Apple Bringing Native Apple Music Experience to Music App for macOS

Friday December 17, 2021 7:07 am PST by Hartley Charlton

Apple is rebuilding the Music app for macOS as a fully native app, according to beta code seen by 9to5Mac.

apple music
Code in the first beta of macOS Monterey 12.2, seeded to developers yesterday, shows that Apple is rebuilding the Music app using AppKit, macOS's native interface framework. The move will lead to significant improvements to the performance and experience of using the Music app, but no significant UI or interface changes.

According to 9to5Mac, the Music app is currently using JET, a technology to turn web content into native apps. The current Music app, which replaced iTunes but uses the same back-end, is heavily reliant on loaded-in Apple Music web content, which some users have criticised for having sluggish responsiveness and usability issues.

While some parts of the Music app, such as the library, were already native, Mac users will notice that searching for media in ‌Apple Music‌ is faster, displaying rebuilt native interfaces. As a result, scrolling, gestures, and animations are also more responsive.

Apple is likely still improving the new native parts of the app, so some interface elements or effects may currently be missing. Apple already rebuilt parts of the Apple TV app using JET in macOS Monterey 12.1.

Tag: Apple Music Guide

Related Forum: macOS Monterey

Top Rated Comments

megastuff999

23 months ago

Good. Current app is horrid.

Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)

ValentinStRoch

Thank goodness! The Music app is a horrible. I miss the versatility and speed of the native iTunes app for searching, sorting. So many features present in iTunes were not carried forward to the Music app.

Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)

munpip214

Please don’t forget those with local music only. I don’t want a bloated Apple Music version.

Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)

4jasontv

[Pauses iTunes.] How about Windows?

Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)

ratspg

Please bring that speeeeeed. It is so slow and outdated on even my latest 16" MBP. Feels like a slow-loading website (which it is.)

Akrapovic

Excuse my ignorance, but in what way was it not native? Do they mean not entirely unique code because it’s based on iTunes?

From the article:

the Music app is currently using JET, a technology to turn web content into native apps

The iOS app could do with a rebuild as well. I like the interface and features, but it's incredibly slow compared to Spotify.

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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