Napster for Mac

Napster · 2000–2003

Official Napster client for Mac OS.

Napster “acquired” our little Mac software business, Blackhole Media. I was just out of high school. We had built the first Napster client for Mac (known as Macster) at the end of 1999 and released it on Christmas Day.

I handled a lot of Mac interface design and engineering work on the client along with Aaron and Jason. I think I speak for the three of us when I say we learned a lot during this period.

Here I will layout work from both Macster and our unreleased redesign of Napster for Mac OS X.

Macster was an attempt to make a user-friendly and complete version of Napster for Mac OS. Nicer than the official Windows version. At the time (1999), Mac users had no way to connect to Napster.

Macster Screenshot — Macster’s main interface was its iMac-inspired themed toolbar and music search window with support for drag-and-drop, sorted columns, advanced search, and more.

Macster Toolbars — Our iMac-inspired toolbar flavors added some personality to Macster that Mac users (like us) would enjoy.

Macster About Box — We cared a lot about the fit and finish. Our about box was organized and fun. We even stressed over the layout of the user’s downloaded Macster folder.

Macster Chat — Napster’s channels (chatrooms) were also accessible by people using Macster. So Mac users could chat with other Napster users about music and other such things.

In 2001 we embarked on rewriting and redesigning Napster for Mac using Objective-C with Cocoa for the newly released Mac OS X and its Aqua interface.

At this time Napster was going through a brand redesign while also trying to introduce DRM controls for music labels so Napster could be seen as a legitimate solution for digital music. Frog Design was tasked with tuning our brand and so we worked with them on the new version for OS X to match.

Though this version was never released, I’m sharing screenshots of what we had working internally for posterity.

A new “large” OS X icon using Napster’s distinct logo in blue with some lighting.

Napster Chat — In the unreleased rewrite of Napster for OS X. All features were not integrated into a single window with a new toolbar, icons, drawer, and skinnable music player.

Napster Search — The new interface integrated a horizontal transfer list into the bottom of the window that you could pull up from anywhere.

Napster People — New in OS X were Drawers. We used a drawer for people. A single list of friends and people in channels you were currently participating in. You could open and close this drawer at any time. We had also planned to let you set icons for friends.

Napster Player — We created a built-in music player for Napster that played with the transparency and blending features of OS X windowing system. The player was fully skinnable as we hoped to make it possible for users to personalize Napster further.