beaTunes News

It's been a busy day, here at tagtraum industries. I finally got around releasing beaTunes 2, and of course this kind of thing never goes smoothly. Even though there were so many Early Access releases and I got so much valuable feedback from early testers, some things still go wrong.

It wasn't anything major, but right after the initial release, I did some sanity testing to make 200% sure that things work the way they should... and they didn't. Minor things. And then one of those early adopters contacted me and made me aware of another issue. And then there was another issue. Anyhow. All those issues are now fixed and I uploaded version 2.0.0b to the server.

Now, because these were quick and easy fixes, the 2.0.0b release will still claim that it is a 2.0.0 release. And there is no way that you can tell the difference, except for the version number of the disk image file or the Windows installer executable. So if you just installed beaTunes 2, please make sure you have the latest version by checking the version number of your installation file.

To make folks aware of this, the built-in update checker will claim that there is a new version out there - regardless of whether you have the latest version or not. I know, this is a little misleading and looks like a bug, but I rather have people download the newest and shiniest beaTunes once too often, than have them stumbling over bugs that are already fixed. I hope you understand.

Now, that said: beaTunes 2 is a huge step forward.

The short list of what's new:

• Completely rewritten internal database
• Much better support for huge libraries
• Ability to recognize multiple libraries
• Analysis on Windows is much faster
• Tonal/musical key detection
• Second BPM detection algorithm
• New inspections (compilation, duplicates, rare genres, different ratings, sort issues, Amazon album version)
• More accurate typo inspections
• Support for sort names
• Ability to specify filters when creating Matchlists
• Matchlists can now be refreshed
• Ability to embed non-iTunes fields into audio files
• Search by artist/album/etc.
• German localization
• Updated UI (on OS X, check out that Leopard theme!)
• Overall usability improvements

This is the first update in 2.5 years that I am going to charge for. This means, that if you own a beaTunes 1.x license, you can purchase the upgrade for $11.95 (USD) [as of 2/24/2009].

If you have bought your beaTunes 1.x license after 2/1/2009, you should already have received a free upgrade license.

Thanks again to all the people who helped to make this happen for their continued support. This includes all the testers, customers, friends and open source software authors, without whom beaTunes would not be possible.

I hope you enjoy my software.

Labels: Early Access, Release