In March we announced that the iPad 1 is no longer supported for development making it difficult to test on an iPad 1 prior to releasing new updates. We have continued to struggle with this, but have managed to make it work for the past 9 months. Our goal has always been to support our iPad 1 users as long as we could.

The time has come. We can no longer provide updates for iPad 1 users while still maintaining updates for 99% of our users. Simply put, we need to update frameworks provided by other companies like Dropbox to maintain interoperability, but those framework are only available now on newer versions of iOS. In fact, some services that OnSong uses will begin to stop working as these companies shift to newer technologies.

In an effort to keep our users in the loop on what we are doing, we want to make you aware that beginning in 2017, OnSong updates will only be available on devices running iOS 9 and higher. All other users will not be able to update, but will still be able to run your current version of OnSong. We are working hard to have a version that is stable and will give you the performance capabilities you depend on with OnSong.

We encourage you to upgrade your iPad or iPhone to the latest version of iOS possible and update your OnSong as well. This will allow you to have the best features and performance that is available to you.

Since it is the holiday season, what better time to ask Santa for a new device for Christmas? Now is a great time to buy a new iPad as Apple is lowering their iPad prices. There are so many great deals out there on iPads this time of year. Please upgrade to a newer device so that we can continue to support you in the future.

If you are an original iPad 1 user, please take a moment and sign up to receive communications with any updates regarding the iPad 1.

On October 24th, Apple released iOS 10.1. After about a week, we have found a few issues that may effect you.

Never update a performance device without being sure that an update will not effect you. We recommend backing up your OnSong library periodically to ensure you can switch to a different device or rollback to a previous version of iOS if needed.

Backing Tracks

Apple seems to have made changes to the Music player in OnSong that is causing issues with playing backing tracks. If you've linked songs in your OnSong library to backing tracks in your iTunes Media Library, you may experience this issue.

How To Replicate
This issue exhibits itself when you start a backing track on a song in a set. Then while it's still playing, switch to the next song in the set that also has a backing track. When the first song finishes, starting the next backing track will result in previous backing track playing.

Reasoning
The reason this happens is that OnSong enqueues the upcoming backing track to the built-in iOS Music app when the next song in the set is loaded. This appears to fail in iOS 10.1 and higher if the player is currently playing another track. We have reported this to Apple as a bug and are awaiting a response.

Workaround
The good news is that OnSong has a really simple workaround for this issue. Simply go into the Utilities menu in OnSong (gear icon) and choose Settings » Live Settings » Audio Playback and enable the Crossfade Enabled switch. This will force backing tracks to be played by the OnSong backing track player instead of remote-controlling the Music app. The only downside with doing this is if you have volume changes or have trimmed the track within iTunes. The workaround will also not work with tracks that have DRM (digital rights management) or that are streaming from Apple Music or iCloud.

AirPlay Mirroring

It appears that iOS 10.1 has removed the ability to AirPlay to older AppleTV devices (2nd and 3rd generation). We are testing to confirm which AppleTV generations this effects. We have tested a device running iOS 10.2 beta and it appears that AirPlaying to all generations of AppleTV has been restored.

OnSong is always being developed to ensure it works not only with the latest versions of iOS 10 and devices from Apple, but also with the services that integrate into the app.

Some of you have asked if it is safe to update to iOS 10. We have tested OnSong with the final released versions of iOS 10 and OnSong has been working great. As of the time of this writing, approximately 43% of active users are running iOS 10 with about 47% of users running iOS 9. We have not had any users report any issues specifically with OnSong running on iOS 10.

That doesn't mean you won't experience an issue. Some users have experienced issues during the update process or performance problems with iOS 10. We always recommend that you backup your OnSong library before performing any updates in the event there is a problem during the process. Please watch our backup video tutorial to learn how.

We also recommend that you backup your device to iTunes or iCloud so if it's every lost, stolen, or stops functioning, you can restore to another device.

One change that has happened in iOS 10, if you are now prompted to allow OnSong to access your iTunes Media Library. If you decline, OnSong is not able to access your iTunes Music Library to link chord charts to tracks. If you inadvertently declined to provide access, you can turn this back on by going into the Settings app and choosing OnSong on the left under Applications. You can then toggle iTunes Media Library access at the top of that screen.