Rogue Amoeba’s 2025 Status Report

Last year was a long one for us here at Rogue Amoeba, and not just because February had an extra day. Let’s kick off the new year with a look back at 2024 and a brief preview of 2025, in our latest annual status report.

A Major Transition Completed

Our biggest undertaking last year was the transition to our new audio capture technology, known as ARK. The backends for Airfoil, Audio Hijack, Loopback, Piezo, and SoundSource were all completely rewritten and replaced. Updating those apps with ARK was the culmination of a multi-year effort discussed at length last month. This grueling process was what led to 2024 feeling so long for us, and we’re thrilled that it’s finally complete.

The new ARK-powered versions of our apps greatly simplify the first launch experience, so you can get started in under a minute. Better yet, there are no extensions, no adjustments to the arcane “System Security Policy” in the Mac’s startup options, and no restarts at all.

Free Updates Abounded

42 is more than just the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. It’s also how many updates we shipped last year. In addition to the ARK transition, we added full support for MacOS 15, fixed bugs, worked around issues, and implemented new features.

Our aim is to provide outstanding value when you purchase our products, and boy did the team deliver last year. Every one of those 42 updates was free for existing customers. That’s nothing new, however. Since our founding, we’ve provided nearly 1,000 free updates across our product line.

And More

In addition to our many software releases, we enjoyed two distinct celebrations in 2024. First, Audio Hijack was enshrined in the Upgradies Hall of Fame. It’s the founding member of the “Best Mac App” category, and we’re very proud!

We were also thrilled to celebrate an employee milestone, Nathan Tiddy’s five-year anniversary. Nathan is part of an outstanding team of a dozen people here at Rogue Amoeba, all working hard on the apps you use and love.

In the fall, we noted Apple’s releases of MacOS 15.1 and MacOS 15.2, which brought important audio improvements that fixed issues users may have hit while using our tools. While we can often work around bugs in MacOS, some problems require Apple to provide the cure. When they do, we want to highlight those improvements, so you know how to get the very best experience with our products.

Faster Beta Support

It’s very likely Apple will unveil MacOS 16 this summer, and that they’ll offer public betas you can install. It’s wise to be cautious when installing beta OS versions, but we know that some folks are eager to experiment. In 2025, it will be possible to use our apps on the new OS much sooner.

With the transition to ARK, we were able to remove restrictions which previously blocked our apps from running on unrecognized OSes. Now, when you install the MacOS 16 beta, Airfoil, Audio Hijack, Farrago, Fission, and Piezo will allow you to test the software without needing an update from us. Exciting!

You might notice that Loopback and SoundSource aren’t listed above. The new ARK plugin they use will require a new version to get those apps running on MacOS 16, but we intend to provide those necessary updates quickly.

Big Updates Afoot, And Smaller Ones Too

In last year’s status report, I mentioned pending updates to our three most popular products: Audio Hijack, Loopback, and SoundSource. While the backends for those apps were overhauled as part of the ARK transition, we have more in the pipeline that didn’t make it out last year.

In 2025, we’re aiming to ship major updates for all three of those apps, and I’m very excited about what we’re working on. Stay tuned for more, including chances to beta test ahead of official releases.

Of course, it won’t just be big, splashy new versions. We’re always working to keep things running smoothly for you, so expect plenty of smaller updates that squash bugs, implement new features, and add support for new versions of MacOS.

Keep in Touch

That’s it for today’s status report, but you can stay in the know by finding us on:

Social Media

Rogue Amoeba is on social media. We’re partial to:

Bluesky

Instagram

Mastodon

Micro.blog

This Very Blog

The blog carries in-depth information to accompany our major updates, but we also post things that are informative or just plain fun. Subscribe to our handy feed in any RSS reader.

Our Mailing List

Members of our extremely low-traffic mailing list get word of our biggest news, as well as some exclusive discounts. We send just a few emails each year, and work hard to make them worthy of your inbox.

Onward to 2025

We’re aiming for a big year here at Rogue Amoeba, so it‘s time to get to it. For now, Ammo and I will close by wishing you a happy new year!