A new year is upon us, and that means it’s time for another annual status report. Let’s have a look back at Rogue Amoeba’s 2023 and preview some things to look forward to in the coming year.

Last year was very busy for us, but an unusually high percentage of our work took place behind the scenes. Much more will be revealed in the coming months, but there was still plenty to see in 2023.

49 Updates Shipped

Averaging nearly one release per week is no easy task, but the 49 updates shipped last year actually represented our lowest total since 2019. When COVID struck in 2020, the global shift to working from home caused a rapid increase in our user base. The resulting flood of feedback and new use cases led to an unprecedented 80 updates that year. Since that stressful high-water mark, we’ve made a concerted effort to be more deliberate with our update schedule. We bundle bug fixes and feature updates into a smaller number of robustly-tested releases. Things now flow more smoothly internally, and we disrupt our users less frequently as well.

We continued to provide outstanding value to our customers, with all but one of those 49 updates being provided free for existing users. In the fall, we had support for MacOS 14 (Sonoma) well before its release. We also added dozens of new features throughout the year, polished myriad interfaces and interactions, and exterminated plenty of bugs.

Three Big New Audio Hijack Releases

Audio Hijack started off 2023 by winning its third Upgradie for “Best Mac App”, which meant it also received a Lifetime Achievement award. Things got even better from there.

Audio Hijack 4.1 arrived shortly after, with a whopping 53 enhancements. Included among these was a more powerful System Audio block, as well as the ability to greatly decrease the screen space the app uses.

In May, Audio Hijack 4.2 brought three powerful new blocks. Parametric EQ adjusts audio with surgical precision, using multiple bands with customizable filter types, frequency, Q, and gain. Speech Denoise harnesses machine learning (ML) to let your audio shine. And with the FIR Filter, you can give your audio a signature sound.

Perhaps the most unexpected update, however, came in Audio Hijack 4.3. The new Transcribe block uses the power of OpenAI’s “Whisper” to provide transcriptions for any audio on your Mac. Audio Hijack can now serve as your own personal stenographer, and people are using it in all sorts of amazing ways.

See the Audio Hijack page to get the latest, and to learn more.

SoundSource 5.6

In recent years, SoundSource has become a favorite tool for all sorts of Mac users. Our product lineup aims to help a wide range of users, but many of our tools are particularly helpful for prosumers like podcasters and folks making lots of audio calls on their Macs. SoundSource, on the other hand, is something no Mac should be without.

With SoundSource 5.6, we added support for Apple’s Sound Isolation effect, which works to isolate voice from background audio. Using SoundSource, you can now apply Sound Isolation to any app on your Mac. The update also improved the Headphone EQ effect, with updated support for AutoEq profiles.

With its fast access to devices, per-app controls, and so much more, SoundSource can help any user who listens to audio on their Mac. That’s almost certainly you, so visit the SoundSource page to check it out.

Farrago 2

Farrago 2 represented our lone paid upgrade in 2023. It brought more than 75 new features and improvements, including a built-in audio editor, integrated search of the Freesound.org sound database, support for Stream Deck and OSC controllers, audio previewing, and more. Farrago was already the Mac’s best soundboard app, and version 2 is better than ever.

Every aspect of the app was reviewed, with improvements made across the board. Neale once again blogged about the process of designing the new version, with “The Design of Farrago 2”. I especially love the way the before and after comparison images so quickly show off months of progress.

Odds & Ends

Of course, we did more than just release product updates. In early March, we unveiled one of my favorite projects in recent memory: the Rogue Amoeba Historic Screenshot Archive. It’s a whole lot of fun, and worth checking out. In a similar vein, Rogue Amoeba’s 21st anniversary in September was the occasion for Neale to create a lovely icon flowchart. Give it a look to see how our app icons have progressed over time.

Other notable 2023 blog posts included “The RIAA v. Steve Jobs” and “A Word of Caution on MacOS Updates”. The former is a rather horrifying tale of the near-death of Audio Hijack, and perhaps Rogue Amoeba, way back in the mid-aughts. Meanwhile, the latter is the first blog post from our newest support tech Aaron, and it provides a thoughtful look at what it means to run beta versions of Apple’s OSes.

Aaron’s actually been with us since 2021, but we did increase our headcount last year. In fact, 2023 saw Rogue Amoeba grow to the largest its ever been, with 12 full-time employees. We’ve got a fantastic team dedicated to the Mac apps you love, and I couldn’t be prouder to work alongside them.

As previously mentioned, much of the work we did last year hasn’t been made visible quite yet. In 2024, we expect to unveil much of the fruits of those labors. I’ll discuss two major efforts we’re focused on.

A Dramatically Simplified Launch Experience

We’re incredibly excited about updates coming in the next few months, which will improve the first launch experience for all of our audio capture apps: Airfoil, Audio Hijack, Loopback, Piezo, and SoundSource.

As a result of changes Apple made back in MacOS 11, our apps have been stuck with a setup process that’s much more complicated than we’d like. Currently, an annoying restart is required to get going on Intel-based Macs. Setup is even more burdensome on Apple’s newest M Chip-based Macs, with multiple restarts required, as well a change to the Mac’s “Security Policy”. This has been a notable pain point, which comes before a user even has a chance to try the app. It’s been very frustrating for us to not be able to do better for our customers, and there’s no doubt that this has deterred people from using our products.

We’re now very close to removing those obstacles completely. We’ll soon be shipping updates that simplify things immensely. In fact, Airfoil, Audio Hijack and Piezo will feature an installer-free setup that won’t even need your administrator password. Meanwhile, Loopback and SoundSource will use a new audio capture plugin called ARK that won’t require a single system restart. It’s going to be an incredible improvement to our user experience.

These changes may go unnoticed until you’re setting up your next Mac, but they’re going to allow new users to blast off in seconds. We’re beyond thrilled to streamline our setup process, and to help many more people harness the power of our tools.

Big Updates To Our Most Popular Apps

In 2023, we also began a trio of initiatives to update our most popular apps: Audio Hijack, Loopback, and SoundSource. Each product is led by a different member of our talented team, and the work they’re doing is coming along well. If you’re already using one or more of these apps, you’re going to love the additions coming this year.

If you haven’t checked out Audio Hijack, Loopback, or SoundSource before, however, there’s no need to wait. They’re already fantastic and ready to assist you today.

In addition to these major undertakings, our entire product line will of course continue to be updated. There are certain to be maintenance releases, and likely a few other surprises as well.

Ways to Keep in Touch

You won’t want to miss out, so here are a few ways you can keep up with the latest news from Rogue Amoeba.

Follow Us on Social Media

On our social media accounts, we post about updates big and small, along with the occasional bit of amusing randomness. Following the decay of Twitter in 2023, you can now find us on more social media platforms than ever, including:

 

Read the Release Notes

Built-in version checking will alert you to our latest updates, with detailed release notes telling you what’s new. Those release notes are also provided on our site. Click your favorite app to see them:

 

Read This Blog

Our blog is the place to read about major updates in depth. You can subscribe to our handy feed in any RSS reader.

Join Our Mailing List

Last but not least, we recommend all users join our very low-traffic mailing list. We send just two to four emails each year, with information on very biggest news, along with exclusive deals.

Until Next Time

We’ve got lots to do, so it’s time to get to it. Have a happy new year, and then stay tuned for much more from your favorite Mac audio software company.

It’s the start of a new year, which means it’s time for another edition of Rogue Amoeba’s annual status report, recorded before a live studio audience. Read on for a look back at 2022 and a preview of 2023.

What happened in 2022? A lot!

61 Individual Updates

Across our product line, we shipped an incredible 61 updates to add features, improve functionality, and fix bugs. We averaged well over one release each week, all year long. This consistent parade of updates meant our apps stayed both fresh and functional.

Worth noting, 60 of these updates were entirely free for existing users. When you purchase a product from us, you’re buying the app as it exists now. Additional updates are never guaranteed. However, we take pride in offering tremendous value to our customers. Our decades-long track record demonstrates this, with products continuing to receive improvements long after a purchase is made.

Audio Hijack 4

In order to run a sustainable business, when we add major new functionality to a product, we charge a discounted upgrade price to move to the new version. As 2022’s lone paid upgrade, Audio Hijack 4.0 offered over 100 new features and enhancements, including powerful new blocks, automation support via scripting and Shortcuts, manual pipeline connections, and so much more.

As part of the release, designer extraordinaire Neale wrote up “The Design of Audio Hijack 4”. This was the latest in a series of posts which pull back the curtain on the design work which goes into our major upgrades. It’s fun to see the early mockups and transitional periods of our designs.

In December, Audio Hijack found itself the recipient of two major awards, winning the “Best App Update of 2022” from MacStories and then the 2022 Upgradie for “Best Mac App”. Suffice it to say, Audio Hijack 4 is a hit, and we’re not slowing down. See the “Looking Ahead” section below for more.

SoundSource 5.5

Last year saw another large update worthy of special mention. SoundSource 5.5 was a free update which brought several major features, the most important of which was the new Shortcuts support.

With Shortcuts coming to both SoundSource 5.5 and Audio Hijack 4, last year was a big one for automation. Automation support has long been one of our most-requested features, and we’re happy to provide it now via Shortcuts. SoundSource now enhances your Mac with a slew of audio device-related actions available to the Shortcuts app, even when you’re not directly using SoundSource. With these shortcuts, you can automate changing device volumes, setting effect presets, toggling effects processing, and much more.

SoundSource is now up to version 5.5.7, and it just keeps getting better. If you’re new to the app, you should visit the SoundSource page to learn more and download the latest.

MacOS 13 (Ventura)

In 2022, Apple’s MacOS update followed their now very predictable pattern. MacOS 13 (Ventura) was first shown at WWDC in June, followed by public betas over the summer, and an official fall release. As always, we strongly cautioned users against running beta versions of MacOS and spelled out our plans for support for Ventura.

Indeed, we have our own now-familiar pattern when it comes to a new MacOS. After multiple months of work to support the new version, we make our initial updates available as test releases, allowing users outside the company to try them during the beta period. Next, as Apple’s release approaches, we provide official releases of our products that offer initial support for the new OS. In 2022, our releases arrived the weekend before Ventura was posted.

After the dust has settled, we typically issue a second set of updates with fully baked support for the new operating system. In 2022, those updates arrived about a month after the release of Ventura, signifying that we were now confident to have all users update their OS when ready.

All seemed well, until the release of MacOS 13.1 in December led to intermittent failures of audio capture. We had a hectic few days shortly before Christmas as we dealt with this, Fortunately, we were able to restore full audio capture to all of our apps in very short order. Though rare, this sort of hiccup is not unprecedented. It should serve as a useful reminder that taking it slow with OS updates is always wise, particularly for those with production machines and mission-critical setups.

Anniversaries

In 2022, Rogue Amoeba celebrated our 20th year in business! The world of technology was very different when Quentin, Alex, and I got started in 2002. The iPod was still in its infancy, the iPhone was years away, and even Mac OS X (as it was then called) was an upstart new OS. From the humble release of Audio Hijack 1.0 in the fall of 2002, our company has grown tremendously. We’re incredibly proud of our many beloved products, as well as the top-notch team we’ve assembled to work on them.

Speaking of that team, we also celebrated Robert Charlton’s fifth anniversary with Rogue Amoeba. We want our company to be a place where employees feel empowered, valued, and encouraged to stay long-term. The many employee milestones we’ve been able to celebrate are a good indication that we’re doing pretty well on that front.

Odds and Ends

In January, I wrote a post about improving the accessibility of our License window. Making our software accessible is no afterthought for us, with countless hours devoted to testing and improvements that make it possible for all users to take advantage of our tools. Still, we know we can always do better, and we’re grateful for feedback on how we can improve.

For several years now, we’ve licensed parts of our technology stack to other Mac software developers. ACE, the audio capture engine that powers many of our own products, is now also used by almost two dozen outside programs as well. Last year, we also signed our first licensee for Resonate, which provides a dramatically easier-to-use interface for MacOS’s CoreAudio. If you’re a developer who needs help handling audio on the Mac, licensing ACE and/or Resonate might be right for you.

There was plenty more, from Airfoil gaining the ability to stream to stereo pairs of HomePods Mini to continued work improving our support center. But now, 2022 is done. It’s time to look ahead to the upcoming year.

In 2023, we’ll of course have maintenance updates to all of our products throughout the year. It’s also likely we’ll need to devote significant time to supporting the next version of MacOS. For now, though, I’ll highlight two big updates planned for the first half of the year.

Audio Hijack 4.1

As noted above, we have plenty more in the works for Audio Hijack. That starts with version 4.1, coming soon. It will offer a more configurable “System Audio” block that enables you to exclude specific sources. The Recording Inspector has also been souped up, to allow you to rename files directly. And if you’ve been using Audio Hijack 4’s new scripting capabilities, we’ve made several refinements to make writing scripts easier and more enjoyable.

Beyond that, we devoted substantial time to interface enhancements. We’ve greatly reduced the screen size Audio Hijack requires, making it possible to shrink Session windows way down. There are also many improvements to lists throughout the app, particularly the “Session List” window, which is gaining new sorting options, as well as new and customizable columns.

We’re eager to show it all off to you. We expect to make the free update to Audio Hijack 4.1 available as a test release in the near future, with an official release soon after.

Farrago 2

Though this update was actually mentioned in last year’s Status Report, an assortment of factors delayed its release to 2023. This sort of slippage is not uncommon, and it’s one reason we’re often tight-lipped about the future. We prefer to under-promise and over-deliver. Now, however, Farrago 2.0 is very close to complete.

We’re eager to get Farrago 2 out into the world, so expect more news soon.

Stay Informed

You can track our latest news in several ways.

Release Notes

First and foremost, we strongly recommend keeping version checking turned on in “Settings” (née “Preferences”). You’ll be alerted to updates automatically, with detailed release notes so you know what’s new. You can also read each product’s release notes right on our site:

 

Social Media

We mention nearly all of our updates on social media, and offer other fun news and randomness there as well:

 

And look at that, we’ve just set up a new Mastodon account too.

This Blog

This blog offers posts for larger updates and upgrades, as well as other stories. Subscribe to our handy feed in an RSS reader like NetNewsWire.

Our Mailing List

Finally, our very low-traffic mailing list (~2-4 emails per year) will alert you to our biggest stories, as well as exclusive deals.

Stay abreast with one or more of the above methods, because 2023 promises to be a big year. For now, though, we hope your new year is off to a great start. Until next time!

Welcome to the 2022 edition of Rogue Amoeba’s status report, hot off the virtual presses. This annual post offers a look back at the previous year, as well as a preview of our plans for the future.

Let’s start by reviewing some major Rogue Amoeba happenings of 2021.

Updates Galore

A casual user could easily have missed it, but we shipped 59 updates last year, and every single one was free for existing customers.¹ We’re always hard at work updating our seven main products with both new features and bug fixes. The release notes for your favorite Rogue Amoeba apps can prove a very enlightening read:

Per-Product Release Notes

While major updates are perhaps the most eye-catching, steady progress over time is also extremely powerful.

Major Updates

Speaking of major updates, here’s a bit more detail on two from last year.

SoundSource 5.3

As you may already know, SoundSource provides powerful audio control on your Mac. It gives easy access to your system sound settings, as well as per-application audio adjustments, and the ability to add effects to any audio.

With SoundSource 5.3, we added quicker device switching with easy keyboard shortcuts, improved audio effects support with easy effects bypassing and crash-proof Audio Unit hosting, and enhanced Undo support. If you ever find yourself wrangling audio on your Mac, you need to check out SoundSource.

Fission Updates

Our easy-to-use audio editor Fission saw some key changes last year. First, after extended frustrations attempting to ship an update through the Mac App Store, we ultimately released Fission 2.7.1 as a direct-only release.

With that change, we decided to exit the Mac App Store completely. Our products continue to be available for direct download and purchase, just as they always have been. We also helped transition users from the Mac App Store version to our direct version, at no additional charge.

Toward the end of the year, we shipped a major update to Fission’s resampler in version 2.8. Conversions which require a sample rate change now enjoy much higher quality.

App Underpinnings

We also spent a good deal of time working on the backend of all our apps. This sort of infrastructure work is important to keep our products in a good state of repair. To help when issues occur, we overhauled the way debugging works, cleaning up unnecessary logs and options in all of our products. The debugging window is now more accessible, with a new “Quit and Relaunch for Debugging” option that can be accessed by pressing option in the app’s Help menu.

While most users will never use the debugging window, we hope every user sees and uses our update mechanism. The built-in updating in our products makes it easy to stay up-to-date with our latest versions. In an effort to be less obtrusive, we overhauled and simplified the interface for those updates.

Like compound interest, incremental improvements like these really add up over time.

Enhanced Support Resources

We’re also always looking to improve our support resources, to enable you to get the most out of our products. To make it fast and easy to find answers to common issues, we moved application manuals online, where they’re easily linkable, searchable, and updateable. We’ve also continued expanding the content found in our Knowledge Base, with helpful articles on all manner of common tasks. If you have a question about any of our products, make our Support center your first stop.

Of course, we also have a top-notch support team ready to assist. In addition to long-time employees Chris and Robert, we hired on Aaron Wasserman in April. All three work hard to help you make the most of our products. If you don’t find the answer you need in our Support center, reach out directly for a fast and friendly response.

A Pair of 10 Year Anniversaries

In 2021, we had two employees reach a major milestone. Way back in 2011, we hired both Grant Farr and Ed Wynne, and they’ve been with us ever since. Grant’s 10 year celebration came first, with Ed’s anniversary following a few months later. As those linked posts express, we’re honored and grateful to have worked with both of these talented programmers for over a decade. If you’re a user of any of our products, you’ve undoubtedly been positively impacted by their impressive work.

Updates From Apple

Apple had a very busy 2021 as well, and that led to plenty of work for us. Most notable was the release of MacOS 12 (Monterey). This was first announced during WWDC in June, but as always, we strongly advised users to wait for the official OS release. Updating our products for the new OS is an intensive process, one which can take months.

Nevertheless, we always aim to beat Apple’s release date. This year we managed once again, with preliminary support for the new OS available October 18. Two months later, after a second round of testing and updates, we were pleased to declare our entire lineup production ready.

Apple’s Mac hardware updates in 2021 were also worthy of note. Back in 2018, Quentin penned a widely shared post rightly bemoaning the then-sad state of Mac hardware. Since that time, Apple has managed a remarkable turnaround, driven by their own Apple Silicon chips. Quentin celebrated that as well.

Our New Test Release System

After years of hearing from generous users looking to beta test our software, we recently unveiled a new system called “test releases”. These are pre-release builds, posted in advance of an official release. By putting the update in front of a small group of test users, we can stress-test new features and catch lingering bugs. We initially used this for some final testing for Monterey, and we’ve made good use of it since as well.

Though not as vetted as an official version, test releases are generally fit for daily use. If you’re interested in early access to new features and updates, it’s easy to opt into (and out of as well). Get started by reading this Knowledge Base article.

Today, we’re going to pull back the curtain a bit more than we usually do, to tell you about three upcoming releases. We hope to ship all of the following in the first six months of 2022.

An Overhauled Airfoil Satellite for Apple TV

Last month, to keep things rolling for Airfoil users, we posted a small update to Airfoil Satellite for Apple TV. This is one of our least known apps, initially created in 2017 at a time when Apple had broken AirPlay receiving on the Apple TV. When that was eventually fixed, the app became less necessary. However, HomePod-related bugs in tvOS 15 have again made Airfoil Satellite for Apple TV rather useful.

The 1.1 revision to this app was posted as something of a warmup for a larger update. We’re currently hard at work on version 2.0, and it’s a big update. With it, Airfoil Satellite for Apple TV will be on par with our other Airfoil Satellite versions for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.

You can check out Airfoil Satellite in the Apple TV App Store now, and watch for the free version 2 coming shortly.

Farrago 2.0

Since its release, Farrago has established itself as the Mac’s premier soundboard application. It’s become a key tool for podcast creators and live performers of all stripes, as well as a much-loved part of our Ultimate Podcast Bundle.

This year, we’ll be shipping a major upgrade: Farrago 2.0. Here’s a sneak peek:

We’re working on adding some of the most requested features, including things like lockable sets, smart sets, Stream Deck integration, basic audio editing, and much more.

If you’re a Farrago 1 user and you’re interested to beta test version 2, we’d be glad to have you. Click to send us an email with your full name and Farrago 1 license key, and we’ll be in touch. At this time, our beta list is full. Watch for more news on Farrago soon.

Major Updates to Audio Hijack

Our flagship product Audio Hijack has been around for almost 20 years now, and it’s more popular than ever. We’re currently hard at work on some impressive new features. The most noticeable change is an interface update that features a new Light Mode:

We’re also working on manual block connections, so you can customize your pipeline exactly how you want it. Powerful new blocks, including a new five-input mixer, will give you even better audio control. For the first time ever, sessions will be able to run all the time, in the background.

Perhaps the single most notable change, however, is something making a return from years back: scripting support. In the years since Audio Hijack Pro 2 was replaced by Audio Hijack 3, we’ve never stopped getting requests for some type of scripting to make a return. After much research and experimentation, we’ll soon be providing a from-the-ground-up JavaScript-based scripting system, as well as Shortcuts support.

We can’t wait to see how you make use of scripting, as well as other new features coming to Audio Hijack. We’ll have more news on Audio Hijack in the coming months.

More to Come

That’s a quick glimpse at just some of what you can expect from us this year. We’re excited to show you these updates and much more, very soon.

Hear the Latest From Rogue Amoeba

We offer several convenient ways to get our latest news:

• Subscribe to this very blog.

• Follow us on social media, including:

  • Micro.blog

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

• Join our very low-traffic mailing list (~2-4 emails per year), to learn about our biggest stories and receive exclusive deals.

We have big things planned for 2022. As always, stay tuned.

---

Footnotes:

1. On a related note, we think our upgrade policy is worth a read. It details how we strive to be fair to our customers while also running a viable business and continually improving our products. ↩︎

It’s (past) time for a new calendar, which means it’s (also past) time for the latest Rogue Amoeba status report. Our fifth annual report contains a recap of our busy-beyond-belief 2020, along with a look at plans for 2021.

Though the word “unprecedented” has been sorely overused of late, 2020 really was a year unlike any other for Rogue Amoeba. It began normally enough, but as COVID-19 led so much of the world to lock down and work remotely, we saw staggering new demand for our products. We first noticed something was up when our support volume soared:

Year-over-year support requests for 2020 vs. 2019

Beginning in March, there was a surge in usage of all our products, especially our audio routing tool Loopback, our sound control utility SoundSource, and our recorder Audio Hijack. The highest peaks didn’t last forever, but there has been a sustained increase in the popularity of our tools, with a new normal that’s much higher than before.

While coping with that increased demand has been challenging, we’re glad to be able to assist Mac users around the globe. It’s tremendously gratifying to know our products are helping so many of you adapt to new ways of working and living.

New Guides for Using Rogue Amoeba Apps

One result of this increased usage was the discovery of new, and newly popular, use cases. Much of the world is now communicating via voice chat on services like Zoom and Google Meet, and several of our products can enrich that experience. We created some great new support resources, which help you:

• Add music and sound effects to your voice chats

• Clean up audio heard on calls

• Enhance your own microphone audio

• Turn down Zoom, without affecting other apps (to tune out of a call you’re required to be on 😎)

Our article on adding volume control to unsupported devices also proved quite popular. If you have an HDMI, DisplayPort, or other audio output that the system refuses to adjust, SoundSource can provide volume adjustment, as well as keyboard volume key support.

Software Updates

In 2020, we released an insane 80 new versions, more than in any previous year. Though all of these updates contained new features, improvements, and refinements, 79 of them were provided free to existing users. Let’s highlight a few of the biggest changes.

SoundSource

We began the year with SoundSource 4.2, which enhanced our Bluetooth support and added a new “Volume Overdrive” effect, among other changes. Following that release, we stepped back to review the tremendous quantity of feedback we’d received since the initial release of SoundSource 4.

Many months of work later, we unveiled SoundSource 5, 2020’s lone paid upgrade. Version 5 is a reimagining of the product, with an interface that’s been noticeably slimmed down, particularly in the Compact view. SoundSource also now automatically handles audio apps, so there’s less need to manually manage things. Of course, there are many new features as well, from powerful menu bar meters to enhanced audio effects.

SoundSource is made for anyone who does anything at all with audio on the Mac, and it’s rapidly become one of our most popular products. If you haven’t checked it out, take a look today.

Audio Hijack

In April, Audio Hijack received a major update to version 3.7. This release included the new “Live Stream” block, making it possible to stream audio to RTMP services like Facebook Live, Twitch, and YouTube Live.

The release of this functionality was actually pushed up in response to user requests. With so many people locked down at home, the Live Stream block has provided musicians, DJs, and other content creators with an easy way to share and monetize their work.

Farrago

When Farrago 1.5 arrived, our soundboard app got its biggest update since the original release. This enormous undertaking contained over 30 new features, supercharging the List Mode, and checking off literally dozens of user requests. Farrago was able to help thousands of new customers in 2020, whether they used it for voice chats, remote tabletop gaming sessions, or podcasts.

A Continuous Parade of Updates

Of course, the rest of our products got plenty of love throughout the year as well. We repeatedly fortified Loopback to better handle all manner of wonky audio devices and configurations. Our home audio streamer Airfoil gained full support for the new HomePods Mini. Piezo and Fission also received several smaller releases to keep them working well.

The final months of 2020 were spent rolling out an incredible parade of updates to the entire product line. This past fall, Apple made two major changes to the Mac platform, with MacOS 11 (Big Sur) followed by new hardware powered by Apple Silicon. We devoted countless hours to preparing our products to support Apple’s latest changes.

We were ready for Big Sur prior to its release, and had betas available for the new M1 Macs when they arrived. By year’s end, our official releases all had support for both the new OS and the new hardware. Make sure you have the latest versions of our products, and you’ll be good to go.

Other 2020 News

Here’s a bit more news worth noting from last year.

Technology Licensing

Back in 2018, we announced licensing for ACE, the audio capture engine that underpins many of our products. This licensing really took off last year, and now over a dozen different products use ACE to power their audio capture, from screen recording tools to transcription apps.

After the success we had with ACE, we introduced a second framework for licensing: Resonate. Resonate simplifies audio handling with a dramatically easier-to-use interface for MacOS’s CoreAudio. If you’re developing an application which needs to use audio on the Mac, Resonate is for you.

Staff Anniversaries

We also marked anniversaries for two members of our team. Our all-star designer Neale Van Fleet has now been with us for over five years, while our support ace Chris Barajas is now by far our longest-tenured employee, with over a decade under his belt. One of Rogue Amoeba’s greatest strengths is our incredible staff, and it’s a special privilege to have the chance to celebrate milestones like this.

We’re generally pretty tight-lipped when it comes to future plans, preferring to show, rather than tell. That said, there are a few things I can share today.

Coming Very Soon: SoundSource 5.3

We’re currently finalizing the next major update to SoundSource. In version 5.3, changing your devices will be faster than ever, and we’ve honed many aspects of audio effects. In particular, if you like tinkering with your audio adjustments, the new “Effects Bypass” option will prove very useful.

Effects have moved into a separate process, to prevent misbehaving plugins from crashing SoundSource. This change also brings support for older (built for Intel) plugins on the new M1 Macs. With additional advancements to the “Headphone EQ” effect and more, you won’t want to miss this free update. Watch for SoundSource 5.3 in the coming weeks.

Audio Hijack Updates

Work on our best-known product never stops, and we’re planning more major Audio Hijack updates in 2021. Lots of new features are in the works, as is an interface touch-up. We’re also planning to bring over work done in SoundSource, with Audio Hijack gaining a new “Magic Boost” block and enhancements to Volume Overdrive. It’s always nice when work on one of our products can find its way into other apps as well.

We’ll have more to say about Audio Hijack in the coming months, but for now, enjoy this teaser image:

Much More to Come

2021 should be just a little bit quieter than 2020 for Rogue Amoeba. We aren’t currently planning to release any brand-new products this year, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that Apple will avoid shaking up the platform quite as much as they did last year. Nevertheless, 2021 is sure to be a very busy year. We’ll still be doing all we can to push the state-of-the-art forward in audio software on the Mac, so you can be assured of updates both big and small for our entire line. Perfection in software may be unattainable, but that doesn’t stop us from striving for it.

I hope to expand our support resources to help even more folks use our products. We’ll likely create new articles in our Knowledge Base, as well as videos on our nascent YouTube channel. If you have an idea for an article or video we might make, or you’re making use of our products in an unusual way, we’d love to hear from you.

Finally, the Rogue Amoeba team will be growing in the near future. With our products proving more popular than ever before, our support and development teams were both kept incredibly busy throughout 2020. We want to devote even more resources to both customer support and future development in 2021. We’ve been collecting applications, and we plan to bring on multiple new amoebas later this year.

Get the Latest News From Rogue Amoeba

That’s all for today, but there are several ways you can keep abreast of our latest news:

• Subscribe to this very blog.

• Find us on social media. We’re on Micro.blog, Twitter, Instagram, and as mentioned, even YouTube.

• Join our low-traffic mailing list, which reports our biggest stories and includes exclusive deals.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and here’s to a tomorrow.

With the new year not being so new anymore, it’s well past time for Rogue Amoeba’s annual status report. Read on for a recap of what we did in 2019, as well as a look at our plans for 2020.

Major Updates

In 2019, we had almost 50 different releases across our line. As always, this included many minor improvements and bug fixes, but we also had several noteworthy releases. In fact, five of our seven products received at least one major update. In alphabetical order, they were:

Airfoil Satellite 2.0 for iOS

Our popular home audio streaming app Airfoil for Mac didn’t get overhauled in 2019, but its companion app Airfoil Satellite for iOS did. With version 2.0 of Airfoil Satellite, streaming to all the latest iOS devices is now fully supported.

Audio Hijack 3.6

Audio Hijack is our best known app, and we’re always hard at work fulfilling the promise of letting you record any audio on your Mac. With Audio Hijack 3.6, we made improvements to our noise clean-up plugins (Declick, Dehum, and Denoise) and made it a breeze to capture audio from Finder, Text to Speech, Siri, and more.

Fission 2.5

Apple featured Fission in the Mac App Store last year, and it was great for our easy-to-use audio editor to get more exposure. In Fission 2.5, we added full Dark Mode support, made improvements to custom ringtones, and fixed a handful of irksome bugs as well.

Loopback 2.1

September’s Loopback 2.1 release featured a brand-new Dark theme for use with MacOS’s Dark Mode, as well as a marked improvement dealing with physical audio hardware, so far fewer adjustments are needed to your Loopback virtual devices. If you’re a podcaster, live streamer, or audio tech of any stripe, the cable-free audio routing offered by Loopback will make your life better.

Piezo 1.6

Though Audio Hijack is aimed at users of all levels, folks are often drawn to our charmingly simple audio recorder Piezo, thanks to its simple, one-click usage. We made many improvements to recording and setup in Piezo 1.6, but most notably, this update fixed two different ways the app’s settings popover could misbehave in amusing fashion. “Wiggle freeze” begone!

SoundSource 4 and SoundSource 4.1

Our single biggest release of 2019 was the upgrade to SoundSource 4. It was a dramatic overhaul from previous versions, leading us to cheekily refer to it as the “brand-new SoundSource 4”. From its origins as a quick way to change your system devices, SoundSource has grown into a powerful tool for controlling all aspects of audio on your Mac. With it, you can control volumes on a per-app basis, add audio effects to any audio, and much more.

Just a couple months after that initial 4.0 release, SoundSource 4.1 added a full Dark Mode theme, an improved menu bar icon which shows your current volume level, and literally dozens of other refinements. We think SoundSource is so good, it ought to be on running every user’s Mac. If you haven’t checked it out yet, there’s no time like the present.

Another Year, Another New MacOS Version

At the Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple unveiled the newest version of the Mac’s operating system, MacOS 10.15 (Catalina). We spent much of the summer ensuring all our apps had preliminary support for Catalina when it arrived in early October. A handful of issues came to light once Catalina was officially released, however, and this required us to spend further time on updates.

We eventually smoothed out the issues, and all of our products now have full support for Catalina. Still, it was a rather enervating fall. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that just staying current with the annual OS updates is a heavy burden for developers. Alas, until Apple slows the pace of their OS updates, we have little choice but to continue expending energy to keep up.

On a related note, remember that our Status page always provides details about support for various operating systems. When a new version of MacOS comes out, we post prominent links to the Status page, but you can always check it at https://rogueamoeba.com/status/.

Additional News

Software releases weren’t the only thing we did last year, of course.

Tutorial Videos

Many great instructional videos were posted last year, with real users of the apps discussing our products. First up, podcast pro Chris Enns had several great tutorials for Audio Hijack. Not long after that, audio producer Mike Russell covered all four apps in our Ultimate Podcast Bundle (That’s Audio Hijack, Loopback, Farrago, and Fission). Finally, Guy Serle posted two great videos discussing Loopback 2. We’re always grateful when folks share their knowledge in this way, and we hope it helps users like you get the most from our products.

Posts from Neale

Our designer Neale had two particularly great posts about design last year. The first of these was a look at the design of SoundSource 4, where he explained some of the progression the design of the app took over time. It’s always fun to read about, and to see, the iterations software takes before it ships publicly.

Neale’s second post was about “all-up design”, and discussed how NASA’s approach to the moon landing can be applied in other fields, including software design.

Adieu, Airfoil for Windows

At the end of 2019, we quietly bid farewell to an application most of our users likely never even tried: Airfoil for Windows. This was our lone product for the Windows platform, and for over a decade, it met a real need. Ultimately, many factors led us to retire the app, including changes on the Windows platform which made it impossible to capture audio combined as well as falling sales. It’s certainly sad to see it go, but it’s also good to free up developer time for other projects.

Part of the reason for the lateness of this status report is we were busy releasing two major updates since the start of the year. We’ve already shipped SoundSource 4.2, a major update to our audio control utility, as well as an overhauled version of Airfoil Satellite for Android, our Airfoil audio receiver and remote control for the Android platform.

Those updates mean the year’s off to a great start, and we’re not slowing down. Here’s just some of what we’ve got in the pipeline for 2020.

A Major Farrago Update

Farrago is actually our youngest application, dating back only as far as 2018. After shipping that initial 1.0, we’ve steadily added new features and made improvements, bringing us to the current version 1.2.7.

We’ve recently been working on a major Farrago update which we hope to ship this spring. Farrago 1.5 will remain familiar to existing users, but its List Mode will be greatly enhanced. We’re also making dozens of other improvements and fixes to the rest of the app.

A sneak peek at Farrago 1.5

We’ll be releasing this in the near future, but there’s no need to wait to check out Farrago, as the new version 1.5 will be a free update for existing users. Try out the best soundboard app for Mac today, then watch for Farrago 1.5 soon.

Continued Audio Hijack Improvements

In last year’s status report, we mentioned that Audio Hijack would see a great deal of resources devoted to it in 2019. Last year saw one major update, the aforementioned Audio Hijack 3.6, but much additional work was done that has not yet shipped to the public.

We’ll have much more news on Audio Hijack updates later in 2020. For now, here’s a sneak peek at some changes we’re currently working on:

More Live Streaming Capabilities

As part of that Audio Hijack push, we’ve also been experimenting with adding even more support for live streaming. Audio Hijack 3.5 added the Broadcast node, which helps with radio station style streaming via Shoutcast and Icecast. For more “live event” type broadcasting, we’re now working on adding Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) support. RTMP streaming is used to connect to major streaming services like YouTube Live, Twitch, and many others. We’re excited to have more to show there soon.

Keep Up With Rogue Amoeba

There will be lots more to see this year, including plenty of smaller updates and improvements. To get the latest news from Rogue Amoeba:

• Subscribe to this very blog.

• Find us on social media – we’re on Micro.blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

• Join our mailing list, to get sneak peeks of forthcoming releases, as well as special discounts and deals.

That’s it for the moment, but please accept our (rather late) wishes for a very merry new year. Here’s to a happy 2020 for all!