I’m pretty excited about a new setting in App Tamer because it eliminates the one down-side to using it. In earlier versions, if you used App Tamer to slow down Safari when it was in the background and then tried to play music or a video, the sound could stutter or skip if Safari wasn’t frontmost. Now, App Tamer can detect when sound is playing and keep specific apps awake – just turn on the new “Don’t stop or slow when sound is playing” checkbox and the problem is solved 🙂
Actually, App Tamer 2.8 will automatically turn on this setting for most browsers, music players and audio / video chat apps, so you don’t have to make any changes. Just launch the new version of App Tamer. There is no Step 2 – it just works.
In addition, as the title says, version 2.8 contains bug fixes to make it run smoothly on Apple’s public beta versions of macOS 14 Sonoma. It will also helpfully warn you if you try to slow down an important system service that might negatively impact the performance of your Mac, and delivers fixes for several bugs as well.
Go grab a copy from the App Tamer Release page. You’ll also find a complete list of changes in version 2.8, and a full change history if you’re into that kind of thing.
I’m still getting audio stuttering while playing audio using Spotify, much less than before though. My set up is “run on CPU’s efficiency cores” and “don’t stop or slow while audio is playing” both activated, nothing more.
If I go fullscreen with Spotify and then switch virtual desktop while playing audio, it starts stuttering. If I, however, just Cmd+W the Spotify window to close it, it runs fine.
I guess there are more unhandled cases for apps while playing audio. It’s been a good progress, keep it up guys!
If you’ve also got a browser (or two) running in the background, make sure that the “don’t stop or slow when sound is playing” setting is enabled for them too. I’ve seen cases where a slowed-down browser can actually result in audio clipping in _another_ app. Let me know if that fixes it.
Thank you, Jon. I had running both Safari and Google Chrome, and both have the “don’t stop or slow when sound is playing” option enabled. I also enabled that option for Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, and basically any other app that can play audio, with the same results.
The stuttering only happens once every 20 seconds or so, much less than before, so I’d say the checkbox somewhat works, it’s just not perfect yet.
That’s odd – it shouldn’t happen at all. When this is happening, what processes are still being slowed down? They should appear in App Tamer’s process list with a yellow spot next to them. Can you send me a screenshot at support@stclairsoft.com? There has to be some other process that’s interfering.
Thanks for your help, Jon! I’ve just sent the email.
[…] minor update to App Tamer fixes a problem with the recently-released “wake for audio” feature that’s designed to prevent sound from stuttering when apps are slowed down. Version 2.8 […]