Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS

#41

Post by eschatology » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:45 AM UTC

darthcircuit wrote: post #14

toomim wrote: post #10

How's this compare to the native macos music app formerly known as itunes?

Anything is better than that dumpster fire. They changed the name but the ui is still straight out of the early 2000s. It’s an exercise in frustration to find the music you’re looking for, and if you subscribe to Apple Music, the radio suggestions rarely match what mood you set. I was listening to some early 2000s alternative rock today and then randomly in the middle of my radio station it started playing a kids fre…

Feels like none of what you wrote is about how the native app compares to the app being discussed, Petrichor, which is an offline music organizer/player.

I have been using itunes/music to do that and it honestly works just fine. I have hundreds of playlists from over 10 years ago that still works. Finding specific playlist or music to play is pretty easy, especially with Alfred.

The longevity is the biggest concern to me when considering the third party apps. If it stops being maintained in the future I would be stuck and need to do the chore of moving them properly to another application. With the native app I am sure it will work for the next 20 years.

Re: Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS

#42

Post by eviks » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 6:50 AM UTC

bcraven wrote: post #36

integricho wrote: post #30

For me, the ideal music player UI started and ended with Winamp, and I never liked any of the higher level ones, no need for music libraries etc. Recursive directory scan, delete what is not needed, flat playlist, can save any, the end. Also, the minimalistic window of Winamp is just perfect.

The 'Win' in Winamp was referring to Windows. This is a Mac application.

There is a mac clone https://re-amp.ru/

Re: Show HN: Petrichor – a free, open-source, offline music player for macOS

#43

Post by bigyabai » Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 7:10 AM UTC

eschatology wrote: post #41

darthcircuit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything is better than that dumpster fire. They changed the name but the ui is still straight out of the early 2000s. It’s an exercise in frustration to find the music you’re looking for, and if you subscribe to Apple Music, the radio suggestions rarely match what mood you set. I was listening to some early 2000s alternative rock today and then randomly in the middle of my radio station it started playing a kids fre…

Feels like none of what you wrote is about how the native app compares to the app being discussed, Petrichor, which is an offline music organizer/player. I have been using itunes/music to do that and it honestly works just fine. I have hundreds of playlists from over 10 years ago that still works. Finding specific playlist or music to play is pretty easy, especially with Alfred. The longevity is the biggest concern t…

My big gripe with Music is that big butt-ugly modal ad they prompt you with if you're one of the billions of humans that don't pay for Apple Music: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253368403

It's something I'd have expected out of Microsoft, but from Apple it's a particularly shitty gesture. A big warning sign to the user that "your" device hasn't been fully paid-off yet.

> The longevity is the biggest concern to me when considering the third party apps.

And that's why I had to stop using MacOS entirely. It's absurd for a culture of paid software to have such horrible runtime compatibility. Meanwhile on Windows, you don't ever buy software that stops working. Even Linux has largely circumvented it's own ABI woes with sandboxed packaging. MacOS's statically linked app framework has every advantage in pushing out support timelines as far as Apple wants - they just don't want to push it very far, sadly.