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.
USB’s are pretty easy to use…am I missing something? Assuming the file you want to import didn’t originate on the computer you would have to import from an external device via email or usb. It’s really not that complicated and I’m not sure why you are over exaggerating the complexity of the issue.
It’s 2025. You shouldn’t need an external device to manage the files of the already perfectly-capable device that’s in your pocket. I manage to do so just fine with my Android. I can download whatever media I want directly to it and play said media with whatever player app I choose.