Apple Music Beats Spotify, Pandora, and Others in J.D. Power Customer Satisfaction Study

[freediverx]

come on. these are bunk. they've been bunk in the automotive world, They're basically the equivelant of "pay to win" ratings

So you're suggesting Apple bribed JD Power to give Apple Music a higher score?
[doublepost=1475097222][/doublepost]

I'll make it easy for you. Which of these can Apple Music do?

1) Choice of bitrate for both streaming and offline content (with extreme bitrate for paid users)
2) Ability to use any client as a remote for another
3) Personal weekly playlists based on personal behaviour
4) Ability to download any track at no cost, for as long as you're a subscriber
5) A web client
6) Integration with any offline content on your computer/iDevice
7) Social streams for seeing what friends are listening to
8) Public and private (discoverable/shared) playlists
9) An integrated app marketplace for the desktop
10) I'm sure I'm missing more...

From that list, only one item is of any interest to me, and I don't consider it a priority.

For me, the biggest benefit to Apple Music is the integration across all of my devices and the presentation of streamed music and music I own in a single interface/app.

 

[6836838]

So you're suggesting Apple bribed JD Power to give Apple Music a higher score?
[doublepost=1475097222][/doublepost]

From that list, only one item is of any interest to me, and I don't consider it a priority.

For me, the biggest benefit to Apple Music is the integration across all of my devices and the presentation of streamed music and music I own in a single interface/app.

That's great, so you're a mainstream guy. Be happy! Read my previous posts - some of us prefer a more refined experience, so rejoice competition. It mean a better place for all of us.

 

[freediverx]

That's great, so you're a mainstream guy. Be happy! Read my previous posts - some of us prefer a more refined experience, so rejoice competition. It mean a better place for all of us.

I agree competition is good. And for what it's worth, I don't like exclusivity deals regardless of who does them.

I don't recall seeing anything on that list that would differentiate "mainstream" from non-mainstream users, whatever that means. When I see the word mainstream used in this context, I think in terms of musical tastes, not an insistence on edge case features. Those features also have nothing to do with refinement.

 

[Johnny907]

But Apple Music sucks, so how does Android leadership Recommend we best explain on blogs why they aren't on the bottom well behind Spotify? Biased survey? Math error? Trump effect?

Standing by for further instructions from leadership

Your Loyal Apple Hater

That's the thing though Truther, *no one* is at the bottom of this survey. As I said, all of the services did better than 80%, and there was less than a 2% difference between the highest rated and the lowest rated. Why do the circles and the graphs not reflect what the hard numbers clearly do? Easy: that's not the narrative they are pushing and it would be a boring announcement otherwise. "Apple beats all others" sells better than "everyone loves streaming music, Apple marginally more than others." Why did Apple Music place 1% higher than Spotify or Pandora? I haven't a clue. Statistically speaking, the difference is so minuscule as to be completely irrelevant, frankly, and had nothing to do with my post.

 

[riverfreak]

The latest update to Apple Music has made it much more usable. The daily genre playlists are also much better and easier to find. It used to be so difficult to find either user generated playlists or genre playlists.

There are user-generated playlists? I only see the official apple sanctioned playlists and some from a few celebrity users. Are there others? Is there a way to make public playlists that others can subscribe to ala Spotify?

 

[shaunp]

I see a lot of bad reviews for Spotify in the App Store - but these mostly people who do not know what free vs premium is, and complain about commercials. I personally love Spotify.

Me too. I've tried Apple Music and I still prefer the Spotify App. Personal preference, but that's the good thing about having multiple services.

 

[Nabby51]

Last time I checked Apple Music doesn't integrate with my Amazon Echo so it's a non-starter for me.

 

[macUser2007]

I've tried all the major platforms and Google Play Music is the best as far as catalog selection goes.

Apple Music is the second best and Spotify has the worst catalog (too many covers instead of original songs). Not apparent on mainstream stuff, but if you search for less popular titles, Spotify just sucks.

Pandora has by far the best algorithm for creating stations based on a song or an artist, IMO. Well worth paying for it too, particularly if you have Alexa or Echo connected to a sound system.

Amazon Prime Music is the worst, IMO.

 

[trellus]

Tried Apple Music for free, was unimpressed. For one, the catalog is much smaller than Spotify's, and for another, it is stuck on Apple platforms or iTunes on Windows.

I use Spotify on Chromebook, my TiVo, my iPhone, my Kindle Fire, Windows, my Mac... works fine on all those platforms. Don't like being locked into a limited platform without any apparent advantages, either (catalog, for example).

 

[TMRJIJ]

Lol ridiculous! Also Apple Music users most likely have less musical ears given the desire we witness here for BT headphones etc. I think Spotify users are a little more demanding and refined in their musical needs!

I am a musician and I can definitely notice the difference between the audio quality of both streaming services. I also have lots of headphones (each with different use cases) and even the cheapest 'Bluetooth' headphones I have completely roasts Apple EarPods.
Spotify has better sound quality but I choose Apple Music because it seamlessly adds my "streaming" music to my local library.

 

[CarlJ]

I also have lots of headphones (each with different use cases) and even the cheapest 'Bluetooth' headphones I have completely roast both Apple EarPods

Okay, plausible assessment...

and possibly the new AirPods.

Wait, what? How long have you spent listening to the AirPods? I thought only a select few media people had the new AirPods for testing/review? Are you one of them? If not how do you substantiate claiming that your headphones "completely roast" the AirPods? Or is this like claiming "I am taller than possibly the Empire State Building", where the word "possibly" in the middle means that the rest of the sentence is just meaningless noise?

 

[TMRJIJ]

Okay, plausible assessment...Wait, what? How long have you spent listening to the AirPods? I thought only a select few media people had the new AirPods for testing/review? Are you one of them? If not how do you substantiate claiming that your headphones "completely roast" the AirPods? Or is this like claiming "I am taller than possibly the Empire State Building", where the word "possibly" in the middle means that the rest of the sentence is just meaningless noise?

I'll retract that last part until I actually get my hand on it. The few reviews I seen all say that the sound quality is nearly identical to its wired predecessor but I'll hold off until it releases to see if it's true or not.

 

[truthertech]

I'll retract that last part until I actually get my hand on it. The few reviews I seen all say that the sound quality is nearly identical to its wired predecessor but I'll hold off until it releases to see if it's true or not.

Ahh! A rare, but refreshing bit of honest reflection on MR

 

[Bacillus]

Pffeh..., it took a lot of effort to find a bureau that fullfilled "Please find out a population and target it with rates and numbers so that AM's relative advantage becomes > 1 over Spotify"
Guess they'd be rewarded accordingly...

 

[malexandria]

Considering Apple Music has a habit of destroying people's legally purchased music and music libraries it's a mystery to me how anyone can be satisfied with Apple's garbage music and match service. It's a DESTRUCTIVE service. At least other ones are smart enough NOT to touch your music and actually operates in a separate folder.

 

[6836838]

I am a musician and I can definitely notice the difference between the audio quality of both streaming services. I also have lots of headphones (each with different use cases) and even the cheapest 'Bluetooth' headphones I have completely roasts Apple EarPods.
Spotify has better sound quality but I choose Apple Music because it seamlessly adds my "streaming" music to my local library.

Fair play, but you know you're also able to save music with Spotify?

Couldn't agree more about the AirPods. One of the most overlooked thing with in-ears is the fit/seal. That's why I went for custom tips. I can't recommend this more highly.

 

[MRDuke]

Nice results, but I miss the error bar here. The scores are so clos together. #1 to #8 are less then 2% different. I think npmacuser5 is right. Lots of people like to stream music on demand.
Oops, now I see I'm not the only one with this comment

 

[Keane16]

Be shocked. There is a huge difference with high bitrate streaming (as is offered by Spotify).

Apple Music uses 256Kbps AAC and Spotify at the Extreme setting uses 320Kbps Ogg Vorbis. They're both comparable in terms of quality (Kbps isn't comparable across encoding types similar to Mhz across CPU architectures).

The differences will be in mastering, source material, encoding etc. Plus these variables differ track to track too.

Overall it will be negligible at best. Choosing one service over the other for quality reasons seems pointless.

 

[bobmepp]

Lol ridiculous! Also Apple Music users most likely have less musical ears given the desire we witness here for BT headphones etc. I think Spotify users are a little more demanding and refined in their musical needs!

I spent several hours comparing identical tracks on Spotify and Apple Music. I found Spotify tended to have a slight fuzzy edge to the sound, while Apple Music's sound was cleaner, especially on loud passages of classical music. But then I am an Apple Music user, so I must be less demanding and have less musical ears, so you will certainly disregard what I just said. Your sophisticated generalizations have to be inherently more accurate than my specific observations, especially since I am necessarily less refined not being a Spotify user.

 

[isanka]

I'm very in between with this service. but the design is so cool.

 

[hkoster1]

My new ISP is throwing in a "free" Spotify Premium account. I've tried it for a while and like it, so I've decided to ditch Apple Music. But now I find that the Airport Express does not stream Spotify, so farewell Airport Express and hello Google Chromecast...