Spotify

The Spotify music player can organize and play all of your streaming and locally stored music in one place. Since iTunes has been phased out by Apple, media players such as VLC and Plex are gaining in popularity. For Spotify Premium subscribers looking to consolidate into one player, the Spotify desktop app is a free download. Spotify makes it possible to add local files for playback on the computer and the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Spotify streams audio from anywhere with a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection. The disk cache prevents skipping when a connection is interrupted, but not for long. In situations with spotty service or no data, music fans can actually listen to their favorite tunes offline. To save storage space, Spotify does not automatically download any songs to the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. But anyone interested in playing specific albums or playlists can download them for ultimate flexibility.

Playing songs offline with Spotify means no data connection, no problem. Without a connection to Spotify, streaming music just can't play. The only issue with downloading Spotify albums and playlists is that songs take up space. iPhone owners can check available storage on their devices, which also shows which apps are using the most space. Spotify used disk space can add up quickly if there's a lot of downloaded content.