Free and Pro

What's free

The free app is not a trial and nothing in it expires. It is the whole beginner story, and most of the intermediate one:

• All three learning modes — Scales, Chords, Triads — and the sentence header.
• The core scales: Major, Minor, both Pentatonics, and Blues.
• The Chord Atlas with the chords of the key, Roman numerals, borrowed-harmony labels, and previews.
• Identifying a chord by tapping notes onto the neck.
• Every overlay: CAGED, pentatonic positions, 3NPS, string sets, triad lines — and chord shapes with finger numbers.
• Tap to play, the marker display bar, the scale timeline, the timeline transports, and the fret range limiter.
• Fast mode on the tuner, with the Needle and Bar displays.
• The complete metronome — full tempo range, every meter and subdivision, tap tempo, three click sounds. No caps.
• The mixer, all six playback instruments, chord pad layers, and all fourteen app icons.

A promise worth stating plainly: nothing that is free today moves behind the unlock later.

What Pro adds

Everything in this table is marked Pro where it appears elsewhere in the guide, so you can tell at a glance which side of the line a feature sits on.

Locked features stay visible where they live, dimmed with a small lock, so you always know what is there. A locked scale or setting opens one quiet paywall sheet when you tap it: what Pro holds, and the price. The three Pro practice tools — the amp, the looper and Live Detect — wear a lock badge on their icon and still open when tapped: the panel says what the tool does and offers an Unlock Fretling Pro button, so you meet the feature before you meet the price. Nothing counts down, nags, or interrupts on its own.

The 14-day trial

You can try everything in Pro free for two weeks. The button is on the unlock sheet and reads Try Pro free for 14 days; nothing starts on its own, and nothing starts on first launch.

• Why it exists. Most of Pro is a deeper version of something the free tier already shows you. The two things that have no free version to sample are the amp and the looper, and those are what the trial is really for: put a guitar through it for two weeks and find out.
• What it costs. Nothing. It is a free purchase, so it goes through the App Store, but no money moves and nothing renews.
• What you get. All of Pro, on every Mac and iPad signed into your Apple Account, for the same fourteen days whichever device you started it on.
• What it says before it starts. How long it lasts, what stops working when it ends, and what the full unlock costs — all on the sheet, before you press anything.
• While it runs, the Fretling Pro row in the settings sidebar counts the days down, and the unlock button stays where it is so you can buy without waiting for the trial to run out.
• How it ends. Silently. There is no modal and no interruption mid-practice: Fretling simply returns to the free tier, and every setting you chose stays exactly where it is. Turn Pro on later and all of it is still there.
• Once per Apple Account. The trial is not Family-Shareable — a shared trial would be a shared clock, and a household would burn one set of fourteen days between them. Reinstalling or moving to a new Mac does not hand out a second one either: the clock runs from the App Store purchase date, not from a stamp on your disk. Pro itself keeps Family Sharing.

How unlocking works

• One purchase, once. Fretling Pro is a single one-time App Store purchase — no subscription, nothing recurring.
• Every device. The same purchase unlocks Fretling on every Mac and iPad signed into your Apple Account, and it supports Family Sharing. (iPhone is not a supported device — the layout is built around a wide neck.)
• Your settings survive the lock. If a Pro setting is stored, the app quietly uses the free equivalent until you unlock, then your stored choice comes straight back. A Pro scale reads as Major, Precision reads as Fast, the Trace, Strobe and Disc displays read as Needle, and the Drums pack plays Classic. Nothing is reset and nothing is rewritten.
• Restore anytime. The paywall's Restore Purchases re-checks your Apple Account on a new device or after a reinstall. The entry point lives at the bottom of the settings sidebar, under Fretling Pro.

Where tips fit in

The tip jar in About is unchanged: tips are optional, come in three sizes, and unlock nothing. They are a thank-you channel, not a paywall — every free feature is available whether or not you ever tip, and Pro is the only purchase that changes what the app does.