Support

Email barwise@csteiger.ch and you'll get a reply from the person who wrote the app. Most answers are below.

Getting a song in

Tap Import and choose an audio file. Barwise reads MP3, M4A, WAV and AIFF. You can pick from Files, iCloud Drive, or anywhere else the file picker reaches, and you can also send a file to Barwise from Mail, AirDrop or a share sheet.

The first time you open a song it spends about ten seconds finding the beat grid. That happens once — after that the song opens instantly, permanently.

"This file is copy-protected"

Songs from Apple Music, Spotify and other streaming services are encrypted, and iOS gives no app access to the audio inside them. This is not something Barwise can work around, and no competing app can either.

What does work: files you bought outright, files you ripped from your own CDs, anything you recorded yourself, and any audio you have as an actual file.

The tempo or the bar lines look wrong

Beat detection is very good but not infallible. It struggles most with solo instruments, free-time playing, and very short clips. Open the ⋯ menu and choose Fix tempo or downbeat. Try these in order:

• Half or double. By far the most common error, and this fix keeps the detected beats, which follow tempo changes in the performance.
• Shift the downbeat. If the beats are right but the bar lines start on the wrong one, move them a beat at a time.
• Tap the tempo. Last resort. It replaces the grid with a steady tempo, which can't follow a performance that speeds up or slows down.

Recording something to practise against

There's no recorder in Barwise yet, but you don't need one: record in Voice Memos, then share the memo into Barwise. Phone-mic quality is not a problem for beat detection.

One tip — keep it at least a minute long if it's a solo instrument with no drums. Very short unaccompanied clips are where detection is least reliable.

Purchases

Restoring a purchase. Open the Pro screen and tap Restore purchases. Make sure you're signed in with the same Apple Account you bought with — this is almost always the cause when a purchase seems to have vanished.

Managing or cancelling a subscription. That's handled by Apple, not by Barwise: iPhone Settings → your name → Subscriptions.

Refunds. Also Apple's, through reportaproblem.apple.com. We can't issue refunds ourselves because we never handle the payment.

Prices won't load. Usually a connection problem — the App Store has to be reachable to fetch prices. Everything else in the app works offline.

Playback stops when the screen locks

It shouldn't — Barwise keeps playing in the background. If it doesn't, check that Silent mode isn't muting the app and that Low Power Mode isn't aggressively suspending it.

Requirements

• iPhone with iOS 27 or later. Barwise is built on a beat-detection framework introduced in iOS 27, so it can't run on earlier versions.
• iPad support is planned for a later release.

Feature requests

Genuinely welcome, and they do get built. In-app recording, iPad layout and multiple time signatures are already on the list. If you practise in a way Barwise makes awkward, that's the most useful thing you can tell me.

Contact

barwise@csteiger.ch

Barwise is made by Cédric Steiger, Switzerland. See also the privacy policy.