Agreed that the memory seems to come from MediaPlayer framework. I've experimented with various methods in project MediaItemArtworkTest where you can easily reproduce the problem. I have submitted feedback FB14337881.

Hey, I've finally got this working! I would say the key is to manage the playback in the app instead of the intent. For example, create a player object in AppDelegate that adds a notification observer for "play" requests. Then in the app intent post a "play" request notification. That should be received by the player object so it can then play what is requested. A rudimentary code example is here: https://github.com/teaseaque/ManagingAudioWithIntents