I am trying to implement a custom MPMoviePlayer to play mp3 audio. I have got it working in portrait mode along with an overlay window over the native controls - thanks to other stackoverflow posts.

The current issue is the song progress control shows up when the media window opens (blue bar taking up the first 40 odd pixels), but seems to disappear when the song starts leaving a white bar. It will then re-appear when touching the area, so functionally works fine. I would like to find a way to ensure the controls always stay visible but have not found an appropriate property in the reference.

Ideally I would like to have my custom control to replace the default, more because I would like to change the position that the look and feel. This being said, I understand it is not possible as the current position in the song from a MPMoviePlayer cannot be accessed.