Turn your macOS Dock into a dynamic light bar that syncs with your music and brings your Dock to life in ways subtle or dramatic. Display track details and album art right beside the Dock. Control music playback with clickable controls that are always visible. Use the menu bar option to display song information in the menu bar.
Designed specifically for macOS, Dock Party is a lightweight, customizable Spotify and Apple Music playback controller that displays album art, song details, and track progress for the currently playing track. It also features a unique audio visualizer that will turn the Dock itself into a dynamic show of color and rhythm in sync with your music. There are several visualizers to choose from and more will be included in future, free updates.
A key advantage of Dock Party is that the controls, track details, and visualizer are always visible (unless the Dock itself is hidden). It doesn’t matter what app you’re working in; controls are visible and clickable. The visualizer never gets hidden behind other windows, unlike those OTHER guys! (Extensive testing has shown that music visualizers are less interesting when they’re not visible.)
Dock Party runs quietly and efficiently in the background with low impact on system resources. Preference options and other features can be accessed from the Menu Bar icon. Most interface elements can be turned on or off or customized.
Ratings & Reviews
I hope to have a chance to develop a review system eventually. (I continue to receive a lot of positive feedback in emails. Thanks!) In the mean time, click this link for a screenshot of the ratings and reviews received on the App Store as of May 2020. Dock Party has only improved since then. Unfortunately, Apple’s App Review team has refused to approve further updates, even minor bug fixes, unless I remove core features that had been accepted previously and that are still present in the version that they continue to sell. No, it does not make sense.
About the App Store Version
An older release of Dock Party, version 2.0.2, is still available for sale in the App Store. However, I am unable to update it.
Dock Party 1.0 was approved for sale in the App Store on June 14, 2018. In the 3 years that followed, I successfully submitted 11 updates, up to and including version 2.0.2.
My submission of version 2.0.3 was rejected by App Review, however, because of an App Sandbox entitlement that is suddenly no longer being granted, even though the version that remains available for sale uses the same capability. (It just does so with more bugs and fewer features!) The entitlement in question relates to System Events, access to which is critical to Dock Party for purposes of determining and monitoring changes to the precise dimensions and location of the user’s Dock.
I spent considerable time working with App Review and code-level support to find a solution. The Apple team members I communicated with were generally responsive, but in the end they were unable to offer an alternative mechanism that would allow Dock Party to function without the newly off-limits entitlement.
So here we are.
I thought Dock Party had a lot of potential. So I chose to continue to develop it, with the latest version now available for purchase exclusively on my website. The new installation file has been validated by Apple, and Dock Party remains a secure sandboxed app, even though App Sandbox capability is not even a requirement of apps installed from outside of the App Store.
I would never have attempted to distribute Dock Party if not for Apple’s App Store. So I appreciate that, and I think the App Store is a great thing in general. I don’t even mind the 15% they pocket. I do wish Apple were more concerned with screening for apps that are actually potentially dangerous rather than layering on blanket restrictions that only serve to prevent trustworthy developers from accessing the full potential of macOS.
