Once you’ve picked your music, you can name your widget, add a custom image from your photo library, choose a circular or rectangular style widget, and provide custom text if you’re making a rectangular widget. Apple’s Music APIs make picking these easy from a view that includes a search field. To add another, tap the plus button to open the New Widget view, which includes several options that depend on whether you’re setting up an Apple Music or Spotify widget.įor Apple Music, you can create widgets for playlists, albums, and radio stations. The main view of LockPod’s app lists the widgets you’ve already created. Although you have to pick your music service in LockPod’s settings before setting up a widget, you can mix and match widgets from both services in the app and on your Lock Screen if you want.

If you’re using Apple Music, LockPod’s settings also include options to enable shuffle playback and open your playlist, album, or station in the Music app after a brief trip to LockPod, which isn’t avoidable given how Apple’s Lock Screen widget APIs work. To get started, you need to pick your music service in LockPod’s settings, which also include options to apply transparency to your widget. The details are a little different depending on whether you’re using Apple Music or Spotify, so let’s take a closer look. The app works with both Apple Music and Spotify, allowing users to create circular and rectangular Lock Screen widgets that serve as shortcuts to their favorite music.

One of my favorite examples is LockPod, by Rishi Malhotra, which was released this week. So far, the big players in music streaming are leaving it to indie developers to create iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets that tie into their services.

Spotify for mac app