Apple Officially Retires Music Memos App

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As expected, Apple has officially retired its Music Memos app, which allows musicians and songwriters to capture song ideas on the fly.

Music Memos Apple
As noted by The 8-Bit, as of today Music Memos no longer shows up in App Store searches. Nevertheless, users who installed the app prior to March 2 can still use it and re-download the app if necessary using their ‌App Store‌ purchase history.

Apple announced in December that it planned to retire Music Memos after March 1, and advised users to export their Music Memos recordings to the Voice Memos library to ensure that they're saved.

Originally launched in January 2016, the app was able to analyze rhythm and chords of acoustic guitar and piano recordings, and instantly add drums and a bass line to provide a virtual, customizable backing band.

However, after improving Voice Memos in step with newer releases of iOS, Apple clearly became less convinced of the utility of also offering the Music Memos app, which received few updates in the course of its life.

The last update, version 1.0.7, only added the ability to export Music Memos recordings to the Voice Memos library, and Apple now encourages all musicians to use Voice Memos over Music Memos. Apple says that Voice Memos can be used to quickly capture ideas just as easily, and recordings can be taken further with GarageBand.

Exporting Music Memos to Voice Memos requires an iPhone with iOS 14 or an iPad with iPadOS 14, along with the latest versions of Voice Memos and Music Memos. Exported content will appear in Voice Memos in a folder titled "Music Memos."

Tag: Music Memos

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Top Rated Comments

HaywireTX Avatar
HaywireTX
63 months ago
If you understood the app, you would be sad that it went away. It was a great app that Apple should have expanded on.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
deijmaster Avatar
deijmaster
63 months ago

Clearly, this one of those Apple ideas that seemed like a good thing at the time, but never really caught on with musicians. When it comes down to it, there are really only two ways of recording music these days
humm not really. As a riffmaker (and many I know) that was a go-to app for quick recording ideas, as most of the time inspiration strikes in weird places... At least for me, rarely in front of my console. Cool feature to get auto drums and bass for a quick feel. The thing with companies these days is that the second an app doesn't really grow, they remove it, instead of adding to it, or at least, asking us users what could be cool...

This is exactly the kind of app that could've of been really cool if it got a bit more love. I'm sure Apple has the resources and could've made it much cooler. Especially if it made it work with the music app and logic for example... and never did. Because Apple never asks.

Apple's commercials usually indicate individuality, creativity and inspiration. Well, not really. Tim is an ops man, nothing more.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
farewelwilliams Avatar
farewelwilliams
63 months ago
there's a memo's app?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MrMacBookPro20 Avatar
MrMacBookPro20
63 months ago

Clearly, this one of those Apple ideas that seemed like a good thing at the time, but never really caught on with musicians.

When it comes down to it, there are really only two ways of recording music these days, audio and MIDI. For audio, there really isn't a need to have anything fancier than a cheap voice recorder if you just want to put some ideas down. For MIDI, it's of course nice to have a DAW, but there are also standalone sequencers, workstations and apps that are good tools for this.

Maybe in several years after the AI to recognize the artist's intent when they recorded the "music memo" is more advanced and capable of producing a good result, something like Music Memos might be a good idea. Perhaps Apple will revive it then.
This app wasn't intended to be used for normal music production, it's use case was to capture ideas for songs quickly
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Feyl Avatar
Feyl
63 months ago
Am I the only one who used this app?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jamajuel Avatar
jamajuel
63 months ago

Am I the only one who used this app?
No. I am quite sad that they are removing it. As a guitarist, it is really useful because the notes part of it allows me to very quickly jot down the tuning and Capo position. Shame really, wish they had just open-sourced it.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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