Tunes¶

macos, ios, tvos · music server and apps

iTunes Match worked for years, then Apple started nudging everyone toward Apple Music. I didn't want a subscription; I wanted to keep my library, ratings, play counts, and twenty years of metadata. So I built my own: a Go server that serves the exported iTunes library over HTTP, and SwiftUI apps that play it on macOS, iOS, and Apple TV.

What it does¶

• Streams the library from my own server, with artwork pulled from the files, the iTunes Store, or uploaded by hand.
• Gapless playback, offline downloads with sync, and search.
• Passkey login, and a QR-code login on Apple TV so nobody types a password with a remote.
• Genius-style playlists built from a seed track.

Where it led¶

Tunes keeps the desktop half of the iTunes world running on machines Apple moved on from. The other half is the iPod itself, which is how I ended up taking its firmware apart: that's Chikuma.

I wrote up how Tunes is built on man-you.