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.
I’m solidly in that group lol. I had a 5th gen iPod Video in high school, and you bet your ass it drove me absolutely insane that I couldn’t just drag and drop music onto it. The “manually manage device” setting was an absolute godsend, for sure, but I ended up installing RockBox anyway.
I still have that iPod somewhere…
I have an iPod with Rockbox installed. I hate how Rockbox still doesn’t have support for inline remotes of a lot of headphones, including Apple’s own wired headphones.
But that’s wildly off topic, sorry 😊
Haha, I have the official Apple FM receiver attachment, and the Belkin wireless remote. Never tested them on Rockbox…