I've been using my iPhone for a while now as my source of music inside my car, but it's hardly comparable to my Empeg. Unfortunately I cannot install my Empeg in my current car anymore. (no DIN slot anymore, like most modern cars...)

That's why I was wondering if there is some kind of iOS audio player out there which at least can do some stuff the Empeg can.

Things I miss the most:
- decent shuffle play. I have playlists with up to 500 tracks per list. But it seems the iPhone favors some tracks, and discriminates others. It's always the same tracks that get played.
- The thingie where a certain track would play, and I would press a button and another track by the same artist or album got added into the playlist as the next track to play. That is one of the best features of the Empeg I think, and I still have never seem any other player do it.
- Wendy filters... Oh yes!

I also hate it that my iPhone sometimes skips a beat in the middle of the track, or even refuses to play the beginning of the track and starts mid-track. And I'm absolutely sure nothing is wrong with the mp3 files themselves, because they play fine on my PC, Empeg and every other device except for my iPhone 6s.

I would love it if somebody could point me towards an alternative player app which does a better job at playing tracks than the stock player does. Thanks!

I think it sometimes remembers the point where a song had previously paused. And the next play it picks up where it left off.

Don't hold your breath. Keep in mind that hardware-wise, the empeg is nothing special. It's the software that that makes it what it is, and that software required about four man-years to produce.

Would the market for such a product be enough to make it financially viable?

tanstaafl.

Financially viable? No. But might be a fun project for someone who wants to learn Swift coding. Hmmm.

Some google searches say that there are a lot of alternative IOS music player apps out there:

http://thesweetsetup.com/apps/best-ios-music-app-replacement/
http://www.imore.com/best-third-party-music-player-apps-iphone

I've tried a few but none seem to be better than the standard app. All I want are:

1. The ability to bookmark (like the Karma)
2. A display that shows where you are in a playlist, e.g. track 1 of 399
3. Something that reliably remembers the last played position in a playlist. Sometimes it re,members, other times it starts at the beginning, a proper pain in the middle of a 90 minute podcast.
4. Talking of podcasts the ability to play podcasts through a playlist, I generally download podcasts and sync to my phone as a playlist.

If anyone finds something that does the above I'd be happy to pay for it.

If you want to listen to podcasts, use a podcast app.

My favourite is Overcast

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/overcast-podcast-player/id888422857?mt=8

(iOS only, Android was not well served by quality podcast apps last time I looked)

I tried a couple if podcast players but they didn't support playlists. I might sync a playlist of 500 (already downloaded) podcasts that I want played in playlist order. If this does that then I will give it a go.

Good reviews, I'll try and give it a go before we go away.

Yes, but those four man-years also include a lot of stuff that could be considered either "solved", or "not applicable" for an empeg-ish iOS app. I don't need FlanceDoor or a custom EQ in my player, but empeg's playlist-manipulation capabilities are still miles ahead of mobile apps.
If I didn't have small children, I'd write one myself, just to scratch the itch. Financial viability would just be an unexpected bonus.

I don't think there is a way you can sync a pre existing playlist into Overcast and I'd be surprised if you could with most other podcast apps.

Some of them certainly have support for importing podcast subscriptions, but I've not used any that can import existing playlists.

Ahh, that won't help then. I download to my PC then sync to the phone. One the way home from work the 90 minute play that I was halfway into restarted from the beginning.

Can I ask why you do that and not just leave it to the podcast app to download on the phone ?

Because some of the stuff I listen to isn't available as a podcast (I record using GetiPlayer), and I always have a backlog, I'm currently listening to October 2016. And I like to keep hold of my media too, I still have a lot of ISIHAC episodes with Humph as the chair for example.

I see, Overcast provides a possible solution then.

If you pay for the Overcast Premium subscription (£8.99 a year) it gives you the extra facility to upload podcasts to their service and then play them back in the app. It is limited to 2GB of storage, but it might work for you.

When you've uploaded them they appear in an "Uploads" playlist in the app.

Do they get stored on the device or in the cloud?

Both. They give you a page on their site to upload with.

Then in the app you either have the choice to download or stream.

That does mean though that you'll be uploading them just for the app to then download then

There are also some other ways to achieve this in any podcast app. There are a number of services that make it quick and easy to create your own personal podcast feeds from your own files. Then just add the feed to you chosen app:

http://thesweetsetup.com/quick-tip-create-a-personal-podcast-feed-from-dropbox-with-justcast/

Thanks Andy, off on hols tomorrow will try when I get back

Thanks for all the replies guys! After reading the links Tony provided, I went with the "Listen" app. This is already an improvement over the standard music app, but it still uses the same decoder, so the files still have the same errors. Though I can imagine that's because Apple doesn't allow for other decoders to be used, same as they require every competing browser app to use the Safari engine.
That said, this is already a big improvement for in-car use, since it uses gestures exclusively and not button presses. It doesn't have any of the smart Empeg features though.

I very much hope for somebody to write an Empeg like app. I would pay money for that. It's a shame that Raspberry Pi Empeg project never was released.

Apple don't restrict what decoders apps can use. You can find apps that use all sorts of other decoders for audio and video.

That's good to know! Thanks Andy!