iCloud sync for songs, chord progressions, and compositions across all your devices — plus a responsive song-practice layout that adapts to every screen.
2 improved
Improved
iCloud sync for songs, progressions, and compositions
Chord charts in your Songbook, saved chord progressions, and compositions now sync automatically across iPhone, iPad, and Mac via iCloud.
Responsive song-practice layout
The song-practice screen now adapts to your device and orientation. iPhone portrait splits the space between lyrics and staff. iPad landscape places the staff and note strip side by side. iPhone landscape surfaces lyrics with the keyboard sticky at the bottom. On Mac, the keyboard is pinned fully at the bottom with a unified non-scrolling layout.
June 2026
Tiny Instrument 2.1
Practice real songs. Paste any chord chart, follow karaoke-style lyrics as you play, drill sections with Chase the Notes, and build your Songbook from chord charts or existing Compositions.
Paste a chord chart from any source and Tiny Instrument parses it into named sections — Verse, Chorus, Bridge. Follow the highlighted chord as it plays, or drill any section with Chase the Notes and Falling Notes. For songs with lyrics, karaoke-style practice scrolls through the lines in sync: the active lyric center-screen, previous and next lines faded, with chord chips hovering above. Every chord shows its Roman numeral in the song's key. Tap any chord to hear it and see the notes on the keyboard.
A new Songbook in the Compose tab stores all your chord charts in one place. Import by pasting a chart, or convert any of your Compositions into a song — sections and chords carry over automatically as a starting point. Organise songs into categories and filter the Songbook to find what you need. Any symbol that couldn't be recognised is flagged before you start playing.
Deeper chord practice tools
Every chord exercise now offers a BPM-goal metronome that steps up as you clear exercises, a choice of play mode (Block, Arpeggio, Strum), a hand-split option that routes bass notes to your left hand, and per-chord inversion controls so you always practice the voicing you intend.
Improved
Richer slash chord split
For slash chords with a seventh or extension (Am7/G, D7/F#), the chord tooltip and practice note strip now show the hand split: bass in purple for the left, chord tones in blue for the right. The on-screen keyboard guide tints to match. Simple triad slashes stay a single shape.
Jump from Practice to Compose
Right-click or long-press any song or chord progression in Practice to open it in Compose for editing, or to rename, duplicate, or delete it — without leaving Practice.
Categorize your Songbook
Move any song to a category from its menu and filter the Songbook by category, sharing the same taxonomy as the MIDI library. The filter bar appears once your songs are categorized, on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Readable MIDI control names
MIDI control-change messages now show meaningful names instead of "CC 64". Standard controls read as Sustain Pedal, Mod Wheel, Expression, and more. Connect a recognised controller (Arturia KeyLab, Akai MPK, Roland A-series) and Tiny Instrument shows its actual button and knob names, detects the controller, and offers to set up its transport buttons automatically.
Hide the keyboard's navigation arrows
Settings → On Screen Keyboard → Show Navigation Arrows lets you hide the left/right octave-shift arrows for a cleaner look. The Mac Shift+Arrow shortcut and MIDI octave-shift still work.
Clearer song-practice header
The section jump menu now shows the section you're currently playing ("Verse 1", "Outro") instead of just "Section". The save button reads "Save Changes" on Mac when you have unsaved edits.
More consistent lists, with type badges
Rows across the app now share one card style. Items carry a small type badge on their icon — song, melody, MIDI file, warm-up — so you can tell what each item is when browsing the library together.
MIDI practice library inline on Mac
Picking MIDI Practice now opens the MIDI library in the main pane, the same way Melodies and Songbook do, instead of in a floating sheet.
Free-tier composition limit
Composition creation is now gated at 5 on the free tier, unlocked with Composition Studio.
June 2026
Tiny Instrument 2.0.1
Point release with refinements across the app.
1 improved
Improved
Aria narration reveals as it speaks
When chat narration is on, Aria's reply now appears one sentence at a time in sync with the voice, growing the conversation downward. The chat no longer dumps the full answer and jumps back to the top to start reading — and navigation cards land once narration finishes.
June 2026
Tiny Instrument 2.0
The biggest update yet. A full freemium model with content packs, iCloud sync, Live Activities on the Lock Screen, Aria device intelligence, 14 composition templates, a cross-mode metronome, and dozens of refinements across every mode.
Tiny Instrument is now free to download. Unlock the full curriculum with individual chapter packs or a full-library bundle. Previous purchasers are automatically grandfathered.
Cross-device progress sync
Practice on your iPhone, pick up on your iPad. Lesson progress and settings sync automatically across all your devices via iCloud.
Live Activities & Dynamic Island
Your practice timer and focus session now appear on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island — so you can glance at your progress without unlocking your phone.
Compose: Progression templates
Choose from 14 chord progressions spanning Pop, Jazz, Blues, and Classical styles. Browse by genre and drop any template into your composition in one tap.
Arm a slot, play a chord on your MIDI keyboard or on-screen keyboard — Tiny Instrument detects the chord and drops it into the progression automatically.
The metronome is now accessible from any app mode. Tap the toolbar button to dial in BPM, time signature, and volume, with beats that animate in sync across the whole interface.
Aria: Smart device support
Aria now detects whether your device supports Apple Intelligence. If it does but isn't set up yet, you'll get a guided setup flow. Unsupported devices get a graceful fallback.
Live Rewind
Play mode now keeps a rolling 30-second buffer of everything you play. Tap Rewind to hear it back, save it as a Compose composition, or adjust the duration — so nothing you improvise is lost.
Aria remembers your last conversation. Reopen the chat and pick up where you left off — previous exchanges are shown as read-only context, with the full history available via the clock button.
Home Screen widgets
Launch any app mode, see your practice streak, or jump into your last lesson — directly from your Home Screen in small, medium, and large widget sizes.
Siri Shortcuts
Ask Siri to open a mode, practice a specific scale or chord, or start a focus session. All major app actions are exposed as App Shortcuts and work with the Shortcuts app.
Spotlight Search
Lessons, scales, and chords are now indexed in Spotlight. Search for anything by name and jump straight in from the system search.
In-app notification landing
Tapping a push notification now opens the exact lesson, challenge, or session it refers to — no digging through menus.
Improved
macOS menu bar
A full menu bar is now wired up on Mac — File (New Composition, Open MIDI, Import), View (timeline, grand staff, keyboard toggles), Playback (play/pause, loop, tempo), Window (Tuner, Metronome, Debug), and Help links. All keyboard shortcuts work.
Scale fingering hints
Correct right-hand fingering is now shown for all 12 major and natural minor scales in the scale practice view, with finger numbers displayed above each key.
Fingering exercises
Two new Play & Explore exercises: thumb crossunder technique (3→1 crossunder) and triad chord shapes (major and minor).
Lesson narration highlights
Words light up sentence by sentence as they're spoken during narrated lessons — easier to follow along and great for learners who read while listening.
Lesson long-press menu
Long-press any lesson to open it, mark it as a favorite, or schedule a reminder. Reminders show a date badge on the lesson row.
Locked lesson upgrade screen
Tapping a locked lesson now shows a context-aware bottom sheet with the lesson name, chapter, pack highlights, and a direct purchase CTA — drag it up to see the full chapter.
Focus session: countdown + extend
The focus timer now counts down to zero and presents extend options (5, 10, 15, or 30 minutes) when time runs out rather than ticking on indefinitely.
Aria: sequential scale playback
"Play scale" in Aria now plays notes one at a time at a steady tempo instead of triggering all notes simultaneously.
Mode settings section
Play and Learn mode settings now live in a dedicated Mode section in Settings, making them much easier to find.
Settings row captions
Common settings rows now show a short description beneath the label, clarifying what each toggle actually does.
"Practice Chord" in Chord Explorer
Tap the new Practice Chord button from any chord in the Chord Explorer to launch a single-chord practice session for that exact chord.
Keyboard note name strip
A note name strip can now be shown below the on-screen keyboard — always on in Chapter 0 lessons, toggleable elsewhere.
TipKit onboarding tips
First-launch tips guide new users through key features at the right moment using the system TipKit framework.
Fixed
MIDI playback: control changes now applied
CC messages — sustain pedal, modulation, and others — are now correctly processed during MIDI file playback.
MIDI playback: tempo changes respected
Songs with mid-track tempo changes now play back at the correct speed throughout the entire file.
MIDI keyboard: simultaneous notes
Fast keyboard playing now triggers all intended notes at the same time instead of playing them sequentially.
Scale & chord practice: note name setting
The "Show Note Names" global setting is now correctly applied when you open a practice session.
Compose: track color stays consistent during playback
Track colors no longer shuffle when playback starts.
Compose: correct instrument per track
Each track now uses its assigned instrument during playback rather than the last globally-selected instrument.
Focus timer stops at zero
The focus session timer no longer continued counting past zero.
MIDI library: no more duplicates after iCloud migration
Moving files to iCloud no longer produced duplicate entries in the MIDI library.
Aria: chord names spoken correctly
"Cmaj7" is now spoken as "C major seven" rather than "C maj seven."
macOS: Settings no longer crashes
Opening the Settings window on macOS no longer caused a crash.
Performance: audio off the main thread
MIDI playback scheduling, metronome ticks, and chord preview audio have all been moved off the main thread for smoother performance.
Performance: keyboard rendering
Wide keyboard layouts no longer slow down during idle or playback. Fixed three compounding causes — redundant per-key Tonic construction, over-rendering from state reads in body, and ungated animation timelines — reducing on-CPU work by over 60%.
Performance: selection views and practice stats
Compose, Ear Training, and Practice selection views no longer re-render on every session publish. Practice stat lookups moved from per-render full-table fetches to a memoized store, eliminating render spikes during playback.
macOS: Aria preset question now sends on tap
Tapping a suggested question in the lesson Aria picker on macOS now opens the chat and sends the question immediately, instead of opening with the question unsent.