Apple on Thursday released the first beta of macOS Monterey 12.2 just a few days after the release of macOS 12.1 to all users. While the company didn’t provide any release notes for today’s update, it seems that Apple is finally rebuilding the Apple Music app as a full native macOS app.
Back in 2019, when Apple introduced macOS Catalina, the well-known iTunes was replaced by the Music app to better reflect the company’s strategy on iOS and tvOS. However, although under a new name, the Music app on macOS retained the iTunes backend, which was basically a bunch of web content loaded into an app.
While this works for most users, having web content within apps makes the experience less fluid. Luckily Apple is finally changing this with macOS Monterey 12.2 beta, which includes some big changes to the Music app backend.
As first noted by Luming Yin on Twitter, Apple Music in macOS 12.2 beta now uses AppKit – which is macOS’ native interface framework. 9to5Mac was able to confirm based on macOS code that the Music app is now using JET, which is a technology created by Apple to turn web content into native apps.
Some parts of the Music app were already native, such as the music library. But now Mac users will notice that searching for new songs in Apple Music is much faster as the results pages are displayed with a native interface instead of as a webpage. Scrolling between elements has also become smoother with the beta app, and trackpad gestures are now more responsive.
Comparing both apps side by side, the beta Music app may look simpler with some interface effects missing – this is probably because Apple is rebuilding everything and it will take a while before the native version gets all these visual effects back.
Yin mentioned that the Apple TV app has also been rebuilt with a native backend. While this is indeed true, 9to5Mac found out that Apple had already updated the TV app with JET technology in macOS Monterey 12.1, which is available for everyone. Of course, more refinements are expected for both apps in the upcoming macOS 12.2 betas.
On a related note, macOS Monterey code suggests that Apple is still working on Universal Control, but the feature remains unavailable to users. The company has officially delayed the release of Universal Control until spring 2021.
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