Is It Possible to Vibrate an Apple Watch or iPhone to Music?

As in, the music gets translated into vibrations which the Taptic Engine then plays.

Answered by in 687597022

A couple of things. First, this is not likely to be a good experience on a watch for many reasons, so let's stick with iPhone. If you are asking whether there is an API which does "music gets translated into vibrations", the answer is no - there is no single way in which anyone might want to do this. Perhaps you only want the bass notes - or only the snare hits, etc. Next question is, where is "the music" coming from? Apple Music? Some existing music app? Your music app? If the answer is "your app", you could probably put together a system which did some kind of "music to haptic pattern" translation (see the CoreHaptic API documentation for how you ask a device to vibrate) and then you could synchronously send the music and the haptic requests. If you are hoping to make this happen for some other app, you won't have the tools to grab that music signal in time to lay down a sync'd haptic track with it.

Hope this helps!

-DS

Accepted Answer

A couple of things. First, this is not likely to be a good experience on a watch for many reasons, so let's stick with iPhone. If you are asking whether there is an API which does "music gets translated into vibrations", the answer is no - there is no single way in which anyone might want to do this. Perhaps you only want the bass notes - or only the snare hits, etc. Next question is, where is "the music" coming from? Apple Music? Some existing music app? Your music app? If the answer is "your app", you could probably put together a system which did some kind of "music to haptic pattern" translation (see the CoreHaptic API documentation for how you ask a device to vibrate) and then you could synchronously send the music and the haptic requests. If you are hoping to make this happen for some other app, you won't have the tools to grab that music signal in time to lay down a sync'd haptic track with it.

Hope this helps!

-DS

Take a look to Lofelt demo app in AppStore

You can have a look at my app: RonRon, this is what I do. I'm converting in real time audio to haptic effects. https://apps.apple.com/app/ronron-meditation/id1588309394

2024 update

Apple's new Music Haptics API collection for iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 partially* achieves what the OP asks for.

Developer documentation https://developer.apple.com/documentation/mediaaccessibility/music-haptics

Apple press release

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/05/apple-announces-new-accessibility-features-including-eye-tracking/

Is It Possible to Vibrate an Apple Watch or iPhone to Music?
 
 
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