Update: iOS Crashes

When Apple released iOS and iPadOS 13.4 back in April they introduced a serious bug that has been causing major issues ever since. If you recently saw forScore launch to a white screen and remain unresponsive for an extended period of time, that was likely this bug. We’ve worked hard to get Apple to acknowledge and resolve this issue, but it persists.

In June, Apple told us they’d fixed it with iOS and iPadOS 14 and that no further feedback from us would be acted upon. We knew those major updates were still months away, so we created a workaround but made it opt-in due to significant limitations it imposes on audio playback. Meanwhile, as we finished forScore 12, we disabled this workaround for iOS 14 users since we fully expected that Apple’s fix would be the end of it. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to have been the case and we’ve had to put the workaround back in with forScore 12.0.2.

We don’t know if this is the same bug or if it’s a separate issue that exhibits the same symptoms, but we again cannot stand by and let these crashes go on—we’ve spent years building the trust of musicians everywhere and we will not let that trust continue to erode while we wait for Apple to deal with this bug at their own pace.

Since we don’t have any idea when this will actually be resolved, we’ve taken additional measures with forScore 12.0.2: if you haven’t enabled our workaround and you experience this crash, it’ll kick in automatically the next time you launch forScore. It doesn’t change your settings so the app may crash again if you relaunch it (not to be confused with closing and reopening it), but this at least ensures that you can access your music no matter what.

This isn’t how we want to be spending our energy, and it’s not the kind of experience you expect from us. You shouldn’t have to know about any of this, but we’re running out of alternatives. Our customers are our highest priority and our relationship with Apple is non-negotiable, so we have to find a balanced way forward. We will continue to communicate with you, work hard for you, and push on with everything we’ve got. Thank you as always for your patience, support, and understanding.