In 2025, playing your own music on an iPhone is surprisingly hard, unless you pay Apple or navigate a maze of limitations. So I built my own player from scratch, with full text search, iCloud support, and a local-first experience. GitHub link
Why I Built My Own Audio Player Like many people, I’ve picked up too many subscriptions, some through Apple (iCloud, Apple Music), others got lost in random platforms (like Netflix, which I forgot I was still paying for). I actually used Apple Music regularly (and previously Spotify), but the streaming turned out to be more convenience than necessity. With a curated local library, I didn’t lose much, just the lock-in.
It’s not. I use my Windows 10 video game machine to drag and drop MP3s onto my iPhone from my 400GB library. I use iTunes to do it (but I listen using Foobar2000 on my computer, I only use iTunes to put music on my phone and make iPhone incremental image backups.)
I wish I could drag and drop FLAC files, but I can easily convert them. I do t use my really nice cans on my phone anyway.
Look into PlexAmp for lossless streaming. It’s pretty dope.
I do have Apple Music for lossless streaming! But I do still load obscure things on my phone that don’t exist there. Which is shockingly few things, to my surprise.
I keep Apple Music too, because it does offer a lot of value for the price. The inclusion of Classical makes it a no-brainer for me.
I was shocked at how much stuff is there. A few outliers (a Team Teamwork album, Squincy Jones mixes, and Keifer Gr33n mixes) aren’t there, among some other super obscure shit. All the other stuff I love that isn’t popular, like The Blood Brothers or Xiu Xiu, all there.