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Show HN: Musish – Web client for Apple Music

141 points| pplonski86 | 7 years ago |musi.sh | reply

63 comments

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[+] benkaiser|7 years ago|reply
(self-plug here) If you're interested in web-based music players, I actually author one that's open source. It uses youtube/soundcloud iframes to play the tracks themselves, but allows for syncing playlists across from spotify as well as browsing top charts and syncing libraries between devices.

https://next.kaiserapps.com/discover

https://github.com/benkaiser/stretto/tree/next

[+] wuliwong|7 years ago|reply
i made www.muusical.com a few years ago. i haven't been maintaining much lately but I'm still quite interested in meeting people with similar interests.
[+] snek|7 years ago|reply
Seems like spotify and apple music both do the same thing here. the js api creates an iframe to their "embedded player" which is just their full player without a ui which will respond to rpc commands from the page.

https://embed.music.apple.com/ https://sdk.scdn.co/embedded/index.html

Would be nice if paying users could access actual streams, although that would probably violate the drm or something.

[+] jtl999|7 years ago|reply
Spotify DRM _has_ been cracked before (extraction 320kbps Vorbis streams without recompression), but for obvious reasons there are no ready-made public PoC's.
[+] jdillaaa|7 years ago|reply
What do you mean by actual streams?
[+] sonaltr|7 years ago|reply
This is amazing! One of the main reasons I went with Spotify after 3 yrs of Apple Music is because I moved to use Linux as my primary desktop and I didn't have an Apple Music client there. This is making me reconsider getting Apple Music subscription again!

I'm going to see if there's a Github link or maybe reverse engineer the API and make it into a desktop app (mainly for Media key controls and Desktop integration to be honest).

[+] Gaelan|7 years ago|reply
IIRC Apple has a JS SDK. Could run that in electron
[+] e1ven|7 years ago|reply
Has Apple said anything about why they aren't releasing their own web player?

With the API integration it seems pretty straight-forward to make one, so there's got to be a strategic reason they don't want to?

Maybe they want to encourage people to use native apps wherever possible, since they have more advantage over Chromebooks there?

[+] aylmao|7 years ago|reply
In the short-term, micro context, like most exclusive Apple apps, it's one more reason to buy Apple devices and lock existing users into upgrading to Apple devices. Switching apps is a hassle, especially if there's no easy ways to migrate data.

In the broader context and rough terms, it's against Apple's interests that web apps in general take off over native apps. In theory, there's no reason web apps shouldn't be as capable as native apps for 90% of workflows (playing music being well in that 90%).

If web apps, at large, take off:

1. The App Store loses relevance, and so Apple loses influence over developers, distribution, and 30% piece of the cake. 2. Apple loses platform lock-in, since web apps run everywhere. It'd be a no-brainer for companies to have one team developing for the web, instead of one for the web and one or two for mobile.

I don't doubt if Apple wanted they could form a team with enough expertise to build solid web apps and make their services gain marketshare, but the experience would either have to be subpar vs native (like iCloud.com is IMO) or solid enough that they would unwittingly prove web apps are equally capable to native apps, and so create demand for more web apps, more progress in that space, and stray away from an advantageous position for them.

[+] filoleg|7 years ago|reply
My personal guess:

1. Primary reason: it is a job someone needs to do, and it isn’t high on the priority list at all due to many possible factors.

2. Secondary reason: as a side effect of (1), it encourages the use of their native apps, which they might want for whatever reasons as well.

[+] yankcrime|7 years ago|reply
This is great, thanks! As someone who previously listened to Apple Music on Linux via the Windows edition of iTunes running using Wine in a Docker container (lol), a proper alternative is massively appreciated.
[+] jdillaaa|7 years ago|reply
May I ask why all of the effort to use Apple Music? Why not switch over to Spotify which has a ton more open libraries / APIs?
[+] artellectual|7 years ago|reply
I'm perplexed as to why the web client is so much better than the native itunes client. This was completely unexpected. I have to say the web platform has come a very long way.
[+] nicoburns|7 years ago|reply
Indeed, for most things it's more than posisble write a performant web app these days. The bloat/lag found on the web is mostly due to poor/lazy engineering, and in some cases, ads/tracking code. Although, I believe native platforms make it easier to write performant code.
[+] grogenaut|7 years ago|reply
Apple has little motivation to improve the music player and has a massive megalith in iTunes to support. It does so much it’s likely quite difficult to work on. I mean I think it still installs bonjour on windows for some reason.
[+] mockdev|7 years ago|reply
Are you referring to the Apple web client or this one in being much better?
[+] jdillaaa|7 years ago|reply
Lovely design. Question, why would we not just use Apple's official site? For example, search for something on https://tools.applemusic.com/en-us, then just click sign in on the top right once you select your music. I believe there is a way to see your current library too.

Great work.

Edit: Changed link.

[+] ghostly_s|7 years ago|reply
I've never heard of that site, and it clearly doesn't look like it's intended for use by subscribers. I can't get it to play a full song even after signing in.
[+] yantrams|7 years ago|reply
Great job! Thank you. I'll see if I can add support to this for the last.fm scrobbler extension that I use.

PS: For those of you who use Apple music and are into Indie / Alternative music, here's a 2018 mixtape I made recently.

http://linkdot.link/2018-mixtape.html

Edit: Added playlist

[+] sjroot|7 years ago|reply
Looks very well done! Is the source code available anywhere? I was planning on working on an Apple Music web client myself and would be happy to contribute.

Edit: Musish github repo: https://github.com/Musish/Musish

[+] darkstar_16|7 years ago|reply
This is actually pretty nice. I was expecting a heavy bloated web app but its not. Good work.
[+] buzzert|7 years ago|reply
Very cool! Would be incredible if you could access your iCloud Music Library as well.
[+] coob|7 years ago|reply
This is really well put together, works flawlessly for me.
[+] rglover|7 years ago|reply
Really well done. Design was a nice surprise :)
[+] magic5227|7 years ago|reply
This is amazing!

How did one person make a client that is 100x faster and more stable than Apple's?

[+] vesak|7 years ago|reply
Here’s a few guesses:

1. It’s not 100x (or even 2x) faster or significantly more stable than Apple Music

2. It’s always easier to make a nice app when starting from scratch versus trying to fix existing older software to be nice

3. Apple did a good job with their APIs

[+] mockdev|7 years ago|reply
Yeah I don't think it is any faster or more stable than the actual Apple web client. They probably use the same API's. Plus lots of considerations that applies to any website. Is it available in multiple languages? How accessible is it? Does it work on older browsers? Also, digging around, the Apple web client seems pretty up to date. Isn't old software. I like the search feature though on this.
[+] eloy|7 years ago|reply
Please change the title so it includes that this is about an Apple Music webclient
[+] sctb|7 years ago|reply
Updated from “Unofficial Open-Source Web Client my friends and I created”.
[+] giancarlostoro|7 years ago|reply
My first question was going to be web client for what? We need to not assume people reading just a title have any clue what you're talking about.