beaTunes News

After a long, long time it's finally here: The first Early Access (EA) version of beaTunes 6. This is still far from release, there are hardly any UI chnages, but two of the most important improvements have happened:

1. ARM/Apple Silicon support
2. SQLite

Let's talk about the two a bit. First of all Apple Silicon support. Apple has been shipping ARM-based computers for years now and is urging everyone to migrate. This seems to be a no-brainer, because Apple's hardware is truly awesome. And if beaTunes were a pure Java app, the migration would have been absolutely painless. But beaTunes comes with quite a few native libraries and some were easier to migrate than others.

beaTunes has been using an embedded SQL database fo rmany years (super-early versions just kept everything in memory). The database system of choice has been H2. It's a great little database system and I was always grateful for its existence. At some point, I even donated some money to the cause. That said, one of the largest sources of pain when using beaTunes is a corrupted database file. For v6 it was time to move to something more robust. The choice was easy. SQLite is a superb, super-stable, and reliable embedded database, trusted by millions. It's truly the industry standard. With version 6, beaTunes moves to use SQLite as embedded database system, hopefully making corrupted databases a thing of the past.

Note that this Early Access release focuses on macOS. A windows version is not available, but there will be windows versions in the future.

When you start beaTunes 6, and have used beaTunes 5 before, beaTunes will create a backup of your existing database folder and then go on to convert your databases to the new SQLite format. This process cannot be reversed, i.e. you will not be able to migrate data back to beaTunes 5. You can however, delete the new database folder and rename the copy to its former name. In any case, you might want to create a backup before starting beaTunes 6.

Alright, here's the obligatory warning: Before downloading and installing this, please make sure you understand what Early Access means:

• Absolutely no warranty for whatever
• Features may or may not work, appear, and disappear
• It may not be possible to migrate data to future or previous versions (even though I make a reasonable effort)
• You will not be able to migrate data created by this version back to beaTunes 5
• This version will cease to function 4 week after its release. A new version or a final product will be made available when this version becomes dysfunctional.
• You cannot buy this version

Here is the download link: beaTunes-6-0-0-EA1-SNAPSHOT-arm64.dmg

Changes in 6.0.0 EA1

• Improved Album Info text formatting.
• Improved visual feedback during synchronization, file access, and communication with iTunes/Music.
• Added silent mode (to prevent accidental playback and turn off soundeffects).
• Added key and BPM info to Beatport chart tooltips.
• Added ability to follow the currently playing track in Album Info panel.
• Added album art support to player.
• Added crossfade support to player.
• Updated to use volume id instead of device id for file identification.
• Updated to Groovy 4.0.15.
• Updated to JRuby 9.4.3.0.
• Updated to Hibernate 6.2.7.
• Updated to FFSampledSP 0.9.54 (Emoji support in file paths, more efficient file access).
• Updated Java runtime.
• Removed Nashorn (JavaScript) support.
• Removed outdated Jython support.
• Removed support for 32 bit Windows.
• Replaced H2 database with SQLite.

Feedback is very welcome!

Labels: Apple Silicon, Early Access, H2, macOS, SQLite