piaScore

Perfect for getting started with PDF sheet music. Avoid if you need flexibility.

App: piaScore
Available for: iOS

Price: Free (but in-app purchases)

Developer: Plusadd

Website: http://piascore.com/

There's no doubt the developers behind piaScore looked very closely at forScore working with their app. Most things, from feature set to screen layout to the "extras" to the app name, is similar in piaScore.

So, how is this possible? After all piaScore is a free download from AppStore, while forScore is $10?

As I said, most things, from feature set to screen layout to the "extras" to the app name, is similar in piaScore. Just a little worse. Not as polished. And unfortunately not as stable.

If that's worth the $10 is up to you, but then you should also account for the piaScore Full Upgrade, which is required for linking music, camera capture, recording, sharing scores and some other features.

To be fair, piaScore has added a few unique features such as a very useful YouTube search and a quite cheesy midi playalong (in proprietary scores bought from the piaScore sheet music web store). And remember, the comparison is with forScore, which is probably the best music reader app there is for iOS. So, if you don't need the in-app purchases, you can get a really good music reader for free.

Verdict:

Perfect for getting started with PDF sheet music. Avoid if you need flexibility (other file formats, automatic book indexing) and gig-quality stability.

piaScore - 3 stars - The Music Reader Review

(Tested: piaScore version 4.0.22 on iPad)