# Beam Music — user reviews > 50 indexed App Store user reviews of Beam Music by Ultimate Drill Book, rated 4.40/5 from 283 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/beam-music/id1572856909/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/beam-music/id1572856909.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 228 · 4★ 7 · 3★ 10 · 2★ 6 · 1★ 32 ## What do users think of Beam Music? Overall sentiment: negative **Pros** - 📱 Centralized music library in one app - 🎵 Convenient for marching band use - ✍️ Annotation and note-taking features - 📋 Setlist functionality for quick song switching - 🔄 Live mode for synchronized performance - ⚡ Generally good performance when working properly - 🎯 Vertical scrolling feature - 👥 Responsive developer team (early adoption) **Cons** - 🐛 Frequent crashes and freezing - ⏱️ Severe lag and unresponsiveness - 🔋 Excessive battery drain (40-90% per hour) - 🌡️ Phone overheating during use - 📝 Annotations randomly disappear or delete - 🔄 Zoom level not saved when switching orientation - 📱 Portrait mode flips music unexpectedly - 🔍 Search feature extremely buggy - ❌ Screenshot protection prevents workarounds - ⚙️ Recent updates made app worse - 🔒 No horizontal page lock feature - 📄 Page turning is slow and unreliable - 💾 Edits don't save properly **Commonly reported bugs** - App crashes constantly, especially when needed - Lag makes page turning and note-taking difficult - Annotations disappear after using live mode - Zoom level resets when orientation changes - Portrait mode activates unexpectedly - Notes from other songs appear randomly - Search feature fails to work reliably - Music fails to load when switching between pieces - Auto-download feature doesn't work - App becomes unresponsive with frozen screen - Battery drains excessively fast - Phone overheats during rehearsal - Annotations won't save, erase, or stick properly - Screenshot returns white page instead of music **Most requested features** - Horizontal page lock (like FlipFolder) - Ability to save zoom level with vertical scrolling - Live session annotation capability - Auto-select correct part for user - Mass select parts instead of individual selection - Highlighter tool for dynamics - White pen/eraser for marking corrections - Screenshot capability for backup - Access to music files in Files app - Rotation lock that maintains landscape orientation - Better customization options - Improved search functionality ## Newest reviews (14 of 50) ### 4/5 — One suggestion *2025-10-24, version 2.0.4* Please let us save zoom level with vertical scrolling! ### 3/5 — Good, but bugs bring it down *2025-10-14, version 2.0.4* For the most part, this app is great. Not much lag, live mode works well, and it doesn’t crash all the time like the last app I used. The big problem is with music markings being deleted. It’s been happening a lot the past few weeks, and we’re pretty sure it has something to do with opening/switching over to another app, which is a problem because we need to look at another app to know what do mark in relation to drill. This problem is made worse by the fact that we can’t screenshot to have a backup. If the marking problem gets fixed it would definitely be five star. ### 3/5 — Mid Music App *2025-09-01, version 2.0.2* Always crashes when you need it the most, but has good features like setlists to switch music quickly, vertical scrolling, and the ability to write notes in music ### 4/5 — few fixes *2025-08-25, version 2.0.2* beam overall is great and has its own very nice features, but it was much better last year than it is now after all the updates. beam used to have horizontal lock but now it doesn’t and everytime it flips the music it does not go back to the correct saved zoom level that was set. it is also EXTREMELY laggy to the point i cannot write in my own notes or switch to another song fast enough because it is that laggy. while using beam my phone battery also goes down crazy fast. during just one hour of rehearsal my phone goes down at least 40%. it makes it very difficult to be able to perform at football games when students constantly have to worry about their phone batteries. developers really need to fix this, this complaint is also coming from an entire 150 student college university marching band. ### 3/5 — Horribly Optimized for a marching band *2025-08-19, version 2.0.2* I march in a college band, and we recently swapped to Beam from FlipFolder and it’s been rough. Beam just doesn’t have the quality of life that FlipFolder did. The biggest things being that there’s no way to annotate music in a live sessions, so if a section leader needs to write something in they can’t. There’s also that you have to leave a live performance if you want to save a zoom preference for music, on top of already very little options for customizing. On top of that is that things feel hidden or hard to find, and having a lot of songs can lag the application. But the WORST thing has to be no horizontal page lock. FlipFolder has it and it makes any horn moves significantly. If anything, PLEASE add horizontal page lock similar to FlipFolder! ### 2/5 — Would be great if it would load! *2025-06-13, version 1.33* Used to love this app and how convenient it made having all of my marching and pep band music in one place, but the recent updates have made it unreliable, freezing nearly constantly and crashing often. I think all users would prefer the app going back to simple and reliable over many features but constant freezing! ### 1/5 — Terrible *2024-11-22, version 1.24* Crashes constantly, takes an eternity to load, the whole “auto download part” thing doesn’t even work, “set zoom level” makes it near impossible to turn pages. You’re better off just using a google drive folder. ### 1/5 — terrible app *2024-11-16, version 1.24* always crashes & never lets me play my music. ALWAYS AT THE WORST TIME TOO. i can’t even open the app right now it’s so bad it crashes immediately. ### 2/5 — Could be much better *2024-10-09, version 1.21* Random crashing, annotations not saving, search feature extremely buggy. When it works it kind of works, when it doesn't it really doesn't. ### 3/5 — Could be better *2024-10-05* Random crashing, annotations not saving sometimes, search feature extremely buggy. When it works, it really works, when it doesn't it really doesn't. ### 1/5 — Beam aka doo doo garbage *2024-10-05, version 1.20* Crashes like every 10m and deletes your markings. Dev team does literally nothing. ### 1/5 — Very Unreliable *2024-09-23* My collegiate band uses this, and it is not great. It crashes all the time, really randomly and inconveniently. The crashing has been getting worse since I first started with Beam a year ago. Notations from other songs will randomly appear on my music, and sometimes notations will disappear completely and not come back. The search feature rarely works, which isn’t great when I’m quickly looking for a certain song from a long library. Sometimes when I’m writing annotations they won’t stick, won’t erase, and multiple versions of what I’ve wrote and erased come and go. When flipping between pages or pieces, stuff often won’t load (no matter how good the internet connection), leaving me stranded on the field with a blank screen. The save zoom fails a lot too, which is confusing and frustrating when a piece of music is big and long. Everyone in my 300+ member band is having these issues. Overall, not a great software. ### 1/5 — What was so wrong with paper *2024-08-21, version 1.20* Why is there no proper and easy way to quickly change pages. All I can do is endlessly swipe and just drag the music around in hopes that it will eventually decide to change the page. Could have been made decently but the whole app is just dumb and not well through out. ### 1/5 — Crashes constantly *2023-10-26, version 1.13* Beam has been crashing like crazy lately. It makes it very hard to rehearse effectively when the app constantly kicks me out & glitches while I’m trying to use it. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — paper sheet music works better *2026-03-31, version 2.0.7* beam does not work half the time. when it does work, it works poorly. paper sheet music is ultimately superior. paper sheet music does not refuse to turn the page and i can exit out of the song with ease when i need to. this app is laggy. ### 1/5 — Let me see the music in the files app *2025-11-03, version 2.0.5* Let me see my own music in the files app. My band only uploads the music on here and I want to mark it up on a platform that won’t magically erase it all. ### 1/5 — I hate this app *2025-10-06, version 2.0.3* Mid sucky app. If I could give it zero stars, I would. ### 1/5 — Bad *2025-10-04, version 2.0.3* Horrible ### 1/5 — it’s somehow worse *2025-09-01, version 2.0.3* the updates to make it stop crashing every two seconds have now made the entire program laggy beyond belief. sometimes i keep tapping and tapping and the screen is just frozen, which is very frustrating when trying to make a quick note or change the zoom or really anything. also i hate the new vertical feature- i have no clue when anyone would willingly use that to read music. i used to use rotation lock so the screen wouldn’t flip when my horn was down, but now it makes it lock vertically in the middle of the music. very inconvenient. also it uses waaaay more battery than ever before, it drains my phone ~90% every rehearsal and makes it burning hot beyond belief. i would much rather have the app shut down randomly then blatantly not respond. this app has effectively killed my phone. please i’m begging you guys to work on this -sincerely, a collegiate marcher ### 1/5 — Frustrating Updates and Lag *2025-08-24, version 2.0.2* The app is laggy and slow, no good for a pep band that needs to pull up music quickly. It wasn’t always this slow, so I have no clue what happened to make it how it is now. Even when pulling up pre-downloaded music on airplane mode the app is slow, so it’s not a network issue. The new portrait mode functionality is the worst. I have my phone attached to my lyre on my clarinet for pep band, and when we’re doing horn movements or are at rest, the music flips and I have to wait for the laggy app to be landscape again. And when it does go to landscape again, it doesn’t remember the zoom level it was at. At the very least, I wish there was a way I could turn off portrait mode for the music. Rotation lock on Apple devices defaults to portrait, so that doesn’t work (when it had in the past when the music could only be landscape, it wouldn’t ever flip). And then the best way to get around the bugginess and unreliability of this app was to just screenshot the music, but you can’t even do that anymore!! I understand that it’s anti-piracy protection, but when your app is as laggy as this, what is the point anymore? I can’t pull up music in time for it to be relevant and I can’t screenshot it to make my job easier. ### 1/5 — Awful Updates *2025-08-21, version 2.0.2* Last year the app worked fine but recently there have been updates that has ruined its quality. It is extremely laggy to the point where I cannot keep up with my director because my page won’t turn in time. It also uses way more battery than before. This causes the phone to become hot, which leads to overheating when practicing in the sun. Then I can’t look at music nor drill because my phone will not function. ### 1/5 — Nearly unusable right now *2025-08-17, version 2.0.1* The app drains battery very quickly. Very unresponsive and long loading times. Edits don’t save. The app has somehow gotten worse from last year. ### 1/5 — Was good, recent updates made it worse *2025-07-21, version 2.0.0* It was great, would work well. But recent updates have made it super laggy. To try to get around this I tried to screenshot my music so I don’t have to worry about lag and crashes but now when you screenshot it just gives me a white page ### 1/5 — Unreliable *2025-04-24, version 1.30* Used in collegiate band, crashes all the time, notes don’t show up right and very unreliable when needed in a real environment. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — In love ❤️ *2025-12-31, version 2.0.6* I have no complaints other than maybe switching between music can take some time but otherwise it’s amazing!!! ### 5/5 — Love it. *2025-11-07, version 2.0.5* Took a little bit to get used to the interface so labeling parts didn’t take forever. But once I got the initial library up and running, I’ve never looked back! Seriously, I love the app so much, I want to marry it and have little baby apps with it. ### 5/5 — I love this app *2025-10-18, version 2.0.4* I find it very convenient for all my music to be all in one app, thank you to whoever made this app! ### 5/5 — Bema *2025-09-10, version 2.0.3* I luv beam I go doot doot for hour and then when im done with doot doot I’ll doot doot some more I luv bema more then my family :) ### 5/5 — I don’t know what everyone else is dealing with, but it’s great! *2025-09-10, version 2.0.3* I’m a first year marcher. I’ve been through 2 phones, an android and now, an iPhone. Beam and UDBApp have had no issues on either phone, and the performance updates might have worked, I don’t know it just runs that good already lol. And this isn’t a 1 item thing, the stand tunes (15 pieces), alma mater, fight song and the actual performance that’s next week! (4 items) ### 5/5 — Crashing *2024-02-15* Love the app it’s great for having music in front of everyone but every now and then it will randomly crash. ### 5/5 — beam *2023-08-16, version 1.10* this is bomb. ### 5/5 — beam *2023-08-16, version 1.10* i love beamers. this has truly changed my life. thank you beam. ### 5/5 — Amazing developers! *2023-08-10, version 1.9* We were part of the trial group for Beam last year. While the early days of the app were rough, as you may expect from a new app, the dev team have worked directly with us to make the app as functional and usable as possible! Our band has gone fully digital thanks to UDB and Beam! ### 5/5 — Splendid *2023-08-08, version 1.9* This app is exactly what I was looking for when I was presented with the issue of how I could view my music on my phone. The creator of this app deserves a pay raise! The ease of use is amazing and the user interface looks great. I will get all of my friends to use it, and if they say that they’re fine… then I will make them download it. 10/10 app, if I could rate it higher, I would! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-23.*