The first year of Manet

Hi there everyone 👋

My name is André, and I’m the developer behind the Manet Music app for Jellyfin.

Manet is the first app I’ve ever built for iOS and, to be honest, the first side project I’ve actually shipped to real, live humans. It started out as a way to scratch my own itch after leaving Plex (and Plexamp) for Jellyfin, and it’s been amazing to see it grow from a small (but useful) MVP into something that’s been actually useful for hundreds of people.

Manet hit the App Store on December 21st, 2023, which means it’s been out for more than a year. That first release was really terrifying to send out, but I’m glad I did. It certainly wasn’t perfect (it rarely ever is), but getting it out the door and seeing the response was an amazing feeling!

Old screenshots of an early version of Manet

Since that first release I’ve been steadily shipping new releases adding more features and improvements throughout the year. A few highlights would be:

For a full rundown of what has shipped, you can read all release notes over here.

And of course if you subscribed to Manet+ you’ve also got, other than a warm fuzzy feeling of supporting me and the app, access to some alternative app icons, managing available libraries and the Manet for macOS app, among other things.

One big feature I worked on this year was building a custom audio engine for Manet. It was a pretty complicated project, but since the whole point of the app is to play audio it felt like a worthwhile investment. This engine is what made the custom equalizer for Manet+ possible and opens the door for even more audio-related features in the future, like better codec support.

When I started working on Manet I never really expected it to gain any interest. I wanted a nice looking, native-feeling music player for iOS, so I started building one. And having all of you tell me how it’s helped you move over to Jellyfin has been really great.

And with the support of the fine folks who’ve purchased Manet+, I am now able to spend one day per week working on making the app even better. This might not be the best financial move in the world, but being able to do this at all is really something and I’m really excited to spend more time on the project.

So, if you enjoy the app, want to see it improve, and have the means for it - please consider subscribing to Manet+. It really helps a lot!

Thank you to everyone who’ve been so supportive of the project - it’s been amazing to read your comments online, on Reddit and on social media.

Big thanks to Björn for helping me out with the logo - it’s still one of the most complimented things about the app. 😄

I’d also like to shout-out Arne who was kind enough to mention my app in a blog post which helped it reach more people - big thanks for that! 🙌

Picture of the all available app icon variants

It’s been a blast building this thing, and I’m really looking forward to see where the app is a year from now.

Thanks for all of your support!

/ André