It’s Thanksgiving time here in America, and we’re thankful to be able to provide you with two big updates. These updates, to Airfoil and Piezo, both offer compatibility with Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks), and are recommended for all users. Read on for more details, or just go download them now!

Our New Audio Capture Engine

The update to Mavericks required some big under-the-hood changes for all our apps, and this is part of what took us so long with these updates. New versions of all of our audio capturing apps will now feature an overhauled audio capture engine. In addition to providing our current functionality on the new OS, it also lays a foundation for new and improved audio capture functionality in the future.

We’re very excited to have radically improved our backend, even if most users won’t notice a difference for now. That said, this is a major change, and there may be some wrinkles we haven’t yet ironed out. If you find audio capture isn’t working as it previously did for you, or as you’d expect, be sure to let us know.

Airfoil

First up, the update to our audio streamer Airfoil features the aforementioned new audio capture engine. As part of that, the optional Instant On component has been updated to version 7.1. This update restores the ability to capture System Audio on Mavericks, as well as improving audio capture of many other sources. In addition, we’ve also fixed a ton of bugs, including issues with App Nap on Mavericks, and much more.

This update brings a bit of new functionality as well, in the form of support for enhanced metadata and remote control of Vemedio’s Instacast for Mac. We’ve also improved our iTunes support, adding support for controlling and getting data from iTunes Radio.

All users should definitely grab the latest Airfoil immediately. Download Airfoil 4.8.2 by selecting “Check for Update” from the Airfoil menu. You can also grab the update, or just get more information on the app, here. This is a free update, of course, and should work well on all versions of Mac OS X, including Mavericks.

A Note on Airfoil Video Player

At this time, though it may work fine for some users, the Airfoil Video Player component of Airfoil is not supported on Mavericks. Of particular note, crashes with the Silverlight plugin may render Netflix unwatchable. We’re continuing to work to determine if Airfoil Video Player will be updated to fully support the new OS.

Piezo

Our simple audio recorder Piezo has also been updated for Mavericks and more. While Piezo can’t capture from already-running applications like its more powerful big brother Audio Hijack Pro, it will still benefit from the previously-mentioned new audio capture engine. We’ve also cleaned up some minor cosmetic issues and fixed other bugs.

One important issue is worth noting. Unfortunately, due to underlying changes made by Apple, capturing audio from Safari is no longer possible with Piezo. Thankfully, this is worked around fairly easily. To capture web-based audio, you’ll want to use another browser as your source in Piezo. We recommend Google Chrome or Firefox. Use one of those browsers as your source in Piezo, and you’ll be able to record web-based audio.

Get Piezo 1.2.3 by selecting “Check for Update” from the Piezo menu. You can also grab the update, or just get more information on the app, from the Piezo page of our site. This is a free update, of course, and should work well on all versions of Mac OS X, including Mavericks.

Mac App Store Buyers

This update is currently awaiting approval from Apple, so watch for that update very soon.

Coming Soon: Audio Hijack Pro and Nicecast

That’s all for today, but we’re still hard at work on updates for Audio Hijack Pro and Nicecast as well. For now, if you’re on Mavericks, be sure to get the latest beta from our Status page. Beyond that, just watch for additional updates, coming very soon.

Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) was released just over three weeks ago, but at this time, our line of products is still not fully compatible with the new OS. These updates have taken longer than we, and no doubt you, hoped. We continue to work diligently to get official updates released.

Many users have asked us for a timeframe for these updates. Our only estimate is “ASAP”. We remain hard at work, and our sole priority at this time is to get the updates into your hands. At this time, we believe we have fixed all the major 10.9 issues. Before we declare the updates done, however, some small cleanup work remains.

Download and Use the Public Betas

As you may know, we have posted betas here on our blog for use by anyone who needs them. Rather than scattering updates throughout multiple posts here, we’re moving those betas to a central location.

We urge all users on Mavericks to head to the Status page, where you can download the latest public beta versions of our apps for Mac OS X 10.9. While we’re not quite ready to release these versions to our entire user base, they have been heavily vetted. At this time, they’re absolutely the recommended versions for users on Mavericks.

If the betas work for you, great! That’s exactly what we expect at this point. Just keep using the betas until they inform you that a newer version is available.

If you do run into any issues, please be sure to click the “Help” menu and choose “Beta Feedback…” to report the problem.

Thanks for Your Patience

As I said, these updates have taken longer than we’d hoped. Though we were working on Mavericks well in advance of its release, a combination of multiple issues to fix and changes to the beta OS throughout the beta period hindered our ability to be ready in time. If you’re frustrated at the delay, we certainly sympathize. I can assure you that no one wants these updates out as much as we do, and I once again urge you to use the public betas found on our Status page.