A Brief History of Stezza

Stezza launched on the App Store in 2013 as an indie iPhone music player with an unusual design philosophy: oversized buttons, bold tiles, and a deliberate refusal to bury controls behind nested menus. More than a decade later, the same philosophy still shapes the app — but the platforms and music landscape around it have changed considerably.

This page is a casual look back at how Stezza got here.

2013 — The Beginning

Stezza was created by independent developer Ricardo Santos (now Foobar Creative). The first release shipped at a time when iOS music apps were largely modelled on Apple’s stock Music app — list views, small controls, a UI optimised for browsing rather than playback.

Stezza took the opposite approach. Inspired by Microsoft’s Metro design language that had emerged in Windows 8 and Windows Phone — bold flat tiles, generous whitespace, type-led layouts — Stezza 1.0 was born.

Windows Phone Metro tile interface, the design language that inspired Stezza 1.0

Big buttons, big artwork, no small touch targets. The design choices were originally aimed at drivers and active users — but it turned out to also make the app exceptionally accessible for people with limited motor control or low vision.

In May 2013, Stezza added universal iPad support, scaling its tile-based interface up to the larger screen.

Going Modern — Dropping the Borders

Stezza 1.0 wore its Metro inspiration on its sleeve, with thick black borders separating each tile. As iOS itself evolved through the iOS 7 redesign, those borders started to look heavy. We dropped them — same big-button DNA, but cleaner.

Side-by-side comparison of new Stezza without borders next to the original Stezza with thick black borders

The 2.0 update in July 2014 (codename Yergen) consolidated the cleanup: a new theme picker, custom colour themes, blur backgrounds, a redesigned album view, video playback, and improved VoiceOver support — all sharing the same simplified geometry.

The AppRadio Era

For a stretch of the early 2010s, Pioneer’s AppRadio platform was one of the few mass-market ways to bring iPhone apps onto a car’s in-dash display — a precursor to CarPlay that worked over a wired connection and required apps to be specifically designed for the platform.

Stezza was a natural fit. Its tile-based interface scaled cleanly to AppRadio’s screens, the buttons were already car-friendly, and the lack of small touch targets was a real safety advantage compared to the alternatives.

Stezza running on a Pioneer AppRadio head unit, showing album art alongside large playback controls

AppRadioWorld reviewed Stezza in November 2013, calling it “easily the best looking music app for the AppRadio” and praising the “minimalistic yet fully featured interface” that made “taking control of your music very easy.”

As CarPlay took over the in-dash app space, the AppRadio platform was wound down. Stezza retired AppRadio support in version 2.11 (October 2023) and chose to focus on the iPhone itself — the big-button, one-handed design still works exceptionally well in a phone mount, without depending on a discontinued head unit standard.

Today

Stezza is still actively maintained — the most recent release was version 2.12 in January 2026, and the app has shipped consistent updates every iOS cycle since launch. The current version supports:

  • iOS 18 and the latest iPhones.
  • Apple Music streaming and Sync Library — play your full Apple Music library, not just downloaded tracks.
  • Adaptive album themes that tint the player to match each album’s artwork, plus custom color themes.
  • Video playback for files copied directly to the app via Finder or iTunes File Sharing.
  • Accessibility-friendly design — the big buttons that started as a driving feature continue to make Stezza one of the easier music players to use for people with motor or vision needs.

Everything Stezza set out to do in 2013 still applies. The world around it just looks different now.

For a full list of every release going back to 2013, see the changelog.

Coming Soon — Stezza 3.0

Stezza 3.0 is in active development as a brand-new release built around Apple’s Liquid Glass design language introduced in iOS 26. The classic Stezza DNA — big buttons, bold colour, accessibility-first design — translated for the next generation of iPhone.

More to share soon.

Press from the early years

A few of the publications that covered Stezza’s launch and major updates:

For more recent coverage, see the Press page.