According to the latest reports, Apple today released the first Beta version of macOS Monterey 12.2. Although the company did not provide any release notes for today’s update, it seems that Apple has finally released Apple Music. The application is refactored into a complete native macOS application.
As early as 2019, when Apple launched macOS Catalina, the famous iTunes was replaced by the Music app to better reflect the company’s strategy on iOS and tvOS. However, despite the new name, the music app on macOS retains the backend of iTunes, basically loading a bunch of web content into an app.
Although this is feasible for most users, using web content in an application can make the experience less fluid. Fortunately, Apple finally changed this through macOS Monterey 12.2 Beta, including some major changes to the music application background.
As Luming Yin pointed out on Twitter, Apple Music in macOS 12.2 Beta now uses AppKit-the native interface framework of macOS. According to macOS code confirmation, music apps now use JET, a technology created by Apple to turn web content into native apps.
Some parts of the music application are already native, such as the music library. Now Mac users will notice that searching for new songs in Apple Music is much faster because the result page is displayed in a native interface instead of a web page. Through the beta app, scrolling between elements has become smoother, and touchpad gestures are now more responsive.
Comparing these two apps side-by-side, the beta music app may look simpler and lack some interface effects-this may be because Apple is rebuilding everything and it will take a while for the native version to restore all these visual effects.
Luming Yin mentioned that the Apple TV application has also been rebuilt with a native backend. Although this is indeed true, 9to5Mac found that Apple has updated the TV application with JET technology in macOS Monterey 12.1, and the application has been made available to everyone. Of course, in the upcoming macOS 12.2 Beta, it is expected that these two applications will have more improvements.
Related to this, the macOS Monterey code indicates that Apple is still working on general controls, but the feature is still unavailable to users. Apple has officially postponed the release of the Universal Control feature to the spring of 2022.