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 always confounds be to come across such bold claims that are so easily debunked by…just anyone doing the thing claimed to be difficult/impossible. I have my own mp3s on my iPhone right now. Like what?
It’s annoying that its the same app as apple streaming
and requires iTunes syncing, annoying, limited encoder support and not available on Linux unless you use a third party app, not that many open source or privacy-friendly ones
My GF has an iphone, and on KDE I can just connect it via USB and it’s visible in the file manager.
There’s also this.
Linux users simultaneously love to be anti establishment but also cry that there’s no support for Linux.
Your mistake is thinking there’s some hive mind.
An absolutely tiny amount of people want fewer first party apps.
The vast majority would like all software to be available on all desktop OSes.