An existential threat. An unlikely alliance. A massive feat of engineering. Today, I’m going to share one of the most important stories in Rogue Amoeba history.

The First 18 Years

We begin at the beginning, way back in 2002 when Rogue Amoeba shipped version 1.0 of our flagship app Audio Hijack. From that very first version, Audio Hijack could capture any audio playing on the Mac, including audio from other applications. This took quite a bit of sorcery, because MacOS did not provide any assistance in this area.

We next abruptly flash forward through a rather astonishing 18 years. In this time, digital audio became a major part of daily life. Voice chat took off, podcasts boomed, and music (first downloadable and then streaming) flourished. Meanwhile, Rogue Amoeba developed an array of tools powered by our unmatched ability to capture any audio on the Mac. Our lineup included Airfoil, Audio Hijack, Loopback, Piezo, and SoundSource.

Even as our products steadily grew in popularity, our relationship with Apple was almost non-existent. Plenty of individuals inside the company were fans, but we received very little attention from Apple as a corporate entity. We didn’t much mind being outsiders, but it meant that we often had zero notice of breaking changes introduced by Apple.

During this time, Apple placed an emphasis on improving the security of MacOS, continually locking the operating system down further and further. Though their changes weren’t aimed at the legitimate audio capture we provided our users, they nonetheless made that capture increasingly difficult. We labored to keep our tools functioning with each new version of MacOS. Through it all, we lived with a constant fear that Apple would irreparably break our apps.

Disaster and Recovery

In 2020, the disaster foreshadowed literally one sentence ago struck. Beta versions of MacOS 11 broke ACE, our then-current audio capture technology, and the damage looked permanent. When we spoke briefly to Apple during WWDC 2020, our appeals for assistance were flatly rejected.¹ We spent weeks attempting to get ACE working again, but eventually we had to admit defeat. ACE as we knew it was dead in the water, and all options for replacing it involved substantial reductions in functionality. Though we did not discuss it publicly at the time, things looked grim for the future of our products.

Thankfully, we had three things going for us. First, in the 18 years since our inception, we had built up quite a large user base. In addition, the massive shift to working from home caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had created a corresponding surge in usage of our products. More than any other time in our company’s history, users were relying on us to do their jobs. That made it an especially bad time for Apple to break our tools. Lastly, because we also had a licensing program for ACE, we weren’t the only ones affected. Over a dozen other companies, some quite large, would be harmed if ACE ceased to function.

These factors meant that our problem was also Apple’s problem, and thus they were incentivized to work with us on fixing it. With this in mind, we engaged in further discussions with the company throughout the MacOS 11 beta period. Those were much more fruitful than our initial conversation, and eventually yielded a two-part plan. First, ACE would be temporarily allowlisted, so its audio capture could continue to function for the near future. Second, Apple would work with us to develop a sanctioned method of capturing audio on the Mac.

This was monumental! Even as our products had become essential for hundreds of thousands of Mac users, we’d never been able to trust the ground beneath our feet. Eventually, that ground gave way, and our company faced a threat to its very existence. Fortunately, Apple looks out for their customers as much as we do. As a result of that care from both our companies, we were assured that our tools would be able to continue to help users. It was a stunning turnaround, and we were equal parts thrilled and relieved.

Getting to the Future

Still, we weren’t in the clear yet. In November of 2020, MacOS 11 did indeed ship with the promised exception that allowed ACE to continue functioning.² However, the OS also dictated a new installation method for ACE which was truly painful. At its worst, users were required to make their way through a 20-step procedure to get up and running. They had to endure multiple system restarts, in addition to adjusting an obscure MacOS security setting and making their way past several unnerving warnings.

This led to many confused users, some of whom were scared off from our products entirely. Even after spending countless hours optimizing our portion of the process, we were still left frustrated with the first-run experience our users faced. Unfortunately, we were stuck for the time being, and that wound up being the uncomfortable status quo for multiple years.

We’ll now skip ahead two and a half more years to the summer of 2023, when MacOS 14 provided a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Apple informed us that changes coming later to MacOS 14 would, at long last, allow us to move past ACE and its arduous installation process.

We’ve Reached 2024

That brings us to the beginning of this year, when the two-part plan first proposed in 2020 was finally nearing completion. With that in mind, we announced our intention to streamline the first-run experience for all of our audio capture apps. We promised that soon, the painful setup process would be a thing of the past.

We thought we could see the finish line, but we had really only completed the first 90% of our work. We still had to complete the second 90%, transitioning our apps to use ARK, our next-generation audio capture backend. This involved many more months of working around myriad issues, reporting bugs to Apple, and waiting for MacOS updates to fix them. For those of us here at Rogue Amoeba, this past year was a very long one indeed.

Happily, we’re at the end of both this story and 2024. I’m delighted to say that we have completed our transition to ARK, and it now powers all of our audio capture apps on MacOS 14 and higher.³ Our glorious hassle-free future has finally arrived, and you can get started with our apps in under a minute. This major improvement will allow many more people to utilize our tools, and we want everyone to know about it.

Getting Started With the New Versions

The new ARK backend makes getting started a breeze. Airfoil, Audio Hijack, and Piezo now feature a completely installer-free setup. Approve the necessary System Audio Access permission on first launch, and you’re set. Since Loopback and SoundSource perform more complex audio routing, they’re powered by a new ARK plugin, which installs with just your Administrator password.

Setup now takes place in our sleek new Permissions window. Though recent versions of MacOS contain a morass of permissions prompts, we’ve worked hard to make things easy for you. When you first launch any of our apps, the Permissions window presents both required and optional permissions in one place for you to approve. The window then tucks itself away, but is always available for review from within the app.

Take Another Look

For too many people, the complexity of the old setup process prevented even a test drive of our products. We also had existing users who stopped using our apps rather than make the required security adjustments. With our incredibly easy new setup, we hope to win those folks back, and gain new users as well.

That’s why we’re shouting from the rooftops that capturing audio with Rogue Amoeba’s products now requires no extensions, no adjustments to the arcane “System Security Policy” in the Mac’s startup options, and no restarts at all.⁴

We’re also still licensing our technology, in the form of a new ARK-SDK. If you have a commercial Mac app that needs to capture audio, or you just want a simplified way of dealing with MacOS’s byzantine audio system, head over to our licensing page.

Wrapping Up

Getting to where we are now was quite an odyssey, and it required an incredible effort by our entire team. I’m immensely proud of the work done by everyone here at Rogue Amoeba, in addition to being deeply grateful for the work done by our colleagues at Apple.

After decades alone in the wilderness, we came in from the cold, working with Apple to the benefit of our mutual users. It took literally years of work, but our ARK transition is finally behind us. Now, we’re looking ahead to major updates for several of our products in 2025. We can’t wait to show you more soon!

Footnotes:

1. WWDC was virtual for the first time that year, which meant this took the form of a very disheartening WebEx call. ↩︎

2. Ultimately, that exception was needed all the way through MacOS 14. ↩︎

3. All of our products remain fully supported on MacOS 11 and higher, so you’re covered even if you’re not yet running the latest version of MacOS. Our audio capture apps now come in two variants, and the intelligent in-app software update system verifies that you have the correct variant for your version of MacOS. If necessary, it will download the right one to get you sorted.

   For even older versions of MacOS, our Legacy page is here for you. Rest assured, if you bought a product from us, you’ll always be able to get it from us. ↩︎

4. If you used earlier versions of our products on an Apple Silicon-based Mac, you had to adjust your machine’s Startup Security Policy. While the required Reduced Security setting is still tremendously secure, we know some users would now like to revert back to Full Security. Click here for instructions on how to revert your Mac back to its default setting. ↩︎

Apple has just shipped their most recent major update to MacOS 15 (Sequoia), with MacOS 15.2. This update once again brings important audio-related bug fixes to the operating system. Those fixes on Apple’s end lead to several improvements when using our products:

• Muting when capturing audio playing to aggregate and multi-output devices
  When capturing audio that is being played to an aggregate audio device or a multi-output audio device, it will now always correctly mute as requested.

  For: Airfoil Audio Hijack Loopback Piezo SoundSource

• Voice chat audio no longer doubled
  Another MacOS muting issue has also been sorted by Apple. As a result, using a voice chat application like FaceTime will no longer result in doubled audio while running SoundSource.

  For: SoundSource

• Capturing from Music.app when it’s streaming via AirPlay
  Changes Apple made in 15.2 make it possible for our apps to capture audio from Music.app even while it’s streaming audio via AirPlay. An update for Piezo is still needed to handle this, and will be released in the near future.

  For: Airfoil Audio Hijack Loopback Piezo SoundSource

• Muting while capturing from System AirPlay Receiver
  Audio now mutes as expected when capturing from System AirPlay Receiver and other unusual sources.

  For: Airfoil Audio Hijack Loopback SoundSource

• Audio adjustments of Music.app when streaming via AirPlay
  When streaming from Music.app to local and AirPlay speakers simultaneously, SoundSource’s features like volume control, redirection, and effects will once again apply to audio routed to the Mac’s default output.

  For: SoundSource

Update Now

MacOS 15.2 will provide the best experience when using our apps, so we again strongly recommend updating your Mac now. Of course, we also recommend using the latest versions of our own products. Select Check for Updates from within the app to get those.

When I began working at Rogue Amoeba in 2015, the company’s mascot Ammo the Amoeba was front and centre on our website. He served as the logo, and sat in the site navigation at the top of every single page.

The next year, we introduced our more subtle current logo as part of a rebranding and Ammo took a step back from the limelight. Even though he is no longer seen on every page of our site, Ammo hasn’t gone away entirely. As readers of this blog or our mailing list may recognize, he continues to pop up in various forms. He’s also served a role on the 404 error page that appears if you try to visit a page on our site which doesn’t exist.

Over the years, I’ve had fun making many iterations of Ammo:

Ammo is also alluded to frequently in our documentation, in the form of “Ammo’s <Device>” in documentation screenshots. In fact, I was using the name so much when taking screenshots that I literally just changed the names of my own devices. Now, my main Mac and iPhone are called “Ammo’s Mac” and “Ammo’s Phone”, respectively. That’s only a little ridiculous.

The truly eagle-eyed might even have noticed the appearance of the name “Ammette” in a few spots in our documentation. She’s quite rare, but she has been pictured at least once. You’ll have to find that yourself.

One of my personal favourite forms of Ammo is the real-world plush version created way back in 2005. My gigantic 90-pound Bernese mountain dog Aji usually tears apart dog toys in seconds, with a ferocity matched only by his love of pie. When it comes to Ammo, however, he must understand how much the plushie means to me. Aji gently carries it around like a little baby, slobbery but otherwise unharmed.

With Ammo appearing in so many different fun forms, we thought it would be neat to collect as many of them as we could find and put them into a single gallery. That’s now a special exhibition in our Historic Screenshot Archive. To check out all the amoeba-y goodness that is our mascot Ammo, click the priceless works of art below: