The Kinrox project is an open-source macOS application that combines a video player with an iPhone remote control and a lightweight Spotify client. The developer created it to optimize resource usage, as the official Spotify app consumes approximately 2 GB of RAM on a MacBook Pro with 32 GB of memory.
The video player is built using the libmpv 0.41.0 core with FFmpeg 9.0.1, utilizing Swift 6 and SwiftUI. It supports MKV and MP4 files, features automatic subtitle and audio track searching in subfolders, and includes a playback coordinator to manage audio output between the video player and music playback.
The remote control functionality for the iPhone uses Network.framework and Bonjour for discovery. It establishes a connection via a 6-digit PIN, performs a cryptographic handshake using CryptoKit, and transmits encrypted JSON frames over a local WebSocket.
The Spotify client implementation evolved from using the Web API to the official headless Spotify Soloist binary. The developer optimized the music library performance by using a SQLite cache, which reduced the loading time for 10,000 tracks to 40.98 ms and improved search speeds significantly.
By replacing periodic polling with a local timer system and implementing fast paths for playback commands, the application reduced memory usage to 196 MB. The app is currently available for macOS download only, as the Apple review process takes 2-3 weeks.
