Rogue Amoeba’s 2024 Status Report

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:

Bluesky

Facebook

Instagram

Mastodon

Micro.blog

Threads

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:

Airfoil

Audio Hijack

Farrago

Fission

Loopback

Piezo

SoundSource

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.