Apple Music integration (with new Apple Music Web-API?)

Apple is not allowing any integrations.

Apple has built a whole toolkit for this very purpose, so this is in fact incorrect.

See:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/musickit/using_musickit_to_integrate_with_apple_music

Naim clarified why this API is not usable for Roon or them.

”Q: Why not use Apple MusicKit”
”A: This is intended so apps & websites inside the Apple eco-system can have basic high level access to Apple Music tracks.
They however, have no way to get at the physical music streams - a dedicated playback engine does that and hence keeping the licenced music streams secure. It is not a solution for standalone players.”

You have already been given several links explaining why this is not close to what Roon needs for all the integration it requires. This has been discussed to death on this site and you jumping in as if you’re presenting some new thoughts on this topic doesn’t change the outcome. Apple WILL NOT provide Roon with the data their service needs to provide the Roon experience. It’s not up to Roon, it’s up to Apple.

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Be that as it may, if Roon really wanted to, they could use Apple’s tools to make it happen. Even if it needed to be a bit more limited than they would like.

They obviously don’t want to do that and don’t do things half-ass.

Danny has commented on this many times, Roon never want that type of limited integration.

Case and point:

They have working integrations but because they can’t do it fully (it would be limited), it’s not in Roon.

So they can do what they do with Deezer, with Apple, if they wanted to…

No because as explained above Apple do not want to do that. Even smaller partners aren’t willing to share databases, Apple has zero interest in doing that. Same with Spotify.

Roon has always wanted to partner with everyone. They would have as many streaming services integrated as possible but it always comes down to the other side. Are they willing to share a lot of data and work directly with Roon?

Apple and Spotify, no.

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No as Apples webapi doesn’t allow you to access streams via your own player architecture. It has to use their player code. Same reason hardware companies can’t use it to add it unless you compromise and use their players or they decide to allow you access like they have for sanctioned partners. For Roon you would loose RAAT and all transparency. You can’t hold any of their data either so what point is it in Roon to have it. It goes against their whole idea of Roon. You only need to look at what does have AM to see the webapi is basic at best. The webapi isnt anything new its been out for years. Yet we see none of the main music apps offer it, those that doare just a window into it with a different skin to the main app.

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Note that there is no Deezer in Roon.

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Advertising - they want to throw advertising at people. Show how easy it is on a free plan.

Sonos is massive and Apple was prepared to go the extra mile for them. Remember though now that Sonos and lossy only. No lossless or Dolby ATMOS for them.

At 1.3$ billion annual revenue Sonos is tiny compared to Apple at 365$ billion. I don’t know the figure but in aggregate all other brands and devices would be far larger than Sonos.

It’s the market leader and the one that paved the way of bringing quality devices to the masses. They also align with how Apple works to with simplicity of their app and eco system. Apple choose partners very carefully.

In case anyone using Apple Music misses focus from Roon (like me), Marvis is awesome:

Obviously nowhere near as pretty but has great functionality.

Though that is not relevant. At the time the Sons integration was brought in, Apple Music was new, they needed leverage into a very established home audio system. Sonos at the time had no AirPlay integration. They made it work. Now they still only stream lossy streams as the market has changed and Apple is a home audio competitor to Sonos. Apple wants you to have Apple products and as such AirPlay is what they want you to use. No way are they handing off their streams in quality to a cometitors product.

This was in response that Sonos was a huge company. Relative to Apple it is not.

Here is a reason the WebKit isn’t currently for hardware. Hifi rose have given it a whirl but it sounds like it’s not worth the effort at all might as well use Airplay.

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Very interesting post from HiFi ROSE. I hope all the folks asking for Apple Music integration read this.

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Of course they won’t, they will just demand Roon makes it work :roll_eyes:

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