Apple to let third-party music apps display animated artwork on lock screen with iOS 26

Apple

Cupertino-based tech giant Apple introduced the next iteration of the iPhone operating system (OS), iOS 26, last week. One of the stylish visual changes in this OS is the new layout for the lock screen when music is playing via Apple Music. Initially, many users thought that it would be exclusive to the company’s native music player app. However, a new report suggests that it will not be exclusive to the platform, and instead will allow third-party music streaming apps to display animated artwork as well.

According to a 9to5Mac report, Apple's iOS 26 Developer Beta 1 update comes with a new API called MPMediaItemAnimatedArtwork, which is meant for displaying an animated image, such as an animated music album or cover art for a media file. This allows full-screen animated music artwork to display behind music playback controls when a music file is being played or streamed on Apple Music.

However, this feature is now being opened to most most-used streaming apps like Spotify, which is one of the biggest alternatives to Apple Music. Moreover, the MPMediaItemAnimatedArtwork API will provide the iOS system with an animated video clip that can be displayed on the lock screen, with a preview image to be used as a placeholder while the video file is fetched and becomes available.

Other popular music-streaming apps like YouTube Music, Prime Music, Deezer, and Tidal could also gain this capability with the stable version of iOS. Further, audiobooks and podcasts will also be able to provide video artwork on the iPhone's lock screen, leveraging the new API, if they have access to a preview video clip.