you can turn those messages you’ve already set up into a new preset. If you choose the latter, forScore will remove all outgoing messages for the current score or bookmark and replace them with the new preset instead.
One last detail—MIDI presets are referenced, not copied, so if you change which messages a preset sends you’ll be changing them for every score or button that uses that preset.
Next week we’re wrapping up our discussion of MIDI features with one last post, so don’t miss out!
The new iPad Pro’s release seems to be mirroring in many ways its introduction: lots of waiting and virtually no information. At this point, all we know from Apple is that the device is coming this month. There’s a little more to be gleaned from tweaks to the App Store, however, and we’ve got a few more things coming in forScore 9.2 that’ll take full advantage of the iPad Pro’s huge screen. So, while we wait, we thought we’d give you a look at where things currently stand.
First, the App Store: not long ago Apple started advertising apps as optimized for iPad Pro in the “Compatibility” fine print. Since then they’ve even allowed developers to start uploading iPad Pro-sized screenshots. While we had originally assumed that an update would be required to support the new hardware, it looks like that’s not the case. As far as we can tell, any app that supports iOS 9’s new multitasking modes also automatically works on the iPad Pro, so we’ll be ready on day one.
We’re not content to just add basic compatibility, though, so we took some time to figure out where we could add features that take advantage of this extra screen real estate. The big one coming in forScore 9.2 is the addition of an optional, customizable fourth menu item on either side of the control bar. Most of the items in the tools menu are available here, so you can do things like open the Services panel or the new Button creator right from the main view. It’s a great way to add instant access to those features you use most often, and we think it’ll be a fantastic upgrade.
Finally, we’ve added basic support for Apple Pencil. There’s really not much info to go on at this point (Apple’s developer documentation is very light on this topic) but we’ll have a lot more tweaking to do once we have the actual device in hand. For now, forScore will work just like it does with a stylus like the FiftyThree Pencil, but with higher precision that’s only available when using both an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.
We’ve done a lot so far, and we can’t wait to keep pushing forward just as soon as we can. Once we have more information, we’ll let you know right here, so stay tuned!
Update: Apple has announced that the iPad Pro will be available for order this Wednesday, and will arrive in stores “later this week.”
October 30, 2015
| Feature of the Week
Over the past few weeks we’ve been exploring how forScore uses MIDI in all sorts of different ways. First, we detailed the process for setting up shortcuts so you can trigger any of forScore’s most popular functions from your MIDI device. Then, we discussed using an incoming message to open a particular score. Finally, we showed you how to set up MIDI messages to be sent automatically when you open a score. That last example is particularly powerful, but it has one drawback: as soon as you change songs your MIDI setup will change. That can be a problem if you’re using a setlist and you accidentally flip over to the next song, or if you’d just like to take a look at the next piece before the current one is finished.
That’s why we introduced Buttons in forScore 9. Buttons can do a lot (if you haven’t had a chance to use them yet be sure to check out the user guide for complete instructions), but today we’ll focus on their MIDI capabilities. Just like scores can send messages immediately when they’re opened, buttons can send messages when they’re tapped. They can be set up to send program change messages, song select messages, or raw hexadecimal codes, and they can even memorize incoming commands or add a delay between messages.
Since Buttons wait to send their messages until they’re tapped, you can even use them to change your settings partway through a piece. They’re incredibly flexible, and next week we’ll be discussing Presets which make sending common MIDI messages even easier, so be sure to check back next Friday for even more!
October 23, 2015
| Feature of the Week
As we discussed last week, MIDI is much more like a language than a single-purpose tool. It can be used in a variety of situations to convey a lot of information, and for this Feature of the Week we’ll be looking at the most flexible application of MIDI in forScore: score-specific MIDI commands.
While editing information for a score or bookmark in your library, the bottom portion of the metadata panel splits up a lot of valuable options into a few different sections. One of those sections is called “MIDI”, and that’s what we’ll be talking about today. The MIDI section of the metadata panel gives you access to three different features: Open, Send, and Presets. We’ll save Presets for another day, but lets start with a quick overview of the first two.
Open
Last week we showed you how to use incoming MIDI messages as shortcuts to forScore’s most popular functions. In the “Open” section of the metadata panel, you can set up a similar shortcut but instead of triggering a tool or menu, the MIDI message you use here will always open that particular score or bookmark.
Send
In the “Send” section, you can set up one or more MIDI messages to be broadcast immediately when you open an item. This can be useful if you need to change some of your MIDI device’s settings for a particular piece.
Messages
On a technical level, MIDI messages consist of hexadecimal codes. These codes use numbers (0-9) and letters (A-F), pairing any two for a total of 128 combinations. Fortunately, you don’t generally need to know what they mean, just what they do. And, since you’ll usually be working with one of two common message types, forScore makes entering this information a little easier.
The first type of message is a Program Change. This message tells your MIDI device which instrument or voice to use. It’s specific to one device, so you’ll need to specify which channel to use to send the message. The rest of the message must consist of at least one single number between 0 and 127, and it may also allow for additional MSB or LSB values in order to provide a wider range of possible sounds.
The other type of message you may need to use is called a Song Select message. This message consists of a single value between 0 and 127, and is sent to all connected devices so no channel number is required.
For everything else, you can type in actual hexadecimal codes for complete control.
Adding Codes
Tap the “+” button in the lower right-hand corner of the metadata panel to add a message to the current score (one incoming “Open” message, and as many outgoing “Send” messages as you need). You can choose from the three message types we’ve already discussed—Program Change, Song Select, or Hex Codes—or you can use the “Learn…” option to listen for incoming commands and save them automatically. For sent messages, you can also add a delay in case your device needs a moment to process incoming signals.
So that’s an overview of forScore’s ability to use MIDI messages in score-specific ways. If you missed last week’s introduction to MIDI and app-wide shortcuts, be sure to check it out, and stay tuned as we continue our exploration of forScore’s MIDI integration next week!