Spindle

Turn whatever you're playing into a spinning record you can control — a vibe-switching music widget for Android that reads your phone's live media session and renders it as a vintage vinyl deck or a futuristic player. Your choice of skin; no account, no login, no keys.

What it is

Spindle shows the track currently playing on your phone — Spotify, YouTube Music, podcasts, anything that publishes media controls — as a stylized player with the real album art, progress, and working transport controls. Pick a skin to set the vibe; the app remembers it.

• No login, no API keys, no account. Spindle reads Android's system media session, not any streaming service's API.
• Works with free and paid accounts of any supported player.
• One-time setup: grant Notification access — the same permission a smartwatch uses to control media. That's it.

Skins

• Analog (Turntable) — a flat-retro vinyl deck: the record spins, your album art sits on the label, the tonearm lifts when you pause.
• Flux — the same now-playing screen refracted into light: album art inside a spinning holographic halo, neon glass controls.

Switch anytime from the ⋮ menu. More skins are on the roadmap (see design/skin-ideas.md — a catalog of 36).

Home-screen widget

A widget mirrors the now-playing track with album art, a spinning accent ring, and prev / play-pause / next controls, kept live while music plays.

How it works

Android exposes the active media session through NotificationListenerService + MediaSessionManager. Spindle finds the current MediaController, reads its metadata and playback state, and issues transport commands — no streaming SDK, no OAuth. The in-app player draws the spinning disc with Jetpack Compose Canvas; the widget uses RemoteViews (its ring spins via an indeterminate progress drawable, the one animation widgets allow).

Android only. iOS provides no public API for a third-party app to read or control another app's media session, so this concept can't exist there.

Build & run

Requires Android Studio (or the Android SDK) and a device/emulator running Android 8.0+.

git clone git@github.com:Priyans-hu/spindle.git
cd spindle
./gradlew :app:assembleDebug
# or open the project in Android Studio and Run

On first launch, tap Grant access and enable Spindle under Notification access. Then play something in any music app and open Spindle. To control real playback you need a music app installed and playing on the same device.

Tech

Kotlin · Jetpack Compose · Material 3 · DataStore · MediaSessionManager / MediaController · Jetpack RemoteViews widget.

Roadmap

• More skins from the catalog (CD/Discman, cassette, iPod click-wheel, Winamp)
• Interactive seek (drag to scrub)
• Per-skin theming for the home-screen widget

License

MIT © 2026 Priyanshu Garg.

Spindle is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Spotify or any other music service; it uses Android's public media APIs only.