by Jason Snell
The long, strange story of Audio Hijack
Back in the early Apple silicon era, must-have Mac audio tool got a serious downgrade via a new installation process that required many steps and multiple reboots. The problem wasn’t really addressed until earlier this year, when Apple rolled out a bunch of audio permissions that allowed Rogue Amoeba to ship a new version of the app that didn’t require an installer or any reboots.
Now Rogue Amoeba leader Paul Kafasis tells the story:
In 2020, the disaster foreshadowed literally one sentence ago struck. Beta versions of MacOS 11 broke ACE, our then-current audio capture technology, and the damage looked permanent. When we spoke briefly to Apple during WWDC 2020, our appeals for assistance were flatly rejected. We spent weeks attempting to get ACE working again, but eventually we had to admit defeat. ACE as we knew it was dead in the water, and all options for replacing it involved substantial reductions in functionality. Though we did not discuss it publicly at the time, things looked grim for the future of our products.
Kafasis ascribes Apple’s change of heart to a passionate user base and a bunch of other developers (“some quite large,” he writes) who relied on Rogue Amoeba’s technology for their apps. Still, it took years for Apple to roll out a solution.
It’s scary to think that one of the Mac’s best apps could’ve been completely wrecked by Apple’s architectural changes. I’m glad that in this case, Audio Hijack and Rogue Amoeba’s other apps weren’t a victim of Apple’s out-of-balance attempt to lock down macOS without providing appropriate alternatives to fulfill the needs of users and developers alike.