Developer Mario Guzman has released a new Music widget for macOS which is a replica of the original music widget that Apple had created for iTunes for OS X Tiger. The widget works with Apple Music app on macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey and replicates all the controls of the original iTunes widget.
Music Widget for macOS is a beautiful throwback to OS X’s iTunes widget
Despite its name, the music widget does not work as a widget in the notifications center in macOS. It is a standalone app, with its own dock icon and works primarily as a controller for the Apple Music app. Using the app, you can play or pause music, skip between tracks, and control volume. The widget has a simple display that shows the name of the song as well as the artist, along with a seek bar that lets you jump between various sections of a track.
If you listen to a live stream on Apple Music radio, the widget also shows that you are listening to a live stream. Oddly, the widget says ‘live’ even when you are watching a music video in the Apple Music app.
Perhaps the best feature of the Music Widget is the attention to detail by Guzman. The dock icon updates to reflect the play or pause state for music. The design of the widget also seems pixel perfect and Guzman has used Swift and AppKit to write the code. The UI uses Core Graphics and Core Animation for beautiful graphics. If you are an old Mac user like yours truly, you will feel right at home and prefer using the widget instead of opening the Apple Music app.
If you open the preferences, you see only one option which lets you switch between elapsed time and remaining time. Other than that, the widget is pretty much what you see is what you get.
I tested Music Widget on macOS Monterey and it worked well. I’ve had some odd issues here and there when switching tracks, but considering it is a beta, and free, it was not a big issue. When you consider that Apple has not even created a Music app widget for macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey, this Music Widget is the next best thing after the Apple Music app’s mini-player.
Music Widget is available as a beta and is free to download from Mario Guzman’s Github.
