Just wondering out here, cause Im really torn between these two. With Spotify family and Apple One I use both alternately and in both Im missing some parts that the other one have.
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for Apple Music I mostly lack good new songs suggestion algorithm, because it very often just plays me a song that I would never ever listen to - and that’s based on “continue playing” from current playlist.
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for Spotify I lack Losseless and Spatialise.
in terms of UI, both are somewhat not great
- Apple Music is cumbersome and hard to navigate to song that is currently playing.
- Spotify is just too much noise on the screen for me
What are your thoughts?
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Apple Music. The initial reason was that my own music was uploaded to be part of it. Along the way I’ve been using Spotify and many others. Today, I refuse to use Spotify. Why?
- They pay musicians an even more ridiculously low amount per stream than most other services.
- They have attempted to leech off the open podcast ecosystem to lure people into theirs and lock them there.
- They actively pay and host Joe Rogan’s lies and bullshit
Apple Music, I listen to lots of unreleased music and iCloud Music Library works so much better than Spotify Local Files. Also just works with all my devices. I don’t love the UI sometimes but it is improving with every update. I don’t really use new music recommendations often but whenever I make a station I usually find it’s ok?
well, the UI is totally fine on iOS and iPadOS - but on the MacOS it’s somewhat archaic for me and waaay behind
I agree. Feels a bit off.
Have you tried changing it up with spicetify at all?
Spotify Premium - because firstly don’t care about paying for it as I use it literally every single day and after using it for nearly 10 years the algorithms are perfect when it comes to music recommendations - plus it has a better catalogue as I listen to some pretty obscure non-mainstream dance and jazz/funk music. As for the UI it’s fine as I guess I am used to it. As for music sound quality - if I want music sound quality I will listen to my CD collection but for streaming via Bluetooth buds out and about with ANC it’s a moot point really…
Same. It doesn’t cost that much, for how much we (family) use it, it’s worth the price.
I’m on Spotify, but I’d really love to switch to Apple Music for the better sound quality and to stop paying for dumb podcasts I don’t want. The one think keeping me on Spotify is connect. Apple doesn’t have anything comparable. I can be playing music on my Sonos and controlling it from my PC. I can seamlessly transfer what I’m listening from my iPhone to my car. It’s a huge quality of life feature.
and the problem with this is that Apple will never have this, because Spotify has patent on it and only Spotify will have such feature.
On the other hand, Spotify doesn’t play nice with the Apple ecosystem. HomePod integration is non-existent for example.
I use Spotify because it has everything I want in terms of music and I’ve used it forever but I’d really like decent HomePod integration at some point.
Unlikely but a man can dream right?
Airplay works that way, but unfortunately it’s only for Apple devices.
Airplay does not work that way. If I AirPlay to a speaker from my phone I can’t control the music from my MacBook, let alone my PC. I can’t AirPlay music from my MacBook to my phone or viceversa. It’s totally not comparable.
I’m shocked apple doesn’t have this. In fact their services across the board are sub par. Yet still my default because I feel stuck there with my old music library from pre streaming era full of songs that won’t be on streaming services, making Spotify no good for me
Tidal. Better audio quality and revenue share than Spotify, plus no Joe Rogan.
I didn’t want to post it specifically unless someone else said it, but yes, Tidal. It has been great. Well working integration with Plex and Sonos, every song I’ve tried looking for they have, and they have a discount for military veterans.
YouTube Music. Apple Music and Spotify are both technically better products, but YouTube Music is free with YouTube Premium and so I can save on a music subscription.
Before I made that call I had picked Spotify as it gave me access to a web player, and just worked better on my Google Home speakers.
I went between Spotify and Apple Music a few times, both are better than YouTube Music. Though once YouTube premium became available in my country it was a no-brainer to switch. I was always going to get YT Premium and especially get a free music streaming service on the side.
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Apple Music all the way!
Under the “Listen now” tab, I always get new releases form the artists I like!
Spotify:
- not linked to Apple ecosystem (which I don’t use at all). not part of any of the other big corps (Google, Amazon) trying get full control of our digital life.
- properly multi-platform. has a Linux client
- cheap enough, no ads. advertise
- great family plan, the best of all subscription services I have seen. Single payment, but each family member has their own separate account with their own password, not just a profile like on Netflix
- most of the music I care about is available there
- great remote control between different Spotify apps and devices. When I start Spotify on my Linux box I can control it with my Android phone, just like that
pretty much all of this. i bought into a family plan of spotify premium back in maybe 2016 and haven’t looked back.
audio quality is fantastic. arguably only tidal has a higher bitrate for their premium plans, but it’s so negligible unless you’re really deep into audiophile territory. discover weekly is actually really good if you carefully curate your playlists and has led me to many new artists. while i don’t have personal experience with other platforms underground music, spotify has a shockingly large number of small time artists that i absolutely love.
The Discover Weekly playlist is far from perfect – it would often give me the same songs again and again or multiple covers of single song. But still, good enough for everyday use. And I like for alternative/indie/niche music too, so Spotify Discover Weekly is much better than most audio stations or existing playlists.
Yeah, it’s definitely not perfect, but years of crafting my existing playlists has led to a pretty solid foundation for discovery to work with. I’ll get something I’ve heard before maybe once a month these days, but this is after basically 7 years of listening almost weekly.
Spotify because I’ve been on it since it was in beta, so my music recommendations are really good. I just don’t really feel like starting over.
I’m also grandfathered in with a deal where I get Hulu with it (Hulu has commercials but whatever, I don’t pay for it), so I don’t really feel like giving that up.
Apple Music because it doesn’t shove podcasts down my throat. I also prefer the algorithm on Apple Music over Spotify. Spotify is too safe by only recommending music that I already like, while I have discovered new genres that I now love from using Apple Music. Spotify is just too repetitive in my experience. I do miss the Discover Weekly playlist though. That was the one thing that helped me discover new music on Spotify.
Kind of in the same boat right now. I’m using Apple Music right now for the following:
- Lossless should be the base level at this point, not a premium.
- The library management in Apple Music is way superior to Spotify, especially for uploading local files. Going to upload some Bandcamp stuff to my Apple Music library in the future.
- I have an issue on Spotify for Android where my 10k+ liked songs list slows to a crawl. This doesn’t happen to Apple Music. Yeah, it’s choppy when scrolling but I’d rather that than Spotify taking seconds to load the list.
Though it’s not perfect…
- there’s no Linux client at all, and though Cider is a great effort there’s some things that I miss using it (gapless playback is one, it’s essential for album listeners like myself) so I’m having to install a Windows VM to run Apple Music.
- There’s some weird gaps in some artists’ libraries. I listen to quite a bit of Kaskade, and I find it weird that some of his music isn’t on Apple Music in the UK even though it is on Spotify.
- Scrobbling is an issue. I actually coded a manual scrobbler plugin for MusicBrainz Picard to deal with this.
Apple Music because it’s fully functional/supported across all Apple devices. I have iPhones, iPads, Watches, MacBook, HomePods & Apple TVs. No need to screw around with trying to airplay Spotify to a HomePod when it’s just available natively with Apple Music. Apple Music can be integrated into “scenes” in the Home app. Apple Music can stream over cellular on an Apple Watch. I pay for Apple One Premier and share with 5 family members, FWIW.
I used to prefer Apple Music because the audio quality is higher.
But I’ve gone back to buying music on iTunes. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life paying a subscription for music. I’d rather buy a new album every few months and keep it forever without DRM.
I use Apple Music on GrapheneOS. Here in my country the other lossless streaming services are too damn expensive. Spotify is cheap but doesn’t have lossless, and the privacy on Spotify is a nightmare. So that left Apple Music. Although I like the music quality, the rest of the experience is just kinda mid. The algorithm is okay, but the Android app sacrifices too much functionality for looks. Every single action takes one or two more clicks. Wanna heart a song? Hidden behind a menu. Repeat, shuffle? Hidden behind a menu. Sleep timer? ALSO hidden behind a menu. It really is too cumbersome.
I’d be subscribed to Apple Music of it were available on more platforms. It’s definitely my favourite music streaming service and I’ve tried A LOT.
What platform are you missing?
It’s on Mac, iOS, Windows, Android, and there’s even Web App to cover niche platforms like Linux.
It’s not available for self hosted music streamers like Logitech Media Server or Mopidy so I can’t use it around the house.
