Apple Music or Spotify? what do you use and why?

https://programming.dev/post/587908

Apple Music or Spotify? what do you use and why? - programming.dev

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. - 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. - 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?

musi cause I’m broke, but if I wasn’t I’d use spotify
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.
Qobuz, for audio quality.
first time I see Qobuz mentioned. how’s the library in it? and songs suggestions?

Library’s very good. It has every song from the major labels and a very decent library of independant artists.

Song suggestions are… fine ? I mean, it will suggest songs from a broader spectre. It’s very cool for somebody who likes to discover new genres that kinda relates to what you are listening to.

But if your aim is to have the most similar music to what you are listening, and also have a very closed suggestion list based on spotify and youtube-like algorithms, then qobuz won’t give it to you.

To me, I’d rather have a wider gamut of suggestions than always the same songs going round. So qobuz all the way.

The fact Qobuz has a download store is great, though I’ve heard they’ve stopped people from downloading from the website, forcing you to use the app. Not so great.
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?

VLC and Spotify.

I’m poor, and prefer going with a free service, it’s just as good as the radio.

VLC I’ve found to be less clunky than the iTunes/Apple Music sync pipeline, and when I had my older iPad, it was a convenient media hub for things that might not be natively supported by iOS’ default player.

I used Spotify before but canceled the premium subscription as it became expensive. I’m now listening to Deezer’s free tier.

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.

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 quality I will listen to my CD collection 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.
Apple Music because I get it through Apple Family, which includes iCloud storage and Apple TV+.
Spotify with a family deal. Recommendations and daily playlists make the difference

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

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.

    My partner and I may be the only people on earth using Tidal, but I love it!

    The main benefit is that it pays artists like double what the next highest per-stream rate is (I think that’s Apple Music).

    The Tidal app is basically Spotify but without podcasts shoved in your eyes. It has personal mixes, daily discovery, new music you might enjoy, etc. All that useful discovery stuff.

    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.
    I guess it’s not too bad individually at 11.99 for one person. At 23.99 for two people it’s expensive. My main complaint with yt music is how bullheaded they are about silly things. For example, you can’t play the self titled “Rage against the machine” album on the web view at all, because it has no handler for “self harm content”. The content being the album art which they show np.
    I’m mostly on Spotify but there is at least one radio show (Beats In Space) that I use Apple Music for since it’s exclusive to that platform. I do like listening to mixes by some of the artists/label that I love as they offer the track list as well.
    Spotify just because I've using it almost since it came out and especially because Apple Music is absolute chaos for scrobbling to last.fm
    last.fm! That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.
    There are dozens of us still using it! I don't quite get how they haven't shut down yet but I'm not complaining, I get to have a music listening history database across streaming platforms and mediums, just for that tool I find it so incredibly useful.
    Maybe I should dust off my account.

    Same with ListenBrainz. I actually coded a manual scrobbling plugin for MusicBrainz Picard to handle things like this. Should get that through to the MusicBrainz guys.

    For last.fm there are apps on Mac that do the job, on Windows with the AM Preview I found AMWin-RP which is mainly a Discord rich presence handler but also does last.fm too.

    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.
    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

    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.
    Spotify because the duo subscription.

    Apple Music all the way!

    Under the “Listen now” tab, I always get new releases form the artists I like!

    Currently Spotify. Would like to change to stop supporting them (they don’t prioritize development in Apple ecosystem, e.g. HomePod support, audio quality could improve, supporting of podcasters I wish to not support, etc.), BUT my other half enjoys Dax Shepard’s podcast too much.

    Fuck you, Dax, for going exclusive on the same platform as Joe Rogan.

    Damn I didn’t realize he went exclusive to Spotify. I listen to his podcast but very much on my own time and have like 50+ episodes in my queue I want to listen to someday so didn’t notice.

    I tend to really only stay up to date with Conan, Smartless and sports pods

    I use Spotify simply because my FiL had an extra spot on the family plan. If that weren't the case, I'd probably be trying one of the Apple bundles. I'm actually quite happy with Spotify, but I'm curious what Apple Music's native integration would feel like.

    Spotify Premium.

    Spotify Connect alone is worth the choice between the two services, in my opinion.

    Besides, Spotify doesn’t require you to update your OS in order to update the app.

    Spotify Connect is the “killer app” for me as I have a couple of amplifiers with the inbuilt connect client. That being said I use plex-amp to listen to all of my ripped CDs (being collecting since buying Brothers in Arms as my first CD when it was originally released), which is Spotify like for music on the go, and it’s loss-less (then I use Bluetooth headphones :-( )
    Spotify. I’ve been using them for years. I see no reason to switch to another service and start all over again

    I’m a producer and have a slightly different relationship with these platforms than the average consumer.

    Apple Music SUCKS promoting my music and gets way less listeners than Spotify by a lot. The comparison is not even close.

    The lack of reach with Apple Music when I go look at my metrics compared to Spotify is really sad. So for that reason alone I choose Spotify over all of the other platforms.

    I’ve used both Spotify premium (for 3 years) then switched to Apple Music to try it, keep it for a couple of months, back to Spotify premium, then finally back to Apple Music.

    For me, the dealbreaker with Apple Music is that they nuke your library a few months after you canceled your subscription. I tried it back in the day when it was new and used it happily for some time, but the difficulty of finding new tracks that I like drove me back to Spotify. I then wanted to give AM another try recently, only to find out that my old library was empty. I immediately canceled the AM trial after that…

    Also I found that Spotify has a greater pool of niche stuff that I listen to.

    The other reasons why I prefer Spotify have already been mentioned:

    • better discoverability of new music
    • better cross platform support (I use both Mac and Windows)
    I like Apple Music. I don’t listen to a lot of music, and it just works for me. I have several HomePod minis and it just works. Also, being able to ask Siri to play something while I’m in the car is very important to me.
    Apple Music. I have a very large library and am an album listener. AM is much better at library organization for me.
    Using Spotify Premium, and thanks to it I discovered a lot of great artists (just recently Yosi Horikawa) Once I switch to iPhone, I might give Apple Music a try.

    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.

    Spotify. I’m on a duo plan at $13/mo which is my ideal price point versus need. Apple Music only has individual or family plans, and the family plan is $17/mo.

    I like Spotify’s recommendations and the overall style of its app. That being said, I’m sure Apple Music is much better for privacy-oriented folks, given how much data Spotify seems to collect.

    I use Apple One family premier:

    www.apple.com/apple-one/

    Having lots of iCloud storage is handy, and I use the other services.

    Also, unless things have changed, Apple pays artists more than Spotify.

    Apple One

    Apple One bundles your Apple services into one low monthly payment. It’s the best way to enjoy Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, iCloud+, and more.

    Apple

    Apple Music, but not for any reason. Just because I use Apple devices and I’ve never given it any thought.

    As others have mentioned, I’ve not had an issue with the Apple recommendations, especially when it comes to “stations” - I think it does a good job of recommending similar artists, and I like it (but I’ve not used Spotify so don’t know if they’re better at it, or what better might look like).

    Just a reminder, Apple’s Lossless tech doesn’t work over Bluetooth (that’s a Bluetooth limitation not an Apple limitation) so if for example your regular speakers are connected via Bluetooth then Apple’s Lossless isn’t a good reason to move services since you won’t experience it most the time anyway.

    I would factor your primary device into your choice. I mostly control music via my iPhone, and the iOS music app is fine for that. Apple Music is… not ideal… on Mac, and if I used that as my primary controller I suspect I’d shop around for a better service. As an example of two baffling things that irritate me:

  • Playlists are listed in a different order on Mac compared to iOS. There is no reason for this except that Apple is careless.
  • Mac Apple Music sometimes throws a tantrum after e.g. a Zoom meeting and will refuse to produce any audio until you’ve closed and reopened the app. It does it with YouTube as well (e.g. you pause music to play a video, but when you unpause the music afterwards it won’t play). It’s erratic and has been reported elsewhere and is annoying.
  • I use both but overall prefer Apple.

    It is very nice to just open my Library tab by default without any pop ups or ads/suggestions/promotional anything.

    Also prefer the way Apple implements the way you go back to the main album/list.