Today, we’re excited to release Forte for iPad!
We’ve heard from many music teachers that their students want to be able to take their lessons on an iPad. So, we have been hard at work creating the best possible iPad experience. Many thanks to all our beta testers who provided valuable feedback as we worked through the bugs and limitations of providing the Forte experience on these devices.
Using Forte for iPad is very similar to the desktop experience. Forte still runs in the browser (in the case of iPad, on the Safari browser). There’s still no need to download an app or other software. The login process and joining a lesson work the same way. Once in a lesson on iPad, you will notice that the quality of the video is better than Forte on desktop. Also, the internal speakers on many iPads are superior to those built into most desktop or laptop computers.
You will, however, notice certain differences. In particular, some of our desktop features are not yet available on iPad. For example, you cannot share your screen to or from an iPad. This feature takes extra network bandwidth, and we’ve made the decision to restrict it for now in order to maintain the highest level of Forte Pure Audio for our users. (As an alternative, we suggest you share files through the chat function instead.) Our engineers and technology vendors are working to bring these features to iPad. Look for updates in the near future!
A Note to Teachers and Students Who Have Already Been Using iPad
If you have previously used Forte on an iPad, your browser may still have an old version of Forte in its internal memory (or cache). To ensure Forte works properly, make sure you are using the latest version. The bottom left corner of the Forte window should say “Version 2.6”:
If you see an older version, you need to close the Forte browser tab and reload it. First, tap the browser tab icon in the upper right corner of the screen:
Tap the “X” in the upper left corner of that tab:
After closing that tab, open a new browser tab and return to www.studio.fortelessons.com. When you do, you should see Version 2.6. Simply closing the Safari browser on iPad might not properly update the version — make sure to close the tab.
As always, if you ever have any problems, please email us at help@fortelessons.com.