The best Apple Music feature in iOS 26 – full-screen animated artwork on the Lock Screen – will be coming to third-party music services as well.
Developers will be Able to Utilize Full-Screen Animated Album Artwork on the Lock Screen in iOS 26, if they Want to
When Apple showed off the changes coming to Apple Music in iOS 26, the animated album artwork on the Lock Screen immediately stood out. I bet you can’t even name any other feature Apple announced because this feature alone is so good.
In fact, it’s so good, Apple thinks everyone else should have it in their music app as well. That’s why it is opening up the MPMediaItemAnimatedArtwork API to everyone.
While this is great news, and one that will make future apps exciting, do keep in mind that it’s entirely up to third-party developers whether they should or should not implement this feature in their apps.
The interesting thing about this API is how it’s not limited to just music apps. You can actually implement in something like a podcast app too. Again, entirely up to developers if they want to use this API and make everyone’s Lock Screen look great.
iOS 26 is set for release later this year, and only then will we know if developers will implement this feature in their apps.
