Apple Opens iOS 26 Lock Screen Animation To Spotify And Other Third-Party Music Apps: Report – Spotify Technology (NYSE:SPOT)

By Pune Media On Jun 16, 2025

Apple Inc. AAPL is reportedly extending one of iOS 26’s new features—animated album art on the lock screen—to third-party music and audio apps, breaking its exclusive tie to Apple Music.

What Happened: With the release of iOS 26, currently in developer beta, Apple is introducing a new lock screen layout that allows full-screen animated artwork to display behind music playback controls, reported 9To5Mac.

Initially available only for Apple Music, this feature is now being opened to third-party apps like Spotify Inc. SPOT, Audible and other audio players like music or podcasts through a new API called MPMediaItemAnimatedArtwork.

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According to developers testing the iOS 26 SDK, apps that play audio can now provide a video clip or animated visual to appear on the lock screen while the content plays, along with placeholder artwork as the animation loads, the report added.

Why It’s Important: Although Apple has released the tools for developers now, end users won’t see this feature in third-party apps until iOS 26 officially launches this fall.

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As of now, it remains unclear whether Spotify, one of Apple Music’s biggest rivals, will adopt the feature. Spotify did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comments.

Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings show a steady decline in Apple’s performance across short, medium and long-term periods. Additional performance details can be found here.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Photo by Kaspars Grinvalds via Shutterstock

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