How Do You Listen to Music That You Buy Direct from Artists on a Mobile Device?

As a person who rarely uses his iPhone and no longer owns an iPad, I’ve come to realize that I have a blindspot — and pretty much always have, when it comes to how people consume music.

For me, whether streaming or purchasing directly from the artists, I’m mostly doing it from my computer, which has then always automatically fed my mobile device(s). And if I’m in the car or out and about, I use my phone as my audio player via bluetooth, or usb. Regardless of my device or where I purchase, all of my music lives in Apple Music and I only ever add music to my library when I’m sitting at my desk, at my computer.

It never dawned on me, until my wife wanted to listen to my EP in her car, while she was on the road, that if you buy/download on an iPhone, that there’s no way to add your purchased music to Apple Music, without a computer, because that’s stupid. Then I remembered (and was reminded by my wife) that it’s a business and some companies want to lock you into their ecosystem. So it makes sense that Apple doesn’t want you buying music from anywhere but Apple Music/iTunes. I don’t know if it’s the same/similar on Android, so I won’t touch on that, but I’m not a fan of the practice of stripping choice from listeners. And even more… pushing people to use streaming services, which of course, doesn’t benefit artists at all. Again, I understand why business do it. I just don’t like it.

I’ve since had one or two other people question how to listen to my EP — which they purchased — on their phones. As far as they knew, they were unable to download it at all. Turns out, they’d been downloading it repeatedly, but Apple doesn’t make it obvious when you download files and it goes to the “Files” app. Also stupid. AND once you download it… and find the download, the only way to play it is by either listening to the songs one by one, or using a separate app. Once again, stupid.

But it’s a business.

At any rate, I’ve been thinking about this a bit and decided to check out some apps to see if there are any that at least make listening to your purchased — outside of the “walled garden,” as they call it — music easier and with decent UX/UI. I landed on an app called Vox. It appears to currently be primarily for MacOS/iOS, with a Windows compatible version in beta. Saw no mention of Android. I imagine there are trillions of apps to playback music on that platform though, so it makes sense, I guess (if not, please correct me).

Vox makes it as simple as finding your downloaded tunes in the Files app, selecting and sharing them to the app — all from the comfort of your mobile device. No computer necessary. It’s a pretty nice app, but I have to spend more time with it (the free version), before making a final call on just how good it is. It seems to be pretty popular though, so it seems that I’m just late to the party, because I got comfortable with my convenient setup.

How do you consume music? Do you stream only, or do you prefer to purchase direct from the artist, or a combination of the two (I fall into this category)? And if you purchase direct from artists, what music player do you use and/or what’s your process, if different from what I discovered with Vox? I’m genuinely curious, and I believe that others may benefit from this information as well.

Please leave a comment with some hints, tips, platform(s) you use, etc.

Much appreciated.