Himawari Beta 1.3

New: playlists, and Spotify's own controls

• The disc changer. Press the deck's ⏏ button (or ⌃⌥⌘P, or Himawari menu ▸ Disc Changer) to open it.
  • Apple Music: all your playlists as discs with their covers. Click one to play it, and right-click to pin it to the top.
  • What's playing: the deck's display shows the playlist and the song's place in it ("DHH · 7 / 41"), and the changer lists what's next. Click a song to skip ahead to it.
  • Spotify: add playlists by their link (in Spotify, Share ▸ Copy Link to Playlist, then "Add Spotify Playlist from Clipboard"). Their names and covers come from Spotify's public page, no sign-in.
• Spotify on the gear: VOLUME, REPEAT and SHUFFLE now work with Spotify through its own scripting. macOS asks once to let Himawari control Spotify. BASS and TREBLE still need Apple Music's equalizer.
• Better covers from web players: video titles like "Artist - Song ft. Someone (Official Video)" are read as artist and song, so the catalog search finds the real cover, and the animated one if the album has it.
• No white blur around the desktop clock: its wide white glow is gone. Light text now gets a soft dark shade, and dark text a thin light edge, so it stays readable without a haze.
• No white haze at the top: with the Blurred Video fill, the strip above the video, under the menu bar, is now shaded, so a bright video no longer leaves a white blur along the top of the screen.

Install

Open the DMG, drag Himawari to Applications and open it from there (macOS 14.4 or newer, Apple silicon and Intel). The first time, right-click ▸ Open, since it isn't notarized.

Himawari Beta 1.2.1

Bug fixes: the right-hand panel with other players

• VOLUME works with every player. With Spotify, a browser or another app, it turns the Mac's volume. It also follows the volume keys.
• Dimmed knobs keep their labels readable. BASS and TREBLE (Apple Music only) are shaded, but not the words under them.
• Songs with no cover get a disc. Some players share no cover (Firefox on many videos), and the wallpaper used to stay on your own video. Now you get a plain disc label with the title and artist, which a real cover still replaces if one turns up.
• The time no longer sticks at 00:00 with players that never report a position (Firefox on many sites). Restarts and repeat-one still work.

Install

Open the DMG, drag Himawari to Applications and open it from there (macOS 14.4 or newer, Apple silicon and Intel). The first time, right-click ▸ Open, since it isn't notarized.

Himawari Beta 1.2

New: follow any player

The music wallpaper, the CD, the side gear and the VU meters now follow whichever app is playing, not just Apple Music.

• Out of the box: Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL, Amazon Music and Deezer.
• Opt-in, in Players ▸:
  • web players (YouTube Music, SoundCloud… in any browser);
  • other apps (VLC, IINA, QuickTime…).
    These start off because they mostly play videos you're watching.
• Gear controls: play/pause, skip, the progress ladder, the jog wheel and turning the CD work with any player, using the same commands Control Center sends. VOLUME, BASS/TREBLE and REPEAT/SHUFFLE need Apple Music, so they're dimmed for other players. Eject brings the playing app forward.
• Animated covers: if the album is on Apple Music and has an animated cover, you get it whatever app plays.
• VU meters: they listen to the playing app, including a browser's helper processes.
• Two apps playing: Himawari follows the one that started most recently, and never leaves a playing app for a paused one. Players ▸ Only Follow pins one.

Also: the code is now MIT-licensed (the licence ships in the DMG and the app).

Install

Open the DMG, drag Himawari to Applications and open it from there (macOS 14.4 or newer, Apple silicon and Intel). The first time, right-click ▸ Open, since it isn't notarized.

Himawari Beta 1.1.4

Bug fixes

• CD scene: the disc no longer jumps about 150° at the end of every disc change.
• BASS / TREBLE: double-click resets a knob to flat as intended. A plain click no longer switches Music's equalizer on.
• VOLUME: the knob doesn't jump when you start dragging it.
• VU meters: they listen on the device Music actually plays through, even when alert sounds go to a different one.
• Click to hide files:
  • Pressing a button on the gear no longer brings hidden files back.
  • Clicking the wallpaper still does.
• REPEAT / SHUFFLE: these now work the first time you click them.
• Progress bar: no longer shows full after the gear is redrawn.
• Stability:
  • The Now Playing helper can't crash on an invalid number.
  • Songs without an album name no longer share one artwork lookup.
  • YouTube video ids are validated.
• Moving Lock Screen:
  • Turning it on puts your previous desktop picture back if Show Wallpaper on Lock Screen (Still) was on.
  • A crash mid-conversion leaves nothing behind.
  • Repairs can be cancelled.

New: the code report

Himawari-Code-Report.pdf (about 180 pages): every file, type and function explained, plus a health report on this release.

Install

Open the DMG, drag Himawari to Applications and open it from there (macOS 14.4 or newer, Apple silicon and Intel). The first time, right-click ▸ Open, since it isn't notarized.

Himawari Beta 1.1.3

Bug fixes

• Battery: your own video no longer keeps playing (and decoding) hidden under the CD scene or a YouTube loop. With the volume at 0, the wallpaper now plays without decoding its sound at all.
• VU meters: Himawari asks for the System Audio Recording permission instead of quietly building a tap that only hears silence. It no longer warns about a "silent" tap while the song is paused, and the meters reconnect if Music quits and comes back.
• Gear controls: buttons, knobs and the CD keep working after you plug in a display or change resolution. Two kinds of click catcher no longer leak.
• Offline: a song that started before Wi-Fi reconnected (after waking, say) is looked up again after 2 minutes. Before, it never got its animated cover that session. A failed stream now retries with a back-off (1, 2, 4… 30 s) instead of every second.
• Moving Lock Screen:
  • A failed or cancelled conversion no longer destroys the previous good copy.
  • A video with no readable frames no longer spins forever.
  • Turning the feature off mid-conversion can't swap files back in.
  • A conversion interrupted by quitting resumes at the next launch.
  • The periodic repair check now also starts when you turn the feature on from the menu.
• Stability: fixed a crash path when Finder couldn't be asked about a desktop click.

Install

Open the DMG, drag Himawari to Applications and open it from there (macOS 14.4 or newer, Apple silicon and Intel). The first time, right-click ▸ Open, since it isn't notarized.

Himawari Beta 1.1.2

What's new

• Just the wallpaper, plus its clock. Himawari now focuses on the live wallpaper, and the desktop clock is built in: it runs while Himawari runs (no separate install), and ⌃⌥⌘C or the menu shows and hides it.
• If an older version installed the clock as a separate background service, that copy is removed the first time 1.1.2 starts.
• A smaller download (under 3 MB).
• Includes the Beta 1.1.1 fixes (album-verified animated covers, no stale cover after a skip, the analyzer never freezes).

Install

Open the DMG, drag Himawari to Applications and open it from there (macOS 14.4 or newer, Apple silicon and Intel). The first time, right-click ▸ Open, since it isn't notarized.

Himawari Beta 1.1.1

Bug fixes

• Wrong animated cover after skipping: the animation shown for a song could come from another album, EP or single by the same artist (for example the "Intro" of an earlier album). Himawari now only uses an animated cover from the album the song is actually on; when it can't be sure, it shows the song's CD instead.
• A cover from the previous song: right after a skip the system can briefly still report the last song's artwork. Himawari now ignores it and waits for the right one.
• Still analyzer: when the audio tap delivers only silence (usually because macOS hasn't allowed Himawari under Privacy & Security ▸ Screen & System Audio Recording), the VU meters and spectrum now animate by themselves instead of freezing, and the log says why.

Install

Open the DMG, drag Himawari to Applications and open it from there (macOS 14.4 or newer, Apple silicon and Intel). The first time, right-click ▸ Open, since it isn't notarized.

Himawari Beta 1.1

Working BASS / TREBLE knobs (Music's equalizer), live and clickable REPEAT / SHUFFLE, a playable side gear and CD, and a moving lock screen.

Install: open the DMG, drag Himawari to Applications, and open it from there (macOS 14.4 or newer, Apple silicon and Intel). The first time, right-click ▸ Open, since it isn't notarized.