While Google launches and discontinues products at a rate that no one can keep up with, Apple’s modern track record for sticking with its bets is virtually unparalleled among its peers. But nothing lasts forever, and this week brought the beginning of the end for Music Memos.
Take a deep breath, I didn’t say Voice Memos. This is a spin-off memo app that Apple launched in 2016. The idea was to give musicians their own app for audio notes that included special features for identifying chords, adding rhythm tracks, and exporting to GarageBand for loops. It also didn’t screw around with compressing the audio and degrading your sound. The latest update for Music Memos landed in the App Store this week, and Apple said it would be the last.
“The Music Memos app won’t be updated after Music Memos version 1.0.7, and you won’t be able to download it after March 1, 2021,” Apple wrote in a statement. Users on iOS 14 should be able to use this version of the app, but support should end next year and Apple encourages all users to export their Music Memos files to Voice Memos. This can be accomplished by opening Music Memos and hitting “export” when you’re prompted.
Apple famously operates a walled garden app ecosystem that means most of its mobile software comes pre-installed on iPhones, and users are pretty familiar with the offerings. But Music Memos has essentially been buried in the App Store without much love since it launched in 2016. Still, there are surely folks out there who’ve hummed the next “Thong Song” into their iPhone mics, and it’d be a dereliction of duty if we didn’t remind you to preserve it.