Hello,
I'm new to the Swift MusicKit API and am starting with the implementation in iOS 16.
I'm getting stuck on an issue where there is no background or text color associated with the Artwork object. Is this something you have to make an additional property request for, and if so, how do you do that?
var catalogSearch = MusicCatalogResourceRequest<Album>(matching: \.id, equalTo: item.id)
let catalogResponse = try await request.response()
guard let firstItem = catalogResponse.items.first else {
return
}
In this example, firstItem.artwork only contains the url and what look like incorrect max width/height values.
here's a printout of firstItem.artwork
Optional(Artwork(
urlFormat: "musicKit://artwork/library/5F37858D-F46B-4F12-BA67-40FA8DD63D87/{w}x{h}?at=item&fat=&id=7718670444435992305&lid=5F37858D-F46B-4F12-BA67-40FA8DD63D87&mt=music&aat=Music122/v4/37/25/f5/3725f515-249f-7b91-77bb-f479cd48201c/22UMGIM32254.rgb.jpg",
maximumWidth: 0,
maximumHeight: 0
))
MusicKit
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Hello Apple Developer Community,
We are developing a music management platform for restaurants and cafes in Saudi Arabia. Our app enables businesses to schedule playlists and allows visitors to request songs via barcodes. Music playback is powered by Apple Music, and users must have their own Apple Music subscriptions to access the music. Our service charges a monthly subscription fee for these management features, not for music access itself.
Project Overview and MusicKit Role
Our app integrates MusicKit to leverage Apple Music’s catalog and playback capabilities. Users log in with their Apple Music accounts, ensuring they have an active subscription for music playback. Our platform’s value lies in its tools—playlist scheduling and song requests—which are built on top of MusicKit’s APIs. We offer these features exclusively in Saudi Arabia.
Legal Context in Saudi Arabia
In Saudi Arabia, to our understanding, no special licenses are required for playing music in commercial venues like restaurants and cafes. This means our clients can use Apple Music subscriptions for playback without additional performance rights licenses. While this aligns with local laws, we recognize that Apple’s global policies may impose stricter requirements, prompting our need for clarification.
Subscription Model and Monetization Concerns
We charge a monthly subscription fee for access to our app’s features (e.g., scheduling playlists and managing song requests). This fee is separate from the Apple Music subscription, which users must maintain for playback. However, Apple’s MusicKit terms state: "You agree not to require payment for or indirectly monetize access to the Apple Music service." We’re concerned whether our subscription model might be interpreted as indirectly monetizing Apple Music access, given its reliance on MusicKit for functionality.
Scheduling Feature and Synchronization Rights
Our app allows businesses to schedule playlists for general time slots (e.g., “play this playlist from 6 PM to 8 PM”). It does not support precise scheduling, such as playing a specific song at an exact moment (e.g., “play this song at 7:30 PM”). Apple’s guidelines mention that “deeper or more complex music integration” may require additional licenses, like synchronization rights. We’re unsure if our general scheduling feature crosses this threshold or remains within MusicKit’s standard usage.
Questions for Clarification
We’d greatly appreciate expert input on the following:
Monetization: Does our subscription fee for management features (scheduling and song requests) violate Apple’s policy against indirectly monetizing Apple Music access?
Local Context: Given that Saudi Arabia requires no additional licenses for commercial music playback, does this impact our compliance with Apple’s global terms?
Scheduling: Does our playlist scheduling for general time slots (not exact moments) fall within MusicKit’s permitted scope, or does it require further licensing?
Thank you in advance for any insights or guidance to ensure our app aligns with Apple’s policies!
Topic:
Media Technologies
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Apple Music API
MusicKit
MusicKit JS
Apple Music Feed
Since iOS 12 it has become difficult to detect the end of playback using the system music player.
In earlier iOS versions, the now playing item would be set nil and you would receive a notification that the player stopped.
In iOS 12 and later, nowPlayingItem still contains the current song and the only notification you get is MPMusicPlayerControllerPlaybackStateDidChangeNotification with the playbackState set to MPMusicPlaybackStatePaused.
Pressing pause in my car (or any remote access) generates the same conditions making it difficult to correctly detect the difference.
It would be nice if they added a notification that playback was done (similar to the other players).
Any suggestions?
I often find when doing basic actions in MusicKit it is incredibly slow compared to Apple's Music App. I've tried different versions, devices, networks, Apple's sample code, it all throughout the last several years, and it is all the same. Does anyone else have this issue?
I am using MusicKit ApplicationMusicPlayer to play music in my app. Everything works fine as long as I'm not playing large playlists that contain hundreds of songs. When I to play collection of songs that is larger than around 300 I'm always getting the error message saying:
"Prepare to play failed" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=Prepare to play failed, NSUnderlyingError=0x121d42dc0 {Error Domain=MPMusicPlayerControllerErrorDomain Code=9 "Remote call timed out" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=Remote call timed out}}}))
It doesn't matter if songs are downloaded to the device or not.
I am aware that there is another initializer for player's queue that accepts Playlist instances but in my app users can choose to sort playlist tracks in different order than the default and that makes using that initializer not feasible for me.
I tried everything I could think of, I tried to fall back on MPMusicPlayerController and pass array of MPMusicPlayerPlayParameters to it but the result was the same.
typealias QueueEntry = ApplicationMusicPlayer.Queue.Entry
let player = ApplicationMusicPlayer.shared
let entries: [QueueEntry] = tracks
.compactMap {
guard let song = $0 as? Song else { return nil }
return QueueEntry(song)
}
Task(priority: .high) { [player] in
do {
player.queue = .init(entries, startingAt: nil)
try await player.play() // prepareToPlay failed
} catch {
print(error)
}
}
I'm building a UIKit app that reads user's Apple Music library and displays it. In MusicKit there is the Artwork structure which I need to use to display artwork images in the app. Since I'm not using SwiftUI I cannot use the ArtworkImage view that is recommended way of displaying those images but the Artwork structure has a method that returns url for the image which can be used to read the image.
The way I have it setup is really simple:
extension MusicKit.Song {
func imageURL(for cgSize: CGSize) -> URL? {
return artwork?.url(
width: Int(cgSize.width),
height: Int(cgSize.height)
)
}
func localImage(for cgSize: CGSize) -> UIImage? {
guard let url = imageURL(for: cgSize),
url.scheme == "musicKit",
let data = try? Data(contentsOf: url) else {
return nil
}
return .init(data: data)
}
}
Now, everytime I access .artwork property (so a lot of times) the main thread gets blocked and the console output gets bombared with messages like these:
2023-07-26 11:49:47.317195+0200 Plum[998:297199] [Artwork] Failed to create color analysis for artwork: <MPMediaLibraryArtwork: 0x289591590> with error; Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.mediaartworkd.xpc was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 159 - Sandbox restriction." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.mediaartworkd.xpc was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 159 - Sandbox restriction.}
2023-07-26 11:49:47.317262+0200 Plum[998:297199] [Artwork] Failed to create color analysis for artwork: file:///var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes/Artwork/Originals/4b/48d7b8d349d2de858413ae4561b6ba1b294dc7
2023-07-26 11:49:47.323099+0200 Plum[998:297013] [Plum] IIOImageWriteSession:121: cannot create: '/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes/Artwork/Caches/320x320/4b/48d7b8d349d2de858413ae4561b6ba1b294dc7.sb-f9c7943d-6ciLNp'error = 1 (Operation not permitted)
My guess is that the most performance-heavy task here is performing the color analysis for each artwork but IMO the property backgroundColor should not be a stored property if that's the case. I am not planning to use it anywhere and if so it should be a computed async property so it doesn't block the caller.
I know I can move the call to a background thread and that fixes the issue of blocking main thread but still the loading times for each artwork are terribly slow and that impacts the UX.
SwiftUI's ArtworkImage loads the artworks much quicker and without the errors so there must be a better way to do it.
In SwiftUI there is a built-in component for displaying album artworks called Artwork but there is no equivalent for UIKit.
My current approach is to use the .url() method to read image's URL and download the image or read it from the disk but the performance is much worse than it was previously with MPMediaItem's artworkImage method.
let artworkQueue = DispatchQueue(
label: "MusicKit-ArtworkQueue",
qos: .default,
attributes: .concurrent
)
let artworkSemaphore = DispatchSemaphore(value: 5)
extension Song {
func artworkImage(for size: CGSize, completion: @escaping (UIImage?) -> Void) {
artworkQueue.async {
artworkSemaphore.wait()
defer {
artworkSemaphore.signal()
}
let imageURL = artwork?.url(
width: Int(size.width),
height: Int(size.height)
)
// I hate doing this as it might very well break in the future
guard let imageURL, imageURL.scheme == "musicKit"
else {
return completion(nil)
}
guard let imageData = try? Data(contentsOf: imageURL),
let image = UIImage(data: imageData) else {
return completion(nil)
}
completion(image)
}
}
}
I really dislike this approach because it feels hacky but somewhat works. You might ask what's the semaphore for? Well, without it I could notice that MusicKit was choking and after reading too many artworks at once.
Can someone from Apple please provide us with an example on how to use MusicKit with UIKit properly?
Ideally (IMO) we would have a method defined on Song and other MusicKit structures that returns the image for us, just like MPMediaItem had the .artwork() method. It would make our lives so much easier.
Hello,
I am having difficulties with configuring MusicKit correctly for my web app that I am building, seeking assistance with the issues I am having. Would greatly appreciate any help!
After allowing access to the following,
"Access Request
media.mydomain.com would like to access Apple Music, media library, and listening activity for myemail'@icloud.com.",
I get a popup error that states, "Authorization failed. Please try again.".
Following is the information that is given in developer console:
[Error] Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 403 () (webPlayerLogout, line 0)
[Error] Authorization failed:
AUTHORIZATION_ERROR: Unauthorized
(anonymous function) (media.mydomain.com:398)
In MusicKit Web the playback states are provided as numbers.
For example the playbackStateDidChange event listener will return:
{oldState: 2, state: 3, item:...}
When the state changes from playing (2) to paused (3).
Those are pretty easy to guess, but I'm having a hard time with some of the others: completed,
ended,
loading,
none,
paused,
playing,
seeking,
stalled,
stopped,
waiting.
I cannot find a mapping of states to numbers documented anywhere. I got the above states from an enum in a d.ts file that is often incorrect/incomplete.
Can someone help out pointing to the docs or provide a mapping?
Thanks.
I am experimenting with Swift Testing and Xcode Cloud and would like to write some tests that require to use MusicKit functionality. For example I'd like to fetch an album via MusicCatalogRessourceRequest to test an initializer of another struct.
However this test fails because the permission to access the music library is not granted. Once the permission is granted, the test works as expected.
Things I have tried:
Add NSPrivacyAccessedAPITypes to the Info.plist. This did not show any effect. Below is the corresponding snippet
Trying to tap the button programmatically. Once again this did not show any effect.
The Info.plist snippet:
<key>NSPrivacyAccessedAPITypes</key>
<array>
<string>NSPrivacyAccessedAPIMediaLibrary</string>
</array>
The code snippet to tap the button:
let systemAlerts = XCUIApplication(bundleIdentifier: "com.apple.springboard")
let allowButton = systemAlerts.buttons["Allow"]
if allowButton.exists {
allowButton.tap()
}
What am I doing wrong here? I need access to MusicKit functionalities to write meaningful tests. Thank you
I've been having issues with authorization after switching from v1 to v3, have tried some of the suggestions provided by someone in a reply to a post of mine. Have tried to reach out to Apple Support a few times as well, though I haven't received any support that has helped me to move forward.
I have tested my token at https://jwt.io and I'm getting a "Signature Verified", tried multiple browsers in private/incognito mode, now when I try to sign into my Apple Account to test my player I am receiving an error that stats "There is a Problem Connecting. There May be an Issue with Your Network." (which is not the case).
I have tried everything I can think of, I'm at a loss and would appreciate any help to get my project moving forward. This is what I am seeing in the browser developer console (using Firefox):
Authorization failed: AUTHORIZATION_ERROR: Unauthorized
MKError https://js-cdn.music.apple.com/musickit/v3/musickit.js:13
authorize https://js-cdn.music.apple.com/musickit/v3/musickit.js:28
asyncGeneratorStep$w https://js-cdn.music.apple.com/musickit/v3/musickit.js:28
_next https://js-cdn.music.apple.com/musickit/v3/musickit.js:28
media.mydomain.com:398:19
https://media.mydomain.com/:398
Hi All,
I am working on a DJ playout app (MACOS). The app has a few AVAudioPlayerNode's combined with the ApplicationMusicPlayer from Musickit. I can route the output of the AVaudioPlayer to a hardware device so that the audio files are directed to their own dedicated output on my Mac. The ApplicationMusicPlayer is following the default output and this is pretty annoying.
Has anyone found a solution to chain the ApplicationMusicPlayer and get it set to a output device?
Thanks
Pancras
Hi community,
I have a question regarding MusicKit, is it necessary to follow a design guideline to integrate this framework into my App?
Also, when no music is reproducing in MusicKit which placeholder we should show, do you provide the resource? Or can we create our own placeholder?
Thanks for all,
David.
Hi!
I get personal recommendations MusicItemCollection using this code:
func getRecommendations() async throws -> MusicItemCollection<MusicPersonalRecommendation> {
let request = MusicPersonalRecommendationsRequest()
let response = try await request.response()
let recommendations = response.recommendations
return recommendations
}
However, all recommendations contain no more than 12 MusicItem's, while the Music.app application provides much more for some recommendations, for example, for the You recently listened recommendation, the Music.app application displays 40 items. Each recommendation has an items property that contains a collection of musical items MusicItemCollection<MusicPersonalRecommendation.Item>, the hasNextBatch property for these collections is always false. I expected that for some collections loading of new items would be available. Please tell me if I'm doing something wrong or is this a MusicKit bug?
Thank you!
Please Update Andorid MusicKit,the version 1.1.2 will complied fail。the error msg:•SDKUriHandlerActivity>. Apps targeting Android 12 and higher are required to specify an explicit value for android:exported when the corres
Songs can be unavailable (greyed out) in Apple Music. How can I check if a song is unavailable via the MusicKit framework? Obviously the playback will fail with MPMusicPlayerControllerErrorDomain Code=6 "Failed to prepare to play" but how can I know that in advance? I need to check the availability of hundreds of albums and therefore initiating a playback for each of them is not an option.
Things I have tried:
Checking if the release date property is set to a future date. This filters out all future releases but doesn't solve the problem for already released songs.
Checking if the duration is 0. This does not work since the duration of unavailable songs does not have to be 0.
Initiating a playback and checking for the "Failed to prepare to play" error. This is not suitable for a huge amount of Albums.
I couldn't find a solution yet but somehow other third-party-apps are able ignore/don't shows these albums. I believe the Apple Music app is only displaying albums where at least one song is available.
I am using this function to fetch all albums of an artist.
private func fetchAlbumsFor(_ artist: Artist) async throws -> [Album] {
let artistWithAlbums = try await artist.with(.albums)
var allAlbums = [Album]()
guard var currentBadge = artistWithAlbums.albums else {
return []
}
allAlbums.append(contentsOf: currentBadge)
while currentBadge.hasNextBatch {
if let nextBatch = try await currentBadge.nextBatch() {
currentBadge = nextBatch
allAlbums.append(contentsOf: nextBatch)
} else {
break
}
}
return allAlbums
}
Here is an example album where I am unable to detect its unavailability (at least in Germany):
https://music.apple.com/de/album/die-haferhorde-immer-den-n%C3%BCstern-nach-h%C3%B6rspiel-zu-band-3/1755774804
Furthermore I was unable to navigate to this album via the Apple Music app directly.
Thanks for any help
Edit: Apparently this album is not included in an apple music subscription but can be bought seperately. The question remains: How can I check that?
I noticed that Instagram and iMessage support receiving shared lyrics from Apple Music. Specifically, when users long-press lyrics, a sheet pops up showing iMessage and Instagram. Clicking on either app generates a beautifully formatted lyrics image.
I've looked through MusicKit documentation but couldn't find any related APIs.
How can I implement this functionality in my app?
I'm playing library items (MPMediaItem) and apple music tracks (Track) in MPMusicPlayerApplicationController.applicationQueuePlayer, but I can't use the actual Queue functionality because I can't figure out how to get both media types into the same queue. If there's a way to get both types in a single queue, that would solve my problem, but I've given up on that one.
Because I can't use a queue, I have to be able to detect when a song ends so that I can put the next song in the queue and play it. The only way I can figure out to detect when a song ends is by watching the playBackState, and I've actually got that pretty much working, but it's really ugly, because you get playBackState of paused when a song ends, and when a bluetooth speaker disconnects, etc.
The only answer I've been able to find on the internet is to watch the MPMusicPlayerControllerNowPlayingItemDidChange, and when that fires, and the nowPlayingItem is NIL, a song ends.. but that's not the case. When a song ends, the nowPlayingItem remains the same. There's got to be an answer to this problem, right?
Hi, is there a way to display the animated cover art in an app? Not every album has a cover art but for the ones that have one I would like to display them instead of the artwork.
Thank you :)
I'm unable to play music using Musickit.js in the Chrome or Firefox browsers.
Even using the apple guide here: https://js-cdn.music.apple.com/musickit/v1/index.html - I've added my Music Developer Token and song/album url, but it only works in Safari and not in Chrome or Firefox.
I'm unsure if this is a global issue, or if there is something I need to do to enable playback in other browsers, but as it stands it's not working for me.
Thanks for any help in advance!