MusicKit is an official Apple API that lets developers create apps, such as third-party clients, with access to Apple Music. For some unknown reason, the company had removed the ability to let these apps control playback speed – but now this feature will be back with iOS 15.5.
Since this API was removed in iOS 15.4, multiple developers have complained about it to Apple. At the time, an Apple engineer revealed that the company had been “tracking this issue internally,” but no further details were given. Luckily, it seems that developers can once again use this API.
As noted by iGeneration, the same Apple engineer confirmed in the Apple Developer forum that the Apple Music team “re-evaluated our previous decision” to disable the feature. As a result, the API to let Apple Music apps change playback speed is now back in the fourth beta of iOS 15.5, currently available for developers.
We have re-evaluated our previous decision to disable changing the playback rate for subscription content from Apple Music in third-party applications, and we came to the conclusion that we could safely enable that functionality again, just like before the release of iOS 15.4. As such, this issue is fixed in iOS 15.5 beta 4.
It’s unclear what led Apple to remove this feature, but since the company’s engineer used the word “safely” to describe the issue, perhaps the feature was disabled due to a bug. Of course, developers will now have to update their apps to ensure that the feature works after the official release of iOS 15.5.
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