Apple Music Now Has 36 Million Subscribers, Could Eclipse Spotify in United States This Year

[citysnaps]

Apple Music works fine for me. Excellent for exploration. Highly recommend Greatest Hits by Kate Smith and John Tesh.

 

[Abazigal]

I have trouble believing this. Free users still are bringing in income because of ad-revenue. Probably a lot of the revenue comes from that alone. Then you have premium users.

Revenue =/= costs. And the free tier is costing Spotify more in costs than what they bring in in terms of revenue. Meaning they are actually causing Spotify to lose money.

 

[SupaDav03]

Add me to the growing subscriber list. Just cancelled my Spotify subscription after 3 years and have moved to an Apple Music family plan this month. I find the services and music selection similar between the two but I wanted to HomePod intergration so I made the switch.

 

[genovelle]

I have trouble believing this. Free users still are bringing in income because of ad-revenue. Probably a lot of the revenue comes from that alone. Then you have premium users.

They are still loosing money hand over fist. Then they are partially owned by the big 6 record labels so they are extracting a chunk of the profits.

 

[ersan191]

Good to see so many people defending AM here - reading other threads you'd think everyone on this forum has a vendetta against it (and a huge boner for Spotify).

 

[xxray]

Not really happy to hear this tbh. I’m rooting for Spotify. I tried Apple Music, and I just didn’t like it at all.

• The interface was unintuitive and cluttered.
• There was regularly a delay when it came to playing/loading songs whereas Spotify always loads instantly.
• On Apple Music, if songs were released as a single at first and then was released as part of an album, the single that I saved to my library would become unplayable. When this happens on Spotify, the single is automatically updated with the album so the song you saved is always playable.
• Spotify has much better music recommendations in my experience (YMMV)
• Spotify makes it so easy to use with multiple devices. You can play it on your computer, but then control it from your phone. Apple Music doesn’t have this.
• Spotify has higher quality.

I really wanted to like Apple Music, due to the better integration with iOS, but it’s just all-around a much worse experience for me than Spotify.

 

[Baymowe335]

Spotify will sell itself to Google or another tech giant rather than going out of business.

Assumes anyone wants it. I’d guess they’d want the customers, but Apple can just slowly erode their business over time too.

 

[ersan191]

I'll give you that it's baked into the phone and can be used with Siri. However, you cannot handoff music at all, and with Spotify I can control the music playing from my Mac with my phone, my watch, etc. Spotify Connect. Allows you to hand off music from any device seamlessly, and control music playback from other devices, not just apple products. And it works insanely well.

So, Spotify works *between* devices much better than Apple Music does, and Apple Music works more integrated with a single device.

I use Spotify Connect between my MacBook Pro, and my iPhone all the time, and control music playback on my MacBook with my Apple Watch. None of that is possible at all with Apple Music.

Apple's version of handing off your music is AirPlay - if you don't have AirPlay compatible hardware that's on you.

 

[tkermit]

Apple should shift to an independent music app for desktop like Spotify's (which is really nice by the way

The Spotify app is useless for managing music compared to iTunes. Do they even support libraries that contain more than 10k songs yet?

 

[ersan191]

Not really happy to hear this tbh. I’m rooting for Spotify. I tried Apple Music, and I just didn’t like it at all.

• The interface was unintuitive and cluttered.
• There was regularly a delay when it came to playing/loading songs whereas Spotify always loads instantly.
• On Apple Music, if songs were released as a single at first and then was released as part of an album, the single that I saved to my library would become unplayable. When this happens on Spotify, the single is automatically updated with the album so the song you saved is always playable.
• Spotify has much better music recommendations in my experience (YMMV)
• Spotify makes it so easy to use with multiple devices. You can play it on your computer, but then control it from your phone. Apple Music doesn’t have this.
• Spotify has higher quality.

I really wanted to like Apple Music, due to the better integration with iOS, but it’s just all-around a much worse experience for me than Spotify.

1. Agreed, iTunes really is the worst part of it all.
2. There is no delay when playing songs on any platform, dunno how you experienced that.
3. I think this has been fixed, I haven't had it happen in a while.
4. Indeed, YMMV - I prefer AM, most seem prefer Spotify for recommendations.
5. AirPlay 2 is the solution to this, and will manage it better than Spotify (especially since Spotify Connect still can't play to multiple targets at once even though the feature has been pending for several years).
6. I'll give you a dollar if you can actually tell the difference between 256 AAC and 320 OGG. If you're a bitrate snob at least Tidal exists (for now). Some publications claim that 256 AAC sounds better than 320 OGG

 

[Cyberius11]

I switched from Spotify to Apple Music last year. Spotify was always having some sort of problem, like saying I was offline when I wasn't. I also struggled with the CarPlay app - it didn't let me browse through an entire playlist, it would limit the number for some reason. I haven't encountered those problems with Apple Music. I lost things like Spotify connect but I don't care enough to switch back. Apple Music has worked very well for me.

 

[nexusrule]

Spotify is probably better for people that have more mainstream/commercial music tastes. I have used both extensibely Apple Music has superior suggestions and far superior curated selections when it comes to jazz, indie, and more experimental music.

 

[Karma*Police]

Spotify is better. They offer more, have better algorithms and recommended playlists, and their user interface is also superior.

Apple is catching up because it’s preinstalled on all devices sold. That’s it.

While that may have been true year one of AM, I think you'll be surprised to learn that Spotify has fallen behind in every category you mentioned, especially UI. The only advantage Spotify has now is it works with more platforms, but for anyone in Apple's ecosystem, anyone not using AM is seriously missing out on a more seamless experience.

 

[ccraig13]

Spotify is superior in every way. Too bad Apple Music is gaining more subscribers. For many people, it’s just the default option because Apple pushes it so hard.

I could never give up the excellent music discovery on Spotify, nor could I live without Spotify Connect allowing me to seamlessly control playback from any device.

Dilly, dilly!

 

[tkermit]

Do music-streaming services let you cache a few hours of content? It'd be nice to be able to download a configurable number of hours of music while at home and then listen to it on-the-go without using data. It'd also be good for going hiking, camping, or boating in areas without data coverage.

I always make sure to have any Apple Music content downloaded right away. For all intents and purposes, my (downloaded) Apple Music tracks – 12k and counting – behave in exactly the same way that the tracks I've bought and own do. It's more appropriate to call them music subscription services as you aren't actually forced to stream any music at all.

 

[Scottsoapbox]

Or if you compare actual subscriber growth they are adding the same number of people each month (double % of half the number) so Apple won't catch them. #statistics #mathishard

 

[deanthedev]

You know, it just occurred to me it’s been quite some time since I’ve heard the CEO of Spotify complain about Apple taking a cut of subscriptions via in-App purchases. Seemed like every other month he was whining about it.

 

[convergent]

I switched from Apple Music to Spotify and like it better. As with most Apple things, its fine if you are only going to use Apple stuff ever. I switched because of the need to work with other products, and find that I've discovered a lot of new music through Spotify also. I hope that Apple, Amazon, and Google don't push Spotify out of business. That would be a shame. The other 3 can easily lose money on music if they choose... Spotify can't.

 

[Abazigal]

Or if you compare actual subscriber growth they are adding the same number of people each month (double % of half the number) so Apple won't catch them. #statistics #mathishard

If I read the article correctly, it states that Apple Music could potentially match Spotify in terms of subscribers for the US market only, as AM currently has a small lead in terms of subscriber growth.

Though if you ask me, Spotify is using so many trial subscriptions to pad its numbers that its no longer relevant. Start breaking out profitability and let’s see how long Spotify can still hang around at its current rate.

 

[Tech198]

It continues to amaze me the the percentage of subscribers Apple Music gets is growing, not dropping, despite all the problems.

eg.. song license expires, but still visually is shows as the replacement. so now u have two tracks both pointing to the same song in Apple music. I believe this is why Apple gave the user the "Download" sidebar, so you can clearly distinguishes what you have downloaded compared to your library. but it does not "solve" the problem, it only gets around it.

And users are "still" not put off by this as AM keeps increasing..

What would it take for them to move to Spotify i wonder ? Apple just discontinued the service?

 

[4jasontv]

Dilly, dilly!

I love this response! What a perfect way to point out how the more popular choice tastes like crap.

 

[mrial]

I wonder how many are like me and plan to start Apple Music when my HomePod arrives. I’d expect a bump in AM next week.

 

[ersan191]

It continues to amaze me the the percentage of subscribers Apple Music gets is growing, not dropping, despite all the problems.

eg.. song license expires, but still visually is shows as the replacement. so now u have two tracks both pointing to the same song in Apple music. I believe this is why Apple gave the user the "Download" sidebar, so you can clearly distinguishes what you have downloaded compared to your library. but it does not "solve" the problem, it only gets around it.

And users are "still" not put off by this as AM keeps increasing..

What would it take for them to move to Spotify i wonder ? Apple just discontinued the service?

You claimed there are a lot of problems with AM but only listed one obscure one that doesn’t affect most people.

 

[Shirasaki]

I enjoyed my free trial. But not enough to keep subscribing.

Too many subscription services, so I chose not to subscribe to any.

I know I’m in the minority.

I hate sub as well. But I have no choice but to sub to some critical applications.

Numerically most don’t, but then again the same was said of cable, and here we are.

I love wired device. More secure, zero latency, “it just works”. For headphone, no battery. Sure wire tangles. But wireless suffers signal interference as well.

Which is confusing to me why people rush to purchase products and services that only work with each other?
[doublepost=1517771462][/doublepost]

Happy Birthday!

Because they volunteer to be a beta tester. iPhone X users are beta testers as well.

Thanks! At this age you need all the good wishes you can gather.

Yeah. And happy birthday from a soon-to-be-old person.

You may be in the minority, but I have a feeling it’s a very significant minority.

Yup. Judging by the fact that many more wired headphone is sold in Australia than wireless headphone, and the price, I don’t think this minority will disappear anytime soon.

 

[OTACORB]

Lot of Spotify fans of which I am not. It is true that Apple Music comes on all Apple Products, but that isn't what would cause someone to stay with Apple Music. Like myself I know many that got Spotify, but in the end picked Apple Music. The good news is there is competition. The bad news for Spotify is with 70 million paying subscribers they aren't making any money because of their free tier. Apple has the ability to actually lose money with Apple Music and sustain long term without anyone else having to give them money. No so for Spotify... they have had so many invest in them. Long term I do hope they make it because as I said "competition is a good thing".

I've seen many say Spotify is better in terms of music discovery, but Apple is pretty darn good and Apple is far from just being for new music. I create many, many list and it's hard to find any music that isn't on Apple. However, there has been some older music I was unable to find on Spotify. Does Spotify still have all that karaoke crap?