beaTunes News

It took a long time, but now it's finally here: beaTunes 6!

Why did it take so long? Here's the short list:

• Apple Silicon support
• Migration to SQLite 3
• Switch to subscriptions
• Other things

beaTunes isn't just one monolithic app; it depends on a bunch of libraries, some of them native, some not. Making sure all of them work correctly and support Apple Silicon took some time. The same is true for switching the internal database: H2 is a great database and has served beaTunes well for a very long time, but corrupted databases were the single biggest reason for support requests (newer versions of H2 may be more robust!). SQLite 3 was the natural alternative, but not a drop-in replacement. Automatically migrating the data alone was no small task. Above, I also mentioned "Switch to subscriptions." Yes, that's right, beaTunes now comes as a subscription. I'll explain why and what it looks like below. For now, I just want to say: this switch took way more work than anticipated. Last but not least, a lot of (mostly good) things happened in my private life that kept me from working on beaTunes.

So. Subscriptions.

I am not a fan. Never was. But unfortunately, there is an economic reality, and it comes in the form of server bills. beaTunes communicates with a central database. Keeping the servers running, maintained, and backed up costs money every month. There is no way I can pay for this indefinitely without a recurring stream of revenue—like a subscription. So beaTunes 6 will not be sold with a lifetime license, but as a reasonably priced subscription instead. That said, beaTunes 6 also runs without a subscription, with two limitations:

• Analysis of up to 10 songs (per app start)
• Inspection solutions cannot be applied

Other than that, the free version of beaTunes 6 is fully functional.

With that out of the way, let's talk about what's better in beaTunes 6. The simple answer: pretty much everything. beaTunes 6 does not focus on adding fancy new features. Instead, I wanted to make everything just a little bit better, faster, prettier, more stable, and easier to use. On the surface, things may seem very similar to what you know from version 5, but let me assure you: a lot has changed under the hood. And you can feel it! It's simply more fun to work with beaTunes. Less waiting, fewer surprises.

I hope you enjoy this new version of beaTunes as much as I do. It's available today.

Labels: Apple Silicon, Release, SQLite