To make playing audio and video files as simple and straightforward as can be, Apple has created the AVFoundation framework. This framework contains a lot of helper classes that provide very low-level control over how iOS plays audio and video files. You can use AVFoundation to build a rich, custom media player with as many features as you need for your purpose.

If you're looking for a simpler way to integrate media into your app, the AVKit framework might be what you need. AVKit contains several helpers that build upon the AVFoundation components to provide an excellent default player that supports many features like subtitles, Airplay, and more.

In this section, you will learn how to implement a simple video player with the AVPlayerViewController from the AVKit framework. You will also implement a more complex audio player with AVFoundation components that plays audio in the background and displays,  on the lock screen, the audio track currently being played.

To follow along with the samples, you should open the MediaPlayback_start project in this chapter's code bundle. The starter app contains a straightforward interface with a tab bar and two pages. You will implement a video player on one page, and the audio player on the other page. The audio page comes with some predefined controls and actions that you will implement later.