{"id":49733,"date":"2025-10-22T16:27:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T20:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=49733"},"modified":"2025-12-17T14:29:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:29:58","slug":"radiccio-1-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/22\/radiccio-1-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Radiccio 1.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crispy Crunchy Computerware<\/a> (Mastodon<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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I wanted to go back to a simpler time. I wanted a music app that gives me easy access to my music – organized the way I want – and provides a comfortable, peaceful environment to listen to it. I wanted an app that provides an abundance of useful tools, but doesn’t insist upon using them a certain way. I wanted an app that could help me remember the joy of collecting and listening to digital music.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Radiccio supports playing music from multiple types of sources, including files on your Mac, Apple Music, Plex, and Jellyfin. It includes features both new and familiar, including Librarian, pins, favorites, auto skip, journal, and more.<\/p>\n

You can use Radiccio with one “On My Mac” source and an Apple Music source for free, with no time limit. If you want to add additional sources, we offer a paid subscription called Radiccio Plus!, and a free trial is available for eligible customers.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

This is also important to me: Your files are yours. Your data is yours. Radiccio doesn’t modify your audio files. The Librarian data file also belongs to you; that’s why I put it out in the open, where you can easily find it. […] I designed Radiccio to be the opposite of lock-in; I want you to feel like you can leave at any time.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I have done my best to provide the best Apple Music experience I think I can. However, it was quite a challenge. In fact, Apple Music was the most difficult part of building Radiccio, by far. There were several times that I thought the Apple Music experience in Radiccio could not reach my personal standard of software quality, and I seriously considered shipping Radiccio without it. In the end, I was mostly able to make it work, but not without some significant limitations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I’m really excited to see development in this space, and I’ll be following Radiccio with interest, but at the moment it doesn’t seem like the app for me. Radiccio seems to be at its best when using the Librarian feature and On My Mac sources<\/a>, but I prefer to use an Apple Music source (i.e. music managed by the OS, even if you don’t subscribe to the Apple Music service) so that my music and metadata will sync to my iPhone and be available to third-party apps there such as Marvis<\/a>. Apple Music sources rely on MusicKit. In theory, this is supposed to let Apple handle the syncing and other hard stuff while third-party apps focus on the user experience. But the reality is that MusicKit has all sorts of problems and limitations. I feel like I’m still locked into Music.app until either MusicKit improves or someone makes a complete system (Mac, iPhone, watchOS, CarPlay) that’s compelling enough to get me to leave Apple’s world (though I would still use Music.app for purchasing).<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n