Why is an iPhone such a good streamer?

I would say from my experience using my iPhone as a steamer that it is adequate but not as good as a dedicated streamer. iPhones are multiple use devices and my opinion is that they work well as remote control or I should say using the app of a dedicated streamer works better than using the iPhone hardware. In the early days I used an iPhone streaming dock many years ago (Pure I20) that worked ok, but was not HiFi. If a company makes an IPhone interface today that works as well as a dedicated streamer (maybe like one with the latest DAC chips and dual mono design) I would be interested in the design/engineering. One problem with both Apple and Android phones is that they are quickly obsolete 6 months after they are brought to market. 

I’m listening to Pandora right now off my iPhone and it sounds dandy.

Use a lightning to camera adapter and it bypasses the internal dac. Have it plugged into my Mytek dac. I wouldn’t say comparable to a good streamer, but still sounds darned good. Get the adapter then plug your iPhone into your t+a  dac and have a listen.

I use my iPhone to stream Tidal into my headphone setup. Sounds damn good.

before my house burned, when working in the garage, which i did a lot, I used my phone via bluetooth to drive a dayton audio class d dac/amplifier which in turn drove a pair of old 2-way bookshelf speakers and and dayton audio sub. Full range sound in my garage was a treat. Wouldn’t be called hi-fi by most people on this forum, but it was better than many home systems I have been exposed to. Pandora was the streaming service of choice, I much prefer their algorithm for playing music that is similar to what your primary artist choice might be than any other implementation I have heard by other services. I hope one day to have as good again