But you can use several third-party apps to play music & video. The on-device music app from Apple conflates downloadable iTunes-purchased files with streaming Apple Music. > and then let itunes browse it, locally on the phone ?

several GB over a flaky network, as the Apple-native Files app can't resume a copy, and will abort on every duplicate. Then all the files are 'local' to the app. You could use the Files app to copy a directory tree of music files from a remote server, into the folder of a music-playing app (e.g. > Does this user-visible filesystem allow me to just copy over my entire music library (which is files and directories, and no knowledge of apple/itunes/ios) With a low-cost x86 SBC like Odroid H2+, an entry-level NAS can be constructed with Ubuntu ZFS and dual 3.5' drives. Now that iPad enables access to local storage via USB-C, we need a similar ability to mount a ZFS drive, even if Apple won't provide this natively in iOS. Samsung's iXpand has built an ecosystem of iOS apps that support their custom protocol for iXpand flash drives via Lightning. Unencrypted files are visible to other apps, So far, the best option has been GoodReader (Russian devs) which implements robust sync (SMB, SFTP & more) within the app, along with optional in-app strong encryption that goes beyond iOS data protection. The native iOS Files app is not a robust client for NAS storage. IOS storage management has improved with a user-visible 'filesystem' and storage providers allowing edit-in-place, but there's still virtually no support for backup or rsync. They have both subscription/rental and lifetime/ownership licenses, With many people using mobile devices, a plug for PhotoSync enabling seamless photo backup and sync between iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, local NAS, iXpand local flash and cloud services.

Android goodreader