I’m all for it if it happens. But the alternative scenario is Roon gets stood up in that date, without any integrations with services other than Tidal and Qobuz, and with those two going out of business. And this is definitely not an unlikely scenario.
On the other hand, if Roon does the work to integrate with Apple (assuming it is at all possible) then I don’t see why they are any less hot of a target, especially when you see the actual product.
Right, this is exactly my concern (but much clearer than my articulation of it above)!
Well Tidal & Qobuz have been in trouble for years. Tidal has the deep pockets now of Jack Dorsey but I could easily see both of these music services going away with Amazon, Apple & Spotify all making big moves on the music front.
Why?
Apple is far from the only “walled garden” today in 2021… but, unless my memory fails me, it seems to me like “they did it best first…” What part of Apple’s business model over the last 15 years leads you to believe that they have any interest in working with a 3rd Party like Roon? They want you to use your Apple phone, tablet, or laptop, running Apple’s application on Apple’s OS, and listening on Apple’s headphones or casting to an apple speaker or an apple streamer (like a ATV) using an Apple protocol like Airplay… and they’d love you to pause, rewind, and skip with your apple watch.
Does that make them bad/evil? No. But it does mean they aren’t going to work with Roon (or any other 3rd party) to make Apple Music accessible on another platform OTHER THAN the apple music app…
One thing that’s missing from this discussion is what an awful experience different music sample rates are on an Apple computer. Audio Midi Setup does not change sample rates automatically. That means that you automatically sample everything to the same rate regardless of what it’s actual rate is or you do the Midi Setup song & dance. The only way currently to tell what sample rate is playing in Apple Music is to play it. Once you have that information you quit Apple Music, change to the appropriate rate in Midi Setup and then reopen Apple Music and play your music. Rinse, wash and repeat. It doesn’t work that way on IOS devices so I would hope that changes at some point but I have no interest in the current process.
Whilst I am no developer reading the docs on this it’s pretty obvious this is very basic and not the type of integration useful for other playback software.
The webapi had been around for quite some time already it’s not anything new. If you read into it, itt requires you to use their own mediaplayer that is embedded either in your app to play music or push music playback to Apple music app itself. It’s not designed to use your own audio playback system. If it was I am sure it would have been used in something by now. It looks on the surface to be the same as Spotifies web api which allows very similar things. You need Apple music installed to authorise the apps to access it to. It’s for web pages, and apps on iOS and Android.
Authentication for Apple Music. The Authentication library provides a way to get access tokens to play music or make calls to the MusicKit Web APIs. This library prompts the user to sign in to Apple Music and, if Apple Music isn’t installed on the device, helps the user download it before returning to your app.
Regarding their media player
You’re not permitted to use this framework to gather information about the user’s audio content, or to use such information for any purpose other than audio playback within your app.
Roon gathers information about your music content, without this it isn’t Roon.
Surely you jest. The only software Apple buys is to make it go away so as to not have it compete with their own. What in the heck would Apple do with Roon and its (in comparison) minuscule base of users who are running primarily on NUC’s? Name any piece of independent software purchased or provided by Apple that hasn’t been folded into their OS or iOS - or disappeared. More likely would be somebody like Tidal.
I’m not a developer.
It seems to me that Roon isn’t coded with Xcode.
Assuming that Apple would buy Roon, the only asset it would get is the database structure and its metadata handling.
Sure, it’s the valuable core of Roon. Anyway, everything else – I mean the app, UI and UX – should be rewritten from scratch and implemented in Apple’s ecosystem.
If I said a nonsense, I apologize.
I forgot to add that another Roon’s precious asset is its integration with audio streamers, of course.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Apple is interested in that. Can you imagine Tim Cook stepping on the stage during a keynote saying: Apple users love listening music on their audiophile streamers… 
Good points…
Roon is likely coded in c++, java, or a mix. All things supported in xcode. This is not a problem. But it begs the question, given Apple’s history of not really incorporating other’s code, whether there is any chance of them being interested in Roon.
A TIDAL purchase, assuming they would pay a reasonable amount for Roon (I have not done the math) might be the angle.
Regardless of who it is, Roon Labs seems to be behaving as if that’s all they care about.
PS: Xcode is not a programming language but a programming IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that supports multiple languages. The Roon app running on mac means the code can be compiled on mac. Surely the server side code is a different beast, but I don’t see any issues there. This is not the hangup.
Roon has been coy about mentioning support for Apple Music at all so far, which leads me to believe they may be working on something for it.
They did say no for both Spotify and Amazon Music previously.
I agree it is sort of a good sign. Regardless, our bitchin and moanin is not going to help matters either way. It is obvious to me that Roon would want to integrate any lossless service that would like to integrate with Roon, assuming they are not so tiny that the work is not worth it (certainly not the case with Apple, Spotify or Amazon).
I would vote for taking a deep breath and carrying on with our lives and letting the chips fall where they may (unless it’s Terra chips in which case I want them to fall in my mouth).
I can’t see how integrating Apple Music, if they cooperate, is not a huge selling point for Roon.
But what about people who are not in the Apple ecosystem, the millions/billions of PC or Android customers who Apple could tempt into an AM subscription from Spotify/Amazon etc?
Thats also a serious amount of wonga $$$$$
You would think Audirvana would be hot to trot on integrating Apple music .
You mean like the ones already streaming Apple Music via iTunes on their PC’s?
AM runs on Windows and Android.
I know this but I don’t know if AM on these platforms allow Roons ability to cast/play on multiple devices etc
I guess I could be falling into the sarchasm here, but if you are piping your streaming service through Roon why would Apple Music be any better/different to TIDAL and/or Qobuz? Surely they all end up being the same thing, just an audio source, when played through Roon.
It is no different than any other platform: Apple Music only supports Airplay on all platforms, including mac.