[Developer] Music Remote Control — miniPlayer for Apple Music and remote control from iPhone/iPad/Watch

[Jorooo]

Hi everyone,

I’m the developer of Music Remote Control, a Mac app that lets you control Apple Music on your Mac remotely from your other Apple devices.

The Mac app comes with a free iPhone/iPad companion app, allowing you to use your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch to control what’s playing on your Mac without returning to your Mac.

Some use cases are:

• Let family and friends control the music together
  • When people visit, everyone can install the free companion app and connect to the same Mac to control the music together
• Manage AirPlay speakers remotely
  • Discover the AirPlay devices available to your Mac, then connect or disconnect individual speakers and adjust their volume directly from your phone
• Favourite and suggest less
  • Add the current song to your Favourites or mark it as “Suggest Less” remotely
• Browse your Music library remotely
  • Browse by artist, album, or song from your phone, then play your entire library or choose a specific song
• Use it as a mini player
  • Control Music from a compact player on your desktop or in the menu bar
• Access Quick control from your phone/ ipad/ Watch
  • Use widgets and Live Activities to control playback without opening the app

I'm currently working on:

• Browse your playlist/stations remotely (WIP)
• Search for a song outside of your library and play it (WIP)

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The Mac app includes a 14-day free trial. There’s no subscription—just a one-time purchase priced at about the cost of a cup of coffee.

The companion apps for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch are free, but they require an active Mac trial or purchase to work.

Mac App Store:

Music Remote Control App - App Store

Download Music Remote Control by Jiali Cai on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips and more apps like Music Remote Control.

apps.apple.com

Happy to answer any questions and hear your suggestions!

 

[Anna_Mac]

The menu bar mini player is the right call, that's the kind of thing that actually gets used daily instead of opening a full app window for a two second action. Curious how you're handling the phone to Mac connection under the hood, local network discovery or something else, since that tends to be the flakiest part of any "control your Mac from your phone" feature I've tried.

 

[Jorooo]

The menu bar mini player is the right call, that's the kind of thing that actually gets used daily instead of opening a full app window for a two second action. Curious how you're handling the phone to Mac connection under the hood, local network discovery or something else, since that tends to be the flakiest part of any "control your Mac from your phone" feature I've tried.

Thanks! Yeah, one of the pain points I wanted to address with Apple Music’s built-in mini player was screen space. I felt that having both a compact mini player and a menu bar option could give users the controls and playback info they need while taking up as little space as possible.

And yeah, connection reliability was one of the things I spent quite a bit of time on. It connects directly between the Mac and iPhone/iPad over the local network, with automatic discovery and reconnection handled by the app. I’m keeping the implementation details of that part private, but the goal was to make it require as little setup as possible for the user.