Stop the Apple Music app from launching • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#211

Post by picofarad » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:36 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #178

imglorp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the fans are willing to put up with absolutely unlimited grief and inconvenience to drink the koolaid they're given. Some Apple PM made a edict 11 years ago that Music shalt be thine only audio experience on the platform. Lock it down, boys! The rest of us ask for a customizable experience.

1. Pressing play button plays music "Absolutely unlimited grief and inconvenience!"

Pressing the stem on your AirPods, or pressing the play button, or pressing function enter on a Mac opens an undeletable application.

If you dont have music, this just wastes a bit of time. If you have music, apparently it wastes a lot of time.

Cherry or grape?

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#212

Post by hmokiguess » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:36 PM UTC

fnordlord wrote: post #60

hmokiguess wrote: post #13

for me it's when I open an audio file and it automatically launches it AND adds it to my music library, the adding to library is what I hate, then I have to delete it and specifically choose "Keep file"

This was annoying to me too but it is pretty easy to fix. Just right click on the .mp3 or whatever file, Get Info and change the default application to your preferred app and then click on "Change all..." You have to do it once per file type but it's once and done.

Yeah opt-out is so annoying though, I prefer opt-in, let me pick the first time I try or use a sane default like Quicktime instead

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#213

Post by philippemnoel » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:39 PM UTC

I've been wanting this for so long. This is so clever.

Slightly concerned Apple would patch this by preventing others from using the same bundle identifier as their official apps, though?

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#214

Post by dlev_pika » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:43 PM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #97

dlev_pika wrote: post #49

I wish there was a way to stop it from ever appearing as spotlight result - when I type ‘music’, the first result (always) should be the music app I use, not their stuff

Recently I've been using a mac more, and--even with the low bar of Windows default search--I've been very disappointed with Spotlight. For example, it keeps polluting my results with things like preinstalled system music demo files. There's no option to exclude the location, nor to selectively disable "Garageband" results while keeping other apps I actually do use for work.

Yeah, I hear you - and sometimes, when you get it to do what you want, some system update will force a reindex and you are back to square one.

On the bright side, there are a few power scripts that allow a much more custom experience (particularly if you are an all keyboard shortcuts person), but I am not the kind that wants extras there.

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#215

Post by fizwidget » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #176

titzer wrote: post #66

I still can't believe they killed iTunes. I used to have my entire digital music library in iTunes. Most of that was music I had ripped myself from CD, but I had a handful of albums I bought of iTunes and even some TV shows. When they wholesale abandoned iTunes and deleted from Mac OS in favor of...whatever Apple Music is, I knew I'd never trust them again. I searched for some decent mp3 players for a while, and even…

Yeah, the smart playlists were awesome ("play unrated tracks I haven't heard in over a year, from albums I gave at least 3 stars") for those of us who went deep into curation. I miss it.

I still use smart playlists in Apple Music. Your comment seems to imply they removed that functionality?

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#216

Post by jimjimjim » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 10:01 PM UTC

kps wrote: post #148

embedding-shape wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, right? Seems obvious to me. If I press "Backspace" and there is nothing to go back to, or to remove, I expect the key to do nothing. Same for Escape, or Volume Up, or whatever. If it can't do what's expected, it does nothing. Feels like at one point all the people who spent decades building OSes and desktop environment left Apple and Microsoft, and the people left are brand new developers who only been using co…

Probably gaming metrics. “87% of users used my team's program this month!” Who cares if 87% of those did it unintentionally? That's some other team's problem.

Exactly this. The telemetry stats will bubble up to some level of management and it will show, "after making the play key launch the music app more people are using it". That's it. Explanations won't fit on the slide deck. In fact it probably isn't even that much, it would just be a graph with "line goes up" after the making play launch the music app.

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#217

Post by masonwan » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 10:03 PM UTC

Thanks for the solution! I've been bothered with this issue for ages.

Many times Apple Music also triggered by the Bluetooth devices which is super annoying.

Apple really needs to implement a way to remove Apple Music completely.

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#218

Post by DavidPiper » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #139

al_borland wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn off the cloud service in Apple Music and still use it with your local tracks and music downloaded from the iTunes Music Store (which still exists). I did this for most of last year. I had all local music in Apple Music, disabled the cloud stuff, and synced it all to my iPhone by plugging it in with a cable, as if it was an old iPod. It all still worked.

Turning off the cloud service just does the syncing thing right? What about turning off the Apple Music service so that the only thing visible is your local content? That's what pisses me off the most.

Sadly it doesn't quite go away even when you've turned everything off: https://davids.town/dear-apple-please-fix-ios-music

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#219

Post by MoonWalk » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #66

I still can't believe they killed iTunes. I used to have my entire digital music library in iTunes. Most of that was music I had ripped myself from CD, but I had a handful of albums I bought of iTunes and even some TV shows. When they wholesale abandoned iTunes and deleted from Mac OS in favor of...whatever Apple Music is, I knew I'd never trust them again. I searched for some decent mp3 players for a while, and even…

The Music app IS iTunes. They just renamed it and continued from there. I have all of my ripped music in there just like before; in fact, that's the ONLY music I have in my library.

So don't worry! The same trash UI is available to you... except now even worse, thanks to "Liquid Glass" and brain-dead decisions like moving the playback controls from the empty area at the top of the screen into the content-browser area... where they reside on a "transparent" bubble that overlaps other graphics and text.

Re: Stop the Apple Music app from launching

#220

Post by shiandow » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 10:42 PM UTC

letrix wrote: post #34

riazrizvi wrote: post #28

It's very sad to see Apple using these lowbrow Microsoft tactics. Press ganging your users into launching your other shit product is brand cannibalism.

But why wouldn't pressing the Play button, when no media session is available, not open the music player?

I am utterly confused why pressing play would reasonably do anything other than playing something, or possibly pausing something.