Spectra 1.0.0 went out on 25 February 2026. The current release is 1.2.4, from 13 April. This blog didn't exist for any of it, so here is the catch-up, taken from the release notes on GitHub rather than from memory. If a release isn't mentioned, it was a version bump with nothing user-facing.
All releases, with the .dmg (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Windows installers, are at https://github.com/Morph93/spectra-releases/releases.
1.0 to 1.1: the base and the recorder
1.0.0 and 1.0.1 (25 and 27 February) were the first public builds: the inspector itself, Appium mode, Turbo Mode over direct ADB and WDA, LiveTrack, multi-device, graded locators, the XPath Axis Builder, code generation for three frameworks (WebdriverIO, Appium Python, Appium Java), and the Spectra Agent for Android. I didn't write release notes for those two, which I regret now; the list above comes from the v1.0.0 tag in my repo.
1.1.0 (5 March) also went out without notes on the release page. The tag commit in my repo lists what it carried: the Test Recorder (record real-device gestures, replay them, add assertions, export as test code) and five more code generation frameworks, taking the total from three to eight. That list is WebdriverIO, Appium Python, Appium Java, Appium JS, XCUITest (Swift), Espresso (Kotlin), Detox (JS) and Maestro (YAML). It also included iOS reliability work: zombie xcodebuild processes blocking device switching, port conflicts when a simulator and a physical device were both active, and USB keep-alive for idle iOS sessions.
1.1.1 and 1.1.2 (6 March) were license fixes: Pro activation not persisting across restarts, a brief "Not Activated" flash before the keychain loaded, revoked activations still granting Pro until restart. 1.1.2 moved key storage to the native backends (macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Manager).
1.2.0 to 1.2.2: theme, stability, profiles
1.2.0 (6 March) added the light theme, with OS detection and a manual toggle, and fixed escape handling for accessibility IDs that contain newlines.
1.2.1 (10 March) was about running for a long time. Screenshot handling was redesigned so memory stays flat instead of climbing over hours with multiple devices connected, a blank-screen bug after extended multi-device use was fixed, and device polling became adaptive to connection speed.
1.2.2 (11 March) added Connection Profiles (save, load, rename and delete connection configurations), Full Reset in Turbo Mode (reinstall the app before connecting; Android via ADB, iOS via xcrun simctl or ideviceinstaller), auto-restore of the last used connection config, and a prerequisite check for ideviceinstaller with a Homebrew auto-fix. It also stopped a double-click on Connect from starting two connection attempts.
1.2.3: the fixes release
1.2.3 (19 March) is the one I'd point at if you asked which release changed daily use the most. From the notes:
LiveTrack polling now pauses while the window is hidden and resumes on restore, which fixed a UI freeze after minimising. Connections no longer drop after minutes of inactivity; there are keep-alive pings for both iOS Direct and Appium sessions. Search results show the true sibling-based XPath index, include elements with visible=false, and distinguish hidden elements from off-screen ones. Error toasts persist until dismissed, and connection errors moved in-dialog with actionable guidance, including a "Why does this happen?" section for WDA and xcodebuild failures.
Under the hood, locator generation was deduplicated: the Properties and Locators tabs now share one single-pass engine, which fixed three match-counting bugs. The default theme changed from Dark to System.
1.2.4: recorder polish
1.2.4 (13 April) is mostly Test Recorder work. You can type a custom locator strategy and value directly in the recorder's locator picker. Recorded steps are easier to edit (pencil icons, single-click text editing, "Add note..." placeholders). Assert mode exits automatically when you switch to Tap, Swipe or Hold. Exported flow code no longer produces duplicate variable names, so Java and JS exports compile as generated. On Windows, the console window no longer flashes during ADB commands and background polling.
What is free and what is Pro
Free, no signup: one device session, Appium mode, all inspection features, the 11 locator strategies with A to D grading, the Locator Builder, search, device interactions (tap, swipe, long press, type, back, home), the Console, Logs, History and Network panels, the Prerequisite Checker, auto-update with "What's New", and both themes.
Pro adds Turbo Mode (direct ADB and WDA, 2 to 5x faster in my testing), LiveTrack, multi-device (two devices side by side), code generation for the eight frameworks with Page Object Model output, the Test Recorder, and the XPath Axis Builder. Pro is $7 a month or $50 a year, with a 14-day trial and two device activations per license.
The Android helper that Turbo Mode installs for animated screens (Spectra Agent) has been in the app since 1.0.0; there's a separate post on why it exists.
What's next
Additional platforms and features are on the roadmap at https://usespectra.dev/roadmap, and there's a feature request form on the same page. Release notes from here on will also appear on this blog.
Spectra is free for inspection. Download at https://usespectra.dev.