Catloaf Software Blog

We are excited to announce that Catloaf Software, LLC is now a commercial member of the Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME, at ti-me.org), a U.S. non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the use of technology to further music education.




Started in 1995, the stated mission of TI:ME is to assist music educators in applying technology to improve teaching and learning in music.

As a leading developer of educational apps targeted at the music market with our Trainer HD series of apps for iOS, we are a natural fit for this association. We look forward to a continuing relationship with professional educators all over the world, which will help us improve our products and in turn will help broaden music education.

The profile page for Catloaf Software on the TI:ME website can be found here. Feel free to connect with us if you are a member.

If you are a teacher or educator using apps to help further your work, please check TI:ME out and become a member today!

The latest version of the Trainer HD series of apps is now available on the App Store.

This new version includes the usual cohorts of bug fixes and improvements, but also contains one major new feature: daily practice reminder notifications.

Basically, after you've been practicing with the app on any of the instruments, you will be sent a notification 24 hours after getting out of the app reminding you that you should keep practicing. These notifications don't get sent if you have not logged any practice on an instrument, or if you have already mastered it (i.e. reached 90% mastery of the fretboard).

Additionally, if you don't want to get these daily notifications, they can easily be turned off by going to the settings menu and switching off the "Daily Reminders" button.

Practicing daily is the best way to improve your mastery of the fretboard in the long term, so we hope that you find these daily reminders useful!

Get the free app now for iPhone and iPad!

The latest version (5.3) of the Trainer HD series of educational apps is now available on the App Store.

Along with the usual cohort of bug fixes, as well as the new ability to send challenges from within the game to your friends, we have made an important change to the way the apps are being priced and marketed.

This new version is now ad-supported for the instruments that have not been purchased. This means that in lieu of having to purchase the instrument to unlock all of its features, you can now choose to instead watch ads, in the form of banners and the occasional interstitial. This will in turn allow us to reach more users who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to buy the full app or its instruments to use it.

Ad-supported instruments have vastly extended capabilities compared to previous versions of the app, however they do not include the full range of training options (for instance you are limited to the first 12 frets). To fully unlock them as well as remove the ads, you will need to purchase the instrument or the discounted bundle of all instruments.

If you have made purchases in a previous version of the apps, you will not see ads or any changes in the way you use the instruments. Likewise, the instruments included when you own one of our instrument editions are not affected. With those editions, the main change is that you are now able to play all the other instruments like in the free edition.

This change affects all editions of Trainer HD that include in-app purchases, meaning the popular free version as well as each of the instrument editions (Guitar, Bass, Banjo, Ukulele and Mandolin). The Complete edition stays ad-free as always.

We believe this is a move that will be seen as a net benefit for our users, as they will be able to enjoy more of the app before having to make a purchase decision.

As always, feel free to contact us directly with any questions and comments at support@catloafsoft.com.

We are proud to announce that version 5.2 of our Trainer HD series of apps is now out on the App Store, finally bringing full support for the new iOS 7 system!

A quick run down of the new features in this release :

• A brand new lighter design for the app icons. Check them out below!
• Full support for iOS 7 and the new 64-bit A7 devices (iPhone 5s and the newest iPads)
• Now implementing Game Center challenges. Send challenges to your friends so they can try to beat your latest high score! We'll add more types of challenges in later updates.
• You can now pick which accidentals to show on the fretboard map in Free Play mode. The default depends on the tuning, but you can override it to only sharps or flats.
• We've fixed a ton of bugs too. Please feel free to email support@catloafsoft.com if you encounter any odd issue with the app.

As a result of these changes, we have had to raise the minimum iOS requirements to iOS 5.1.1 or later. If your device is eligible to be upgraded (which includes all iPads), make sure you are up to date to get this version and further updates.

Complete Edition

Free Edition

To commemorate the holiday here in the US, we are having a big fire sale on all our Trainer HD apps.  from Thanksgiving Day (November 28th) all the way till Cyber Monday (December 3rd). All apps and instruments will be deeply discounted!

The various editions of Trainer HD are the following :

• Free Edition: all instruments now $0.99 (down from $2.99) individually, or $2.99 for the complete bundle.
• Instrument Editions: now just $0.99 (down from $2.99) - this includes :
• Guitar Edition
• Bass Edition
• Ukulele Edition
• Banjo Edition
• Mandolin Edition
• Complete Edition: now just $2.99 (down from $6.99)

We are also readying the release of the next version of these apps (5.2) which should come out very shortly. Among other things, this new version will include full support for iOS 7 and the new 64-bit devices from Apple, most notably the iPhone 5s and iPad Air.

Of course, upgrades from previous versions will be free so don't wait to take advantage of the special pricing!

This weekend marks the end of the summer, and we're having a sale to coincide with the holiday here in the US! Now through Monday, September 2, the following prices are in effect for our Trainer HD apps for iOS:

• Each of the instrument editions are on sale at a third of the price (only $0.99 instead of the regular $2.99). This includes the Guitar, Bass, Banjo, Ukulele and Mandolin editions.
• The Complete Edition, including all instruments forever, is now available for just $3.99.
• For our free edition, in-app purchases for the electric guitar and the bundle with all instruments are similarly discounted.

It has been quite a few weeks since our last update to the Trainer HD series of apps. The iOS world is abound in excitement with the news of the forthcoming next major version of the OS, iOS 7, which is due to become available in the coming weeks.

We are hard at work on the next versions of our apps that will take advantage of the new technologies introduced in the new iOS. This also means that we have to reconsider how far back we are going to keep supporting older versions of the system.

The next version of Trainer HD, version 5.1, will be mostly a bug fix release. We have identified a number of areas that really need to be worked on to improve the reliability and usability of the software, and we are going to focus on these first.

Version 5.1 will be out within 2 to 3 weeks. It will also be the last version to support iOS 4.3.

After this release, further iterations of Trainer HD will require at least iOS 5 and will also take advantage of the new features introduced in the new iOS 7. We have quite a few nice surprises in stock!

Fortunately, at this time very few of our users seem to still be running on iOS 4. If your device still runs an old release and is eligible to be upgraded (unfortunately not all devices can be updated), then by all means make sure to update!

A few days ago, version 5.0 of our series of educational apps for musicians, Trainer HD, was released on the Apple App Store.

The most visible new feature on version 5.0 is the brand new graphic redesign of the app, making it a whole lot more attractive on first launch.



We have more in store for the next versions of the app, but to celebrate this new major milestone, along with the fact that this weekend is the Memorial Day holiday here in the US, we're having a sale!

For this weekend only, from Saturday May 25 till Monday May 27, all guitars will be available at 66% off! This includes :

• All guitar instruments in the free Trainer HD app (6-string, 7-string, 8-string, 12-string and acoustic). The bundle for all instruments is also reduced in price.
• The Guitar Edition is available at a discounted price ($0.99 instead of $2.99)
• Finally, the Complete Edition has a discounted price to reflect the availability of the cheaper guitars.