As of today, the first-ever Mac version of BandHelper is available. This is free for every account level, so you can download it and try it out.
https://apps.apple.com/app/id1503592748This requires macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later.
I'll try to anticipate some frequently asked questions:
Does this replace the BandHelper website?The Mac version is almost the same as the iOS version, which is designed more for performing than for data entry. If you want to use MIDI, remote control, device linking, auto-scrolling, backing tracks or videos from a Mac instead of a tablet, you can use the new Mac app. If you want to add users to your account, edit your data or batch-import new data, you should use the website as before. In short, this is an alternative to the iOS and Android mobile apps, but is not an alternative to the website.
Does this do everything the mobile apps can do?The goal is to do everything the mobile apps can do, but there are a few current limitations that I hope I can address in the future:
- Layouts don't respond to two- and three-fingered tap gestures (seems to be an Apple bug).
- Inter-app audio is not available (will require rewriting the inter-app audio code).
- Multi-route audio is not available (seems to be a limitation of the iOS to Mac porting process).
- Supported document formats are PDF, JPG and TXT -- no Word or RTF files (a limitation of the Mac frameworks that I don't expect to change; it's more likely Word and RTF support will eventually be removed from iOS, too).
Will you be releasing a Windows version next?Because Apple provided a system for porting from iOS to macOS, it was relatively easy to release a Mac app. The emphasis is on
relatively, because it was not easy, but releasing a Windows version would require a vastly greater investment in development time, maintenance time, test equipment and getting to know a separate ecosystem. So I would say if the Mac version becomes notably popular, that could make an eventual Windows version more likely, but meanwhile the best option is to buy the Android version and use it on an Android emulator like Bluestacks.
If you have additional questions about the overall capabilities, you can post them here. If you try the app and run into a problem, please post a
help ticket instead.