Many people do not like the built-in music player found on iPhone and iPad. While iPhone’s stock Music App has vastly improved in recent times, it did not find much traction among the music lovers who want something beyond plain music. Luckily, there are many ways to listen to music on your iPhone, and you do not have to rely on iTunes and the built-in Music app.

Apple App Store offers lots of alternatives to the default Music Player and many of them offer features that surpass Apple’s own offering. To help you choose the right music player, we have compiled this list of 7 Best Music Player Apps For iPhone and iPad. All the apps in the list are free and some of them offer additional features through in-app purchases. If you dislike the Music app on your iPhone, we are sure you will find an app that you love, right here, on this list. So read on.

1. Listen

Listen is a cool app. You control your music library with gestures. Two-finger swipes let you control volume and scrub through tracks, while taps and single-finger gestures let you switch tracks, share them with friends, play and pause, and more.

The Now Playing screen is minimalist and gorgeous, and searching through your tunes is well-laid out and simple. If you are a tap-happy individual, then this may not be the app for you since there is a lot you can do with just a tap and drag, but if you like a smooth interface where all your actions flow, then give Listen a try.

The free version is great, but if you want premium features, like curated radio stations, then you will have to pay.

2. SoundShare

This is a collaborative app that connects many different services together, including Apple Music, Spotify, and Deezer. SoundShare is an actual social network you will need to sign up for, and anyone you want to collaborate with will have to do the same. The app allows you to like, comment on, and share music as well as build collaborative playlists with other users.

SoundShare is not really much fun if you are using it on your own, and you will really need to share a streaming service with other users to get the most out of it. For that reason, it is not for everyone, but it is free and bound to tick the boxes if you can convince your friends to sign up too.

3. Marvis Music Player

The Marvis Music Player is another really nice music player for the iPhone. Except for the list of songs on your device (local, as well as those from iCloud Music Library), everything is displayed in a nice 3 columned view, with album or artist images as the cover. The song list is just that — a list. The app also allows swiping between screens, which is definitely a plus, considering that the navigation icons are just way too small to be accurately tapped all the time. The app has a dark theme by default, and a light theme can be unlocked via an in-app purchase.

The app also uses a unique way of displaying views. Instead of segueing to a new view when you tap on, say, an album, the app expands the album contents right below it, which looks very graceful. However, the app is ad-supported, so get ready for some really intrusive looking banner ads on the bottom of the page. The good news is, you can get rid of the ads with an in-app purchase.

All in all, the app is definitely worth a try if you are looking for a free replacement for the Apple Music app, which does everything a music app should do, and looks good, albeit a little cluttered at times, probably because of the ads.

4. Musixmatch Lyrics Finder

While it is not the most attractive music player out there, Musixmatch is great if you like to sing along to your favorite songs. It is free but offers in-app purchases for some features. Musixmatch has a database of more than 7 million songs in 38 languages, and while it does not find lyrics for everything in my library, it does for most songs.

You can also use Musixmatch to identify songs you hear around you and display their lyrics. Musixmatch has an Apple Watch app, which can control the iPhone app, display lyrics, and listen to music to identify songs. There is also a Notification Center widget if you want to be able to see lyrics on your iOS device’s lock screen.

5. Boom

This is one music player that brings something completely new to the table. Boom is a music player that offers a variety of really cool predefined equalizers, along with a fully customizable 5.1 surround sound feel to any pair of headphones that you might want to use, including in-ear earphones, over the ear headphones and more. You can choose the type of headphones you are using in the settings for the app.

The devs claim that “Extensive use can cause addiction”, which is actually kind of true. That level of customization in the sound quality is addictive, especially if you listen to music for prolonged periods of time.

The interface of the app is clean, and while it is not really “intuitive”, the app walks the user through the major UI elements, so you can get started off really quickly. You can also swipe left and right to change between tracks.

The app’s sound effects are free to use for 5 days, after which they can be purchased, should the user want to continue using them.

6. ARIIA

Personally, I love an app with a good UI and ARIIA hits the bullseye with its clean and minimal UI, tasteful color profiles, and a really nice dark and light mode. ARIIA also happens to be a gesture controlled music app, designed specifically to help you listen to your music while you are driving. That is where the gestures come in handy because you cannot really look at your phone screen while driving; or you should not, at least.

ARIIA comes with really easy to use gestures to control your music, so you can swipe left to go to the next song, right to go to the previous song, swipe up with one finger to increase the volume, and swipe down to decrease the volume.

The only drawback I can see with ARIIA is the lack of ability to choose a playlist that you want it to play — that is, unless you first launch the Music app, play a playlist, and then switch over to ARIIA. So, yeah, a bit of a workaround, but otherwise the app is great.

7. Jet Audio

This is another free music player for iPhone that has a lot of cool features not available in other apps. Jet Audio automatically hooks into your music library, including songs that are in your iCloud Music Library, and is ready to go the moment you launch it. It also has a dark interface.

The Now Playing view has some great options on the top of the screen, including things like an equalizer, customizable sound effects, as well as a sleep timer so that you can set your music to stop automatically after a particular amount of time.

One really cool feature offered by the app is the ability to create a server that you can access on your computer (over the same network), to upload files directly to your iPhone. However, this does not use any passwords, and anyone who knows your iPhone’s IP Address can easily upload anything they want onto your device, so be careful. The app is free, but you will have to put up with banner ads on the bottom of the screen, which are rather annoying.

A few last words

While there are many music player apps out there, we believe, these were the 7 best free apps to play music. If you listen to music on your iOS device a lot, try one of them out before you go hunting around for more.

Do you find these apps helpful or are you using something different altogether? Let us know in the comments. We would also like to know about your favorite music players for iPhone, and what features do you use and like the most. Also, do not forget to subscribe for more updates.

See Also

• 6 Best Free Music Player Apps For Android
• 12 Best Education And Learning Apps For iOS (iPhone And iPad)
• 6 Best Free Photo / Image Editing Apps For iOS (iPhone & iPad)