Hi Kevin,
I share your views on Roon player in Android. However there is a new way to play through your iPhone using iPeng. There is a long thread here https://community.roonlabs.com/t/can-ipeng-make-the-ipad-a-roon-endpoint-yes-implemented-in-ipeng-9-3/23383/165 to see how it works (go to the posts for the past month or so…) but essentially it allows Roon to recognize your iDevice as a squeezebox endpoint, works fabulously on my iPad.