I came across this article after Richard Anderson tweeted about Cesium. Honestly, I didn’t even know this type of app was possible on iOS. But they all seem to function a lot like third-party calendar apps — reading and writing data from system APIs rat her than recreating the entire stack.

I’ve been using Cesium for several hours and I’m very impressed by it. The interface is incredibly simple and reminds me of earlier versions of the iOS music app — back when it was still called “iPod.” I’m not thrilled about the application’s icon or the circular scrub bar on the now playing screen, but I’m glad to be using something that feels designed for music playback rather then to sell a subscription streaming service.

Its too early to say whether I’ll be sticking with a third-party music app, but I’ll definitely be trying a few others from Kirk McElhearn’s list before going back to iOS’ default option.