Update: Right as this story was published, Cider says it found a new workaround to make the app work again. The developer cautions that this “may be a temporary fix until we can find something more prominent to work with.”
There are a number of popular and powerful third-party apps that can enhance the Apple Music experience on many platforms. One of those apps is called Cider, which brings a number of Apple Music features to Windows as a desktop app. An apparent change made by Apple recently, however, appears to have broken the Cider app.
9to5Mac covered the launch of Cider back in March, explaining that the app was based on Apple’s official MusicKit API. The app is built using the Electron standard, allowing it to run on Windows and macOS as a desktop app. The app, however, has been more popular on Windows, where Apple Music is available in a very limited form via iTunes or via the Apple Music website.
Apple has announced plans to launch a dedicated Apple Music app for Windows, but not until sometime in 2023. In the interim, however, the company has made a change to the Apple Music APIs, which means Cider no longer works for Apple Music users.
According to the complaint the change to the APIs includes additional client checks and strips Cider of its Apple Music token. The company says that the change is preventing Cider from authenticating via the API and accessing the endpoints that power the app.
As of right now, it doesn’t appear that the mysterious changes made to the Apple Music API have impacted other third-party Apple Music applications. Apple hasn’t commented on the situation, nor has it publicly addressed any changes it has made to the Apple Music API.
As it stands today, Cider says that without action from Apple, it’s unlikely that Cider will be able to work in the future. If true, this would mark a big loss for Apple Music users on Windows. Cider offered a number of features for Apple Music users that aren’t otherwise available on Windows, particularly via a dedicated desktop app.
Ideally, Apple will comment on this situation sooner rather than later and explain what’s going on. It’s possible that an inadvertent change to the Apple Music API is impacting Cider. There could also be some sort of bug specific to the Cider app that Apple and Kristovich can work together on resolving.
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