[bimfi122]

I have an iPhone 8 Plus, running ios 12.3. I am trying to circumvent iTunes and IOS music app to listen to my music files on my iPhone. Without going into details, I synced all of my music onto the iphone using mediamonkey instead of iTunes. All of the music files transferred over. I also deleted the IOS music app and am trying to use a third-party app called C's Music app. It looks similar to the ios music app. The problem is that, although the music is on the phone and a song is opened in the app, the song will not play. It appears to be but there is no movement in the duration slidebar. I cannot skip or backup any songs either.

I guess my question is this. Do I need the IOS music app back on the iphone?

[bimfi122]

And the answer is, unfortunately, yes. The Apple Music app is necessary to be able to use third party music player apps

[Tartarus]

I am more than happy with how the stock music app works on my device and therefore never had the need to use third party apps.

I’m glad you figured it out.

[Lee_Bo]

Welcome to Apple's "It's our way or the highway" plan.

[scruffypig]

I will play contrarian here. I say no, you don’t need to use Apple’s music app. It certainly won’t be as easy, though it can be done and it has some benefits.

I have a huge music library on a NAS drive on my network most of it is FLAC encoded music. I can stream or download all that music on my iPhone using the VLC app. Because apps are sandboxed, that music will be downloaded to VLC’s in-app storage.

I could just as easily delete all the music in my iTunes library on my phone and just use VLC to manage my music on my phone, though many 3rd party music playback apps only work with the default music library. The stock Apple Music app is really pretty good.

[Wotchered]

I don’t use Apple music, I use Spotify free, if it uses some part of Apple’s app good luck to it !

[bimfi122]

I am interested in scruffypig's response. I, also, have my music on a NAS, though not a large quantity (approx 1700 songs), but they are all mp3 or m4a files. I am mildly embarrassed to say that I had not heard of FLAC files until just recently. I understand that they are larger than mp3 but smaller than wav or cda files. I will have to look further into the VLC app. You mention that the stock Apple Music app is pretty good. Are you talking about the IOS music app that is standard on IOS devices or are you talking about the Apple music service? Just curious.

[scruffypig]

I am interested in scruffypig's response. I, also, have my music on a NAS, though not a large quantity (approx 1700 songs), but they are all mp3 or m4a files. I am mildly embarrassed to say that I had not heard of FLAC files until just recently. I understand that they are larger than mp3 but smaller than wav or cda files. I will have to look further into the VLC app. You mention that the stock Apple Music app is pretty good. Are you talking about the IOS music app that is standard on IOS devices or are you talking about the Apple music service? Just curious.

Yes the stock iOS music app and iTunes on my computer work pretty well, but in order to play the FLAC music I have, I need an app on my iPhone that can play them. There are a few in the App Store.