So Long 2011, Hello 2012

Ah, the end of the year and it's been a pretty good one. A lot of features have been added to iGigBook as well as a number of performance improvements. The capability to transpose chord charts really rounds out the app by providing quick access to melody along with quick access to the transposed harmony. Keep your eyes peeled and your ear to the ground during 2012 for more great features.

Happy New Year!

iGigBook Version 1.57 - How an update both works and doesn't work.

After spinning out version 1.57 of iGigBook an update that added the ability to make a copy of a set list and that we made performance enhancements to and fixed some iOS5 specific bugs something very interesting happened. It seems a large number of people but not everyone, had a problem with the update, meaning they performed the update and the app would crash when they tried to launch it. People that newly purchased the app didn't have this problem nor did a fellow that I'm playing "A Christmas Carol" with and the two iPads I have updated without a hitch. What was also odd is that some people could not access any part of the app i.e. it would never get beyond the splash screen, while others could access the top level views but couldn't view any sheet music.

The good news was that uninstalling the app and reinstalling the app corrected the issue with the update, that's good news because the user can get a resolution to their problem very quickly without having to wait days for an update. If you rely on iGigBook and have a gig that you need to use it on, being able to do something yourself to resolve a problem is the best possible scenario. If reinstalling didn't work, meaning there is a bug that's causing the app to not function, we would have to locate and fix that bug and get an update submitted to Apple and then we would have to wait for the update to be approved, which could take days even if an expedited review was requested.

We created an announcement on our forum over at http://forum.igigbook.com laying out out the steps required to correct the problem:

1. Backup the files
2. Uninstall
3. Reinstall
4. Restore the files

We also pushed messages out to users devices using the device notification system(for those users that have notifications turned on) directing users to go to the forum for information on how to resolve the problem and posted these steps on the iTunes page where it says "What's New in Version 1.57". Now that this post exists those instructions on how to resolve the problem are also here.

Transposable Chord Charts

Over a thousand chord charts available here, can now be accessed directly from iGigBook as a Dynamic Book, which means iGigBook has an index that allows you to access any of the charts on the site and also allows you to transpose them to any key. This is a great addition to the app for those situations where you're working with a singer that needs to perform a tune in a particular key and just adds to the extensiveness of your own iPad music library. These charts can be added to set list, shared with other users via email just like any other piece of music you would use in iGigBook. Of course an internet connection is required to view a chart however the caching feature of iGigBook allows any chart viewed to be called up again without internet access.