Capo touch 2.5

Capo touch 2.5 is now available from the App Store, and it includes a number of enhancements and new features. The most significant improvement is that we've made more songs available to Apple Music subscribers.

Even when downloaded to the device, songs available in the Apple Music streaming catalog are protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology that prevents apps like Capo touch from offering advanced playback and analysis features. Now when a user selects a protected song in Capo touch 2.5, we provide a direct link to purchase a copy in the iTunes Plus format (which is free of DRM) on the iTunes Store. After the song is purchased and the user returns to Capo touch, the song is loaded and processed immediately.

With the growing success of Apple Music, I felt it was important to make it easier for users to get access to their rapidly-expanding music libraries right inside Capo touch. By offering a low-friction experience for users to purchase DRM-free copies of the songs they're discovering on Apple Music, Capo touch can provide its unmatched depth and sophistication to the experience of discovering new artists, genres, and styles of playing.

Personally, I'm discovering new music all the time and add all sorts of albums to my collection whenever I can. As I listen to hours and hours of new music, I'll find the odd song that has a really cool solo or a rhythm pattern that I want to listen more closely to. I add these songs to some special playlists, such as "Production Study Tracks" for songs that have interesting mixes, and "Great Bass Tracks" that contain catchy or driving bass lines. When I'm in Capo, I can pull up these playlists and easily buy the individual tracks (and albums) that I want to spend time studying further.

We also integrated the same audio scrubbing engine that is available in Capo on the Mac. This feature allows you to "freeze" time and listen carefully to notes played very quickly in a difficult solo. You activate the scrubbing engine by touching or swiping the waveform while audio is playing in Capo touch. When the waveform is held still, the currently-playing notes will be played continuously until your finger is lifted.

I was excited to bring this fun and useful feature to iOS with Capo touch, but I was not prepared for how great it would feel to use. Because of the touch interface, scrubbing feels extremely responsive—as if you're directly controlling the passage of time. Combine that with the great sound of the scrubbing effect, and this feature will quickly become one of your favorites to use.

In addition, we also made a number of other changes that will make our existing users very happy. For instance, you can now jump to the start or end of a song by double-tapping the left- or right-hand side of the waveform. You can also disable Capo's beat snapping when resizing a region by dragging your finger above or below the resize handle. These are the two most-requested features we received in support, so we're happy to finally offer them.

We also re-organized Capo's navigation considerably by putting your Projects up front in the app. Over the years, we have received a great deal of support emails from users that weren't aware that Projects were created every time they tapped on a song from their music collection. Now users must create a new project explicitly, which allows us to also offer in-app imports of audio files from iCloud Drive and Dropbox.

So that's an awful lot, and I've not even covered the really cool "What's New" onboarding that we added to inform users of these new features! You should just go and download Capo touch now so that you can check it out for yourself.