Found a CoverFlow music dock that lives on your macOS screen edge

PromptCube Intermediate 2h ago 344 views 1 likes 2 min read

A solo dev from Spain just dropped Gramola — a music dock that slides in from the edge of your screen with genuine CoverFlow animation. No more cmd-tabbing to Music or Spotify just to skip a track. You shove the pointer to the screen border and your library appears instantly, album art flipping in 3D like it's 2006 again.

The implementation details are what caught my attention. It hooks into both Spotify and Apple Music via their native APIs, plus reads local tracks straight from the Music.app library. Keyboard navigation is fully baked in — arrow keys flip through artwork, space plays/pauses, and the whole thing respects macOS accessibility settings (VoiceOver, switch control, the works). The dev mentioned using SwiftUI with a custom Metal layer for the CoverFlow renderer, which explains the buttery 120 fps on ProMotion displays.

I've been running the 7-day trial for about four days now. The edge-trigger zone is configurable (top, bottom, left, right, plus sensitivity), and you can set a delay so it doesn't fire accidentally when you're just closing a window. Search is fuzzy and fast — type "radio" and it surfaces Radiohead alongside your local "Radio Ga Ga" rip. One quirk: Spotify Connect devices don't populate until you actually open the Spotify app once per session, but that's a Spotify API limitation, not Gramola.

Memory footprint sits around 45 MB idle, spikes to ~120 MB during heavy CoverFlow animation. CPU stays under 2% on an M2 Max. The app is notarized, sandboxed, and requests only the MusicKit and Spotify entitlements it actually needs — no network access beyond those two services.

Pricing lands at $19.99 lifetime or $1.99/month after the trial. For a polished, native-feeling utility that eliminates a daily friction point, that feels fair. The dev hangs out on GitHub Discussions and responds fast — pushed a fix for a Mission Control interference bug within six hours of my report.

If you live in the menu bar / Dock / Stage Manager workflow and miss the tactile joy of flipping through album art, this is worth the trial spin.

macOSSpotifyGramolaCoverFlowApple Music
More reusable prompt workflows are gathered in a practical ChatGPT prompt guide, with plenty of directly applicable cases.

All Replies (3)

D
Drew36 Advanced 2h ago
Looks gorgeous, but yeah — way too much real estate. Even the mini player feels cluttered. I just want my music invisible until I summon it.
0 Reply
C
CyberSmith Advanced 2h ago
Been using it all week, the CoverFlow is buttery smooth
0 Reply
S
SkylerDev Intermediate 2h ago
My library's 90% "Unknown Artist" so CoverFlow's just blank squares sliding past
0 Reply

Write a Reply

Markdown supported