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Apple Music Is the World's Second Most Popular Music Streaming Service Behind Spotify

JippaLippa said:
I don't mind Spotify users liking the service, but I fail to understand why Apple Music is so much criticised, and personally I love it.
I also think it really delivers a lot for the price you pay.
The only troubles are UI related.
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I've had both, and eventually kept Spotify mainly because its personalized playlists work *much* better for me. I use "Discover Weekly" and some of the others all the time and they are usually spot-on, whereas Apple Music would keep pushing hip-hop and recent pop stuff on me no matter how often I "unliked" it. I also love browsing playlists created by other people, and that works much better on Spotify. Another minor factor was that my car's infotainment system has Spotify built in but not Apple Music.
 
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Rigby said:
I've had both, and eventually kept Spotify mainly because its personalized playlists work *much* better for me. I use "Discover Weekly" and some of the others all the time and they are usually spot-on, whereas Apple Music would keep pushing hip-hop and recent pop stuff on me no matter how often I "unliked" it. I also love browsing playlists created by other people, and that works much better on Spotify. Another minor factor was that my car's infotainment system has Spotify built in but not Apple Music.
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Fair enough.
 
its easy to listen to Spotify on multiple platforms, not so much with Apple Music. This is a big reason why people choose Spotify over apple
 
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I wish that Apple apps can be updated without waiting for a whole new iOS update. They can do with the iWork apps, and the iLife apps, certainly they can do it with Apple Music!
 
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I believe it and for the music I enjoy, I found it to be better than the competitors. I suspect a lot will depend on what genres you are into.
 
dontwalkhand said:
I wish that Apple apps can be updated without waiting for a whole new iOS update. They can do with the iWork apps, and the iLife apps, certainly they can do it with Apple Music!
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It’s build in iOS I think that’s why they can’t, I’m not an expert so if I’m wrong about it, love to hear more about the subject if they could just update the app instead the whole OS
 
ZipZilla said:
Spotify's Mac desktop app is far superior to Apple Music on the app. It has a responsive, quick UI. It is easy to find things and songs stream immediately.

Apple Music, on the other hand, is slow and clunky, full of bugs and doesn't work half the time. It's the worst Mac App I use (and it's from Apple, on their own platform.)

I know people say this all the time, but it's true: Steve is spinning in his grave.
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I would agree. For better or worse*, Steve was really enthused about making music more accessible and that the new accessibly a delightful experience. I was all in, but then the iTunes UI had just gotten clunky, ugly, and confusing … it was going backwards IMO. I pretty much stopped stopped using (then iTunes) once I got Spotify.

*I say "worse" because as least part of me believes music is now too accessible, and thus devalued … not as special as it once was.
 
I recently switched to Spotify to take advantage of their free trial, but I would switch back to Apple Music if these things happened:

  1. Folders for Apple Music curated Playlists. This is my number one issue with Apple Music. You have so many playlists and Apple provides great playlists (I love some of the Country playlists) but they are all in a list and it's hard to navigate, especially when you are driving.
  2. Update to Windows Itunes. I actually don't have a problem with Itunes, but it is so old fashioned from what Apple Music is now
  3. Stats that update right away. I remember when Itunes first came out and you would sync the Ipod or Iphone and it would automatically increase the play counts. It doesn't do that anymore (It would take up to 20 hours to update play stats. I guess using Itunes so much I have this thing about Stats that I enjoy and wish Apple adapted it to work properly. Also, I joined Last.fm and if you play songs from Windows, it doesn't work with Last.fm (I can't get the app to work).
  4. Clarification on what I need for lossless audio and what I should be hearing for. I'm still confused about that whole thing and Apple doesn't do a good job explaining it for idiots like me. :(
  5. A better Android App. I'm on Android now and the Apple Music app was kinda slow and took up a lot of storage. I switched to Spotify and downloaded a lot of music and it doesn't take up that much storage.
 
groove-agent said:
I subscribe to Apple Music but feel it has room to improve. To me it has a lacklustre user experience overall, and there are a lot of features it should have that it doesn't. For example, if you play/ discover music on your Mac, while on your phone you should be able to look at the recently played playlist to find it or simply be able to "hand off" that music to other devices. Maybe there's another way to do it, but to me it's not obvious. I wish you should control the playback on other devices like Spotify does (although you could airplay it). I've had a couple situations where that would be handy.
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Some good points. What I would like to see is the ability to bookmark stations or playlists without adding to your library. For instance every one in a while I listen to a station from TuneIn. Then maybe a few weeks later I want to listen again. But if it not on my recently played list I have to search again. Worst is CarPlay can’t search for off-site music.
 
swingerofbirch said:
And why is every app with Apple part of an OS update? Spotify updates constantly regardless of your OS version. Someone mentioned above Apple is retooling Apple Music with an OS update. Why are other developers able to just update their apps so seamlessly?
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Most Apple devices and apps are connected and reliant upon each other within their ecosystem. If you update one app/OS, you usually have to update all of them otherwise things break fast.
 
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I have YouTube Premium and always forget that it includes YouTube Music. I've never once used it and I don't even know how. I don't see a music section in the YouTube app. I wish they would decouple the service because the price of YouTube Music used to be lower and I signed up after they raised the price and combined it with music. I have everything setup just how I like it with Apple Music, my HomePod mini, my AirPods Pro spatial audio and family sharing and don't need more, inferior music!
 
Rigby said:
Spotify is not the problem, the labels are. Spotify keeps about 25% of the revenue, the labels take about 60%. The artist gets the remaining 15%.

In any case, Spotify has almost single-handedly saved the music industry after its collapse in the 00's.
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No, I am my own label for my own music so I can see the difference between the different streaming sevices. Nothing of that is going to any other pocket than my own. And there's a pretty big difference. Now there are a lot of free users on Spotify that generates extremely small amounts of money that is part of the issue.
 
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Can someone verify for me, Spotify currently doesn't have support for airplay 2 right? I just downloaded Spotify because everyone seems to give the app high praise but I don't see a way to airplay to multiple devices. When using apple music I can select the Apple TV and the HomePod making a really cool full sound. But the Spotify app doesn't have this support, I assume due to ongoing beef between the companies.

Is it a true statement that if you use AirPlay to send Audio to multiple devices you cannot use Spotify?
 
Apple Music has the biggest library, according to their numbers.
Is it 75 or 90 million?
I grew up with AM (radio). It is free with commercials.
These days terrestrial radio is annoying.
I live in an area too far from San Francisco to receive FM.
Nobody plays “my music.”
I know where to find my kinda tunes online.
Spotify is just a part of it.
Yeah, Spotify ads are more than some of my other options.
They pride themselves on ad customization.
The more people who pay for no ads, the fewer custom ads they can create.
There are web music services that have no option for ad free.
I prefer having a service that selects songs for me, like radio.
So Spotify isn’t a favorite.
Nothing is more exciting for me than hearing a song I haven’t heard, or thought about, in a long.
I love beautiful music and just about anything that spins at 78 RPM.
“The older the violin, the sweeter the music.”

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dz5b609 said:
I would love to see total hours listened as a metric, because correct me if I'm wrong but the only reason Amazon music is on that list is because of it's inclusion in Prime not because anyone actually uses it.
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The article seems to imply that it's actual listeners (dunno how they figure this stuff out though). Otherwise, if it's just subscribers, then yeah, that doesn't mean much. I have Amazon Prime and mainly use it for online shopping and Prime Video (although those 2 haven't seen much action in recent years). I know a couple of folks who have Apple One, but they never touch Apple Music (although next time I run into them, I'll ask since I'm curious now. A main reason they've gotten Apple One was they're Apple fans are on both iOS and MacOS).
 
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If Apple Music’s software and interface were as good as Spotify’s I would gladly ditch Spotify. But it’s not. On Spotify it’s way easier to find new music I like. It’s way easier to find music I already know. Playlists and podcasts are much easier to find and navigate.

The only advantage of Apple Music is lossless and integration with my HomePods. But even on HomePods I prefer to just stream Spotify from my phone.
 
swingerofbirch said:
The Apple Music app on macOS alone is a reason for me not to use Apple Music. I tried it recently and it became demonic. I signed into my Apple account so it showed all of my previous iTunes purchases. After hitting play, for some reason it would try to play a song then go instantly to the next one without actually playing it, and because there were music videos in the library it kept switching in and out of full screen mode on its own. It was an absolute mess of an experience. I kept hitting stop but it had taken over the computer and insisted on continuing to play the next song and would switch to full screen for a music video but then not play it and switch right out for the next song, which it also wouldn't play, going through thousands of old songs one after another and not playing any of them.

I remember there was a recent version of iTunes as well where just creating playlists (something Apple had perfected) was so convoluted. They either eliminated drag and drop or made it very confusing—I can't remember which. There was instead something with a Done button. I can't remember exactly. If you need a Done button to make a playlist, you've messed up.

Spotify on the other hand works much like Apple software used to. It just works. When you start dragging a song it's very clear where your targets are. Everything is a "link" you can drag and drop, whether in the search results or now playing section.

I really have no reason to pick one over the other based on the catalog (in fact given that I have old iTunes purchases, it should give Apple an edge), so it's a pretty bad testament that Apple's own first party software is so bad I would choose Spotify based on its superior software. I really don't understand how--not even considering large companies like Spotify--there are small companies with a few employees that make indie Mac software that is so much better than the native apps Apple puts outs. I don't do anything mobile so I can't compare the iOS apps. I'm a desktop luddite with an Airport Express connected to bookshelf speakers. Maybe too old school for Apple to care about as much.

And why is every app with Apple part of an OS update? Spotify updates constantly regardless of your OS version. Someone mentioned above Apple is retooling Apple Music with an OS update. Why are other developers able to just update their apps so seamlessly?
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I'm just trying out YouTube Music on my MBP as we speak. Didn't even know it was a thing until this article. So far I'm liking it. I struggle to like Spotify, even though I've given it a few goes, and quite frankly it just sucks. I don't even dare try Apple Music.
 
blizzerand said:
This is actually true for Apple Music too. Apple Music offers 6 months & 3 months free trial (I think I've gone almost a whole year on free trial without purchasing any new device) & I've seen Apple go up to 90% discounted plans to counter Spotify here in India.
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Fair enough point. What I was trying to say is that focusing on market share and some imaginary “Apple vs Spotify” war overlooks the inconvenient fact that Spotify is still having immense difficulties turning a profit.

Apple Music is stealing market share from developed countries, leading Spotify to increasingly court users in developing countries, which in turn entails steep discounts. This shows in their rising ARPU (average revenue per user).

Spotify has tried pivoting to podcasts (maybe they think that less time spent listening to music means less money paid to labels), and then resorted to inserting ads in podcasts. The problem is that as people consequently spend less time listening, ad revenue will similarly be affected as well. And there is always the ever-present threat of Google and Facebook when it comes to dominating ad revenue.

Arguing that Spotify is better in this area or that may not mean much in the larger scheme of things if they ultimately end up merging or being acquired by another company (something I feel is always on the cards) simply because they can’t find a sustainable business model despite having tens of millions of users and maybe that’s the real takeaway here - music stream is more a platform feature than a sustainable business model.

Or as the saying goes - The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind
 
I signed up for Spotify cause of their free tier with commercial. If Apple Music had that option, I would give it a try.
 
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jamcgahey said:
So I have used both for a very long time and I think if you used apple music a couple years ago, this is true. But, in my opinion, it is very false now. AM has released a lot of indie playlists over the past couple years. Some of my favorites are Rise and Grind (pop punk) and Metalcore (its in the name) and these are updated regularly. The more you play the indie bands the more recommendations you get through your personally curated playlists. Everyone's experience is different. I think both services are good, I personally found that the indie playlists I valued in spotify were not updated as often as their apple music counterparts. But that doesn't mean you experienced something different. Just saying this may be a subjective argument.
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Maybe its worth another shot. Thanks :)
 
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ksec said:
Is funny you get one downvote. People cant handle objective truth.
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It's not an "objective truth" - it's an opinion. Period - and opinions are far far removed from objective truths.

An objective truth is saying "I subscribe to Spotify" or "I subscribe to Apple Music".

Depending who who's saying it, they are Objective Truths".

Saying that "Spotify has the better UI" is purely an opinion.
 
Apple music is without question the buggiest software and platform Apple's ever released, I tried to use it and it got buggy and bad I had to painfully revert back to Spotify.
 
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