Apple has always kept music playback as one of its top priorities and the iPod family is one of the most fascinating examples of its music-related innovation. While iPods have become more-or-less obsolete, their philosophy has been carried through iPhone and services like Apple Music. But, if you want to play local music files or want a more personalized music experience on your iOS device, we have listed out some of the best iPhone music player apps that you must try. Here are the 15 best iPhone Music Player apps that you should use in 2023.
Best iPhone Music Player Apps of 2023
These apps let you not only enjoy your own offline music but also support a host of cloud-based sources. They also support most hi-res music file formats, to give you the best listening experience. When it comes to music, it all comes down to personal choice. However, let’s first check out the things that you should look for while selecting an iPad or iPhone music player!
Which iPhone Music Player Apps Should You Try?
While we have emphasized the offline music players for an uninterrupted music listening experience, we have made sure to pick the apps that offer support for cloud syncing. However, if you are looking for full-fledged music streaming apps for iPhone, head over to our extensive roundup by clicking on the link.
There is a variety of iOS music player apps. While some are feature-packed and come with a wide assortment of customization tools, others are geared towards offering a simplified music listening experience. Besides, there are quite a few music players that strike a balance between a beautiful-looking player design and a neat interface.
With smart playlists manager and ID3 tags editor, these music player apps are designed to let you keep your music ideally organized so that you can access your top picks with ease.
1. Vox Music Player – Intuitive Interface with Smooth Swipe Gestures
Focusing on a fluid and intuitive interface, Vox Music Player is among the best offline music player apps for the iPhone, iPad, or other iOS devices. Interaction with the music player relies on swipe gestures, thereby eliminating basic playback buttons from the interface. While play/pause works by tapping anywhere on the player window, you can swipe left or right to change tracks. Swiping up opens the queue, whereas swiping down can close the current window and take you to the penultimate menu.
Additionally, Vox Music Player has an inbuilt equalizer with a score of presets and a graphical interface to suit the sound according to your taste along with an option for gapless playback. Besides playing local music files, you can also link your SoundCloud, LastFM, and Spotify accounts in Vox Music Player to enjoy all your music in one place.
Lastly, Vox also offers a phenomenal Mac app for playing offline music, ensuring you get the same experience across devices. Keep in mind that the music player is available for free, but you will need to subscribe to the pro version ($4.99/month) if you want to unlock all the goodies.
Key features:
- Inbuilt equalizer with a ton of presets
- Ability to link your SoundCloud, LastFM, and Spotify accounts
- Eliminating basic playback buttons
- Smooth swipe gestures
Install (free, $4.99/month for pro version)
2. Melodista Music Offline Player
Melodista offline music player for iPhone is a free app that brings a refined music listening experience to iOS devices. The app packs a simple user interface with feature to import music from your device’s Files app, Dropbox, Google Drive, WiFi transfer or any other app. The interface is divided into three sections – Library, where all the songs are displayed, Playlist, for user-created playlists and Browse, which alls you to view songs according to artists or album. You can choose from backgrounds and haptic feedback on Play/Pause for a better music listening experience.
If you have used the stock Apple Music app, you would find the interface similar to that but with the ability to import music from different sources. Additionally, you get features like player animation, alternative controls for audiobooks and podcasts, audio fade-out effect and customisation for app icon. All in all, Melodista is one of the best iOS music player that focuses on simplicity rather than non-essential bells and whistles.
Key features:
- Import music from different sources
- Sort music by track, artists or album
- Free to use
- Music player backgrounds
Install (free, in-app purchases start from $2.49)
3. Flacbox – Most Versatile iPhone Music Player
Flacbox is perhaps the most versatile music player apps for iOS and among the handful that let you play downloaded music files directly, without going through the usual route of syncing your music library with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod. Flacbox features support for multiple high-quality audio formats including FLAC, MP3, AAC, OGG, M4A, WAV, AIFF, and many more. It also allows you to seamlessly browse music stored on your cloud storage, including Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Box, MEGA, and a few more.
At the same time, you can also use Flacbox to play music from storage or computer casting media over DLNA protocol. The player interface is powerful, too, and gives you options like an inbuilt equalizer, playback speed control, and a unique feature to bookmark your favorite part of a particular track (at a particular timestamp). Flacbox will especially be admired by new iPhone users who have recently switched from Android because of the flexibility it offers.
Key features:
- Option to bookmark your favorite part of a particular track
- Multiple high-quality audio formats l
- Supports major cloud services
- Handy inbuilt equalizer
Install (free, $9.99 for pro version)
4. jetAudio – Power Equalizer with Sound Enhancer
Another great player for iPhone users seeking various options to tweak playback, jetAudio is developed by the South Korean company COWON which manufactures portable media players. The jetAudio music player app on iPhone shows the majority of playback actions within the main player screen itself. Each action has several options which can be accessed by tapping on the respective icon.
Besides this, the player supports a host of tap gestures, including a single tap on the album art to toggle lyrics, double-tap for play/pause, triple to cycle between shuffle or loop modes of playback. Besides an extensive equalizer, the music player also features a sound enhancer to improve the bass, depth, pitch-shifting, and reverb.
You can buy the paid version of jetAudio for $3.99 to remove ads. The pro version also unlocks theming options. You can also purchase additional sound-enhancing plugins to refine your experience.
Key features:
- Sound enhancers
- Power equalizer
- A host of cool gestures
- Snappier interface
Install (free with ads, paid version for $3.99, in-app purchases starts from $2.99)
5. Onkyo HF Player – Best hi-res music playback experience
Onkyo HF Player is designed to offer you the best hi-res music playback experience, which it achieves by optimizing the sound based on the make and the model of headsets. The player supports a bunch of popular headsets from Philips, Pioneer, and Onkyo itself, apart from Apple EarPods. While the player interface is very minimal and designed for utility, it scores big when it comes to the customization options, including a 10-band equalizer and the option to download EQ presets based on different artists.
For those who want superior audio quality, the HD Player Pack can be unlocked for $10.96 which adds support for up to 24-bit files and high-quality formats like FLAC, WAV, etc. Furthermore, the paid version also eliminates ads, even though they may not be as intrusive as jetAudio.
Key features:
- Offers a ton of customizations
- Ability to download EQ presets
- supports a bunch of popular headsets
- Minimal interface
Install (free with ads, paid version for $10.96)
6. Foobar – Feature-Rich Boasting Robust DSP Effects Manager
Offering support for a vast array of music file formats, Foobar gets full points for simplicity and utility. The playback interface only features the essential options alongside a rich settings interface. In Foobar, you can either sync your library or manually add your high-resolution music collection. It supports several file types, including MP3, MP4, AAC, Vorbis, Opus, FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, Musepack, and more.
The Settings page lets you customize playback through a score of options including a comprehensive DSP effects manager for features like crossfade, an 18-band equalizer, the ability to downmix channels to mono or stereo, and much more. If you want a multifarious music player with a clean interface, then Foobar is one of the most flexible iPhone music player apps. Being completely free, Foobar deserves to be rated among the best iPad and iPhone music player apps.
Key features:
- Versatile music player with a clean interface
- comprehensive DSP effects manager
- 18-band equalizer
- Option to downmix channels to mono or stereo
Install (free)
7. ARIIA – Designed for Immersive Music Listening Experience
Road trips are incomplete without music but any distraction while driving can often be disastrous. As a solution to this problem, ARIIA music player offers an immersive experience, which only works in the landscape mode and includes only the most basic music playback options. The simple interface allows you to move back and forth in your library by swiping left or right across the display.
Swiping upwards from the bottom, you can change the volume, and swiping downwards with two shows information about the current track. Furthermore, play and pause can be toggled simply by tapping anywhere on the player interface, making ARIIA a convenient music player for the iPhone, and possibly the best one for on-road voyages. Oh yes, you don’t have to spend any bucks to get the most out of this classic music player app for iPhone and iPad.
Key features:
- Simple interface
- Designed for gestural interaction
- Recognizes ambient and lightning changes
- Shows information about the current tracks
Install (free)
8. New Monaural – A Great Asset for aurally-impaired users
New Monaural is a clean and simplistic music player with a quirky feature for aurally-impaired users who can hear with only one of the ears, or unequally from both. The music player converts stereo (or binaural) tracks into monaural ones by smartly layering both channels over each other, letting the specially-abled enjoy stereo tracks with just a single ear.
Alternatively, it can also be handy if you want to (or have to, for any reason) use only one side of your earphones or headphones and leave the second ear open to sounds from the surrounding. Moreover, this feature can also be used to provide a surround sound experience on wired or wireless speakers with a single driver.
Key features:
- Provide a surround sound experience
- Converts stereo (or binaural) tracks into monaural ones
- Option to view user-submitted LR Concordance Rates by genre
- Minimal user-interface
Install (free)
9. Jams On Toast – Organize Your Music to Your Heart’s Liking
Jams On Toast is a music player app for iOS which puts emphasis on organizing music in the form of individual records and albums. Inspired by the age of vinyl records, Jams On Toast shows you an album-wise layout. It also lets you tidy up the interface by stacking albums on top of each other.
The entire stack is played in the order of the track numbers with no shuffle option, and while that might irk you, the idea is to make you recall the era when gramophones were the only means to play music. There are also some well-thought-out visual elements, including a rotating album art icon to add a sense of nostalgia to your music listening experience.
Key features:
- Inspired by the age of vinyl record
- Ability to organize music by individual records
- A handful of visual elements
- Nifty gestures
Install (free)
10. Cs: Music Player – Full-On Customization with Cool RGB Sliders
With a nifty combination of attractive looks and ease-of-use, Cs: Music Player lets you take control of your iCloud library seamlessly. It groups tracks based on albums and artists. You can also choose to simply show a list of all the tracks. When it comes to navigation, Cs aces with its swipe gestures.
You can either play an album, artist, or playlist or shuffle it by swiping from left to right. Doing the same on a track reveals the metadata associated with it. By swiping left on a track, you can add it to the queue. Besides these intuitive gestures, you can also choose between day and night modes – or set it to change automatically – and use RGB sliders to change the default accent colors.
Key features:
- Designed to offer a fully personalized music listening experience
- Plenty of custom themes and display settings
- Day and night modes
- RGB sliders
Install ($2.99)
11. Stezza Music Player – Safe Bet for a Simplified Music Listening Experience
For keeping all of your music perfectly organized, Stezza Music Player could be a fine option. This app is more geared towards offering a simplified experience thanks to an intuitive interface coupled with easy-to-use tools. Beyond simplicity, Stezza is also quite good at customization.
You can use the adaptive album themes to make your albums look pleasing to the eyes. One of my favorite features of this app is a color theme that adds a touch of elegance to the music library. Couple that with the support for Accessibility features, and it seems a complete package. Long story short, Stezza Music Player is what you should use to manage your iPhone and iPad music without any hassle.
Key features:
- Impressive adaptive album themes
- A lot of custom color themes
- Video playback
- Fully supports Accessibility
Install: ($2.99)
12. eSound – MP3 Music Player
eSound is a music player app for iPhone and iPad with a lot to offer. While it is primarily a music streaming app with more than 150 million songs available from different streaming platforms, the app also doubles down as a music player with the option to import songs. You can add songs from your device, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Yandex and Box. The app itself looks like a clone of Spotify with a similar green colored theme and options. It is to be noted that eSound is a very basic app that does not offer features like equalizer or presets, but it does the job of offline msuic player very well.
eSound is one of the best music player apps for iPhone if your priority is playing music stored on your device or from cloud storage options. While it is primarily a music streaming app with more than 150 million songs available, the app also doubles down as a music player app. It allows you to play songs stored on your iPhone/iPad or you can import songs from Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Yandex and Box.
The music player app comes with a sleep timer, dark theme and thumbnail preview option. You can also cast the song to an external device using AirPlay, Bluetooth or Google Cast. It is to be noted that eSound does not come with features like equalizer or presets but you get basic music playing functionalities like shuffle, repeat, and sleep timer. The app focuses more on bringing simplicity to your music listening experience rather than offering you features to enhance it.
Key Features:
- Import songs from cloud storage services
- Dark theme
- Cast using AirPlay, Bluetooth or Google Cast
- Sort playlists by multiple options
Install: (free)
13. Evermusic – Feature-Packed Music Player with Proficient Playlists Manager
Evermusic is a feature-packed music player for iPhone and iPad. The app features a clean interface and comes with a range of tools that let you keep all of your songs organized using the proficient playlist manager. Thanks to the support for all the major audio formats, including MP3, AAC, M4A, WAV, AIFF, and M4R, it also ensures you don’t have to deal with incompatibility issues.
Integrated with all the popular cloud services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, WebDAV, SMB, MyDrive, pCloud, HiDrive, MEGA, Yandex.Disk, WD MyCloud Home, DLNA, and MediaFire, Evermusic lets you move all of your songs to your preferred cloud service and listen to them right from the cloud. Moreover, the music player also features efficient buffering technologies that play a vital role in providing smooth playback.
With iTunes File Sharing and Wi-Fi file transfer support, Evermusic makes it pretty easy to import audio files from your computer. Notably, it also works as a handy audiobook player courtesy of features like audio bookmarks, playback speed control, and saving of media position. There is a built-in equalizer with different presets for popular music genres. For a more personalized experience, you can even fine-tune manual equalizer settings and tweak preamplifier gain.
Moreover, Evermusic allows you to stream your music to Apple TV and Google Chromecast devices. Add to that the support for Apple CarPlay as well as ID3 tags editor and it becomes really hard to beat as an iPhone and iPad music player.
Key features:
- Allows you to stream music to Apple TV and Google Chromecast devices
- support for Apple CarPlay
- Powerful ID3 tags editor
- built-in equalizer with different presets
- iTunes File Sharing and Wi-Fi file transfer support
Install: (free, $9.99)
14. TapTunes – Switch Between Music, Podcasts, & Audiobooks
Putting more emphasis on offering a simplified music listening experience, TapTunes is one of those iOS music player apps that tick of all the essential boxes. So, if ease of use matters a lot to you when it comes to managing music, you should try it out.
The music player features a clutter-free interface and comes with a range of sorting and display options. Thus, you can organize your music in line with your needs, so finding specific tracks never becomes a hassle. What I love the most about the app is the nice-looking design of the player that amps up the music-listening experience.
Furthermore, TapTunes also lets you seamlessly switch between music, podcasts, and audiobooks so that you can pick your favorite tracks, podcast episodes, or pleasing audiobooks without having to dig deep. With the fast gesture controls at the disposal, it makes controlling the playback a breeze. That’s not all, TapTunes also supports Apple Watch and lets you share your top picks on Facebook and Twitter.
Key features:
- Beautiful music player
- Clutter-free interface
- Fully customizable interface
- Seamlessly switch between music, podcasts, and audiobooks
- Option to share your songs on Facebook and Twitter
Install: ($1.99)
15. Musi – Stream Music Directly from YouTube
Musi is what you should pick to take control of all of your songs without getting into any complexity. The app may not have an eye-catching user-interface, but it has got you fully covered when it comes to creating and managing playlists. With several sorting options, you can keep your entire collection perfectly organized for quicker access.
Notably, it’s integrated with Youtube allowing you to stream music directly from YouTube. If you are fond of Google’s popular online video-sharing platform, you would appreciate this feature. What’s more, it also allows you to stream music to any AirPlay-enabled device, including your Apple TV.
Do note that Musi is available for free, but you will need to spend $6 if you want to remove ads. Overall, it’s one of the top free iPad and iPhone music players.
Install: (free, $5.99 for ad-free version)
Top iPad/iPhone Music Player Apps Lined Up for You
We hope these music players will enhance your music listening experience on your iPhone and other iOS devices. These apps will not only widen the gamut of file formats that you can access on your iPhone but should also inspire you to further enrich the quality of audio by tweaking the equalizer and other sound enhancement settings.
Note that Apple has killed iTunes for Mac with the introduction of macOS Catalina. So if you are having any syncing problems, you should check out our list of iTunes alternatives. Okay, that’s all from us, go ahead and try out some of these apps and let us know which one is your favorite music player for iOS in the comments below.
