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Apple Music vs. Spotify Compared

I'd like Apple Music more if they allowed you to actually improve your radio stations. To my knowledge, the like/dislike button only affects their recommendations and not the station you're listening to. I've encountered alot of repeat songs as well.
 
The big issue i have with Spotify: no offline playback on the Apple Watch. Why wont they give us this feature?
 
I’m happy with Apple Music’s ability to play music that it learned I love and suggest new songs and artists that match my admittedly complex tastes. I listen to everything from 80s rock and pop to Portuguese fado music and the ocasional country song, from alternative to soul. I love 80s hip hop but despise current rap/hip hop/trap. Yet, somehow Apple Music has figured all of this out and knows exactly what to play. It really has impressed me.

That said, I’d like to see Apple Music simplified. I always mix up For You and Browse and often have to go to both before finding the section I’m looking for. A simple Home/Search/Library like Spotify would work best.

I like the concept of radio in the digital era but Beats1 is way too US/UK centric. Far too much trap and grime. It’s time for Apple to set up Beats stations in major cities around the world. Have major shows and interviews play on all of them but let a local DJ/MC choose music that’s popular in that part of the world. When it comes to music, one size does not fit all.
 
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Spotify's discovery features really blow Apple out of the water (my tastes fit very poorly into Apple's curated ecosystem of industry-promoted genres).

Aside from that my roughly 6 month trial of Apple Music confounded me greatly trying to maintain my personally curated library of music separate from the streaming collection. In particular, Apple's metadata has been a disaster and I've extensively retagged my collections to suit my preferences for searching and sorting by genre, eliminating extraneous info from album titles, etc.

Enabling Apple music really screwed that all up royally and I don't want to risk wrecking everything I had to fix by turning it on again.

Aside from that, Spotify still totally wins for me over music discovery, something that will not likely change until Apple allows algorithms to improve discovery, which seems unlikely for the foreseeable future.
 
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Spotify is much easier to use in my opinion, but they’ve been making stupid UI choices lately such as hiding the repeat button and have lost features like song lyrics. I also find the mixing of local and streaming kind of confusing in iTunes/Apple Music. When it comes down to it I don’t think either is really any better than the other now, Spotify used to be way ahead.
 
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You forgot to mention Spotify also has official apps on PS4 / Xbox One.

From the mobile app, you can also sort songs within playlists by recently added, by name, or by artist.

Spotify iOS also has duplicate song detection when adding songs to a playlist (Apple Music doesn’t even though iTunes does...)
 
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Spotify has apps on everything. It's just much more accessible. It's music discovery is light years beyond apple. The UI is much better. The only drawback for me is no offline downloads for apple watch.
Apple's music just doesn't seem to get me. No matter how many songs I rate it just has very bizarre tastes in what it mixes together. And the audio quality is noticeably better on spotify.

Apple music isn't horrible, it's fine on a basic level. And it has gotten better since launch. It just has a long ways to go.
 
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Must be a slow news day...

Even being able to transfer all my content to Apple Music, I still greatly prefer the UI Spotify offers. They’ve been in the streaming game longer and know what they’re doing. I’m on board with almost everything Apple offers except for their streaming service.
 
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:apple:Music is a navigational clusterfook on :apple:TV & not much better on the iPhone, so much wasted space in its current incarnations! I’d much prefer it like the iTunes Store, but instead of buy, you just listen. I wouldn’t mind Spotify on :apple:TV, what do :apple: have to be scared of? As is, I guess I’m in for a long wait!:(
 
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AstroRob said:
Spotify's discovery features really blow Apple out of the water (my tastes fit very poorly into Apple's curated ecosystem of industry-promoted genres).

Aside from that my roughly 6 month trial of Apple Music confounded me greatly trying to maintain my personally curated library of music separate from the streaming collection. In particular, Apple's metadata has been a disaster and I've extensively retagged my collections to suit my preferences for searching and sorting by genre, eliminating extraneous info from album titles, etc.

Enabling Apple music really screwed that all up royally and I don't want to risk wrecking everything I had to fix by turning it on again.

Aside from that, Spotify still totally wins for me over music discovery, something that will not likely change until Apple allows algorithms to improve discovery, which seems unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

Yah I have not wanted to mix Apple Music and My Own Stuff, exactly over fear of losing my own metadata assignments over the years. At first I even kept AM on a spare laptop... then eventually just in its own library.

I just have to keep focus on the fact that AM for me is essentially rental of a welcome preview service; allowing me to hear and compare in their entirety different performances of long works like operas and box sets of symphonies, etc., before I spring for buying one of them in CD format. I suppose I could use Spotify in that way but so far have not been disappointed when I went to look for specific works in AM.

Generally I don't stream a lot of music except maybe on a Friday night looking for a little jazz by some players whose works I don't know. I'm more often looking for specific things I want to download and play through before shelling out for a CD. But your comments and those of others, relating to how Spotify curates what it offers, do sometimes make me curious to sample Spotify again since I have found the genres in iTunes and Apple music haphazard. Probably that's the distributors' call but Apple could encourage them to step up their game, no? I used Spotify briefly quite awhile ago, so my understanding of it now is way out of date. I just don't make time to give it another shot.
 
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AstroRob said:
Spotify's discovery features really blow Apple out of the water (my tastes fit very poorly into Apple's curated ecosystem of industry-promoted genres).

Aside from that my roughly 6 month trial of Apple Music confounded me greatly trying to maintain my personally curated library of music separate from the streaming collection. In particular, Apple's metadata has been a disaster and I've extensively retagged my collections to suit my preferences for searching and sorting by genre, eliminating extraneous info from album titles, etc.

Enabling Apple music really screwed that all up royally and I don't want to risk wrecking everything I had to fix by turning it on again.

Aside from that, Spotify still totally wins for me over music discovery, something that will not likely change until Apple allows algorithms to improve discovery, which seems unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

Yep. The three month trial that they gave away initially was not only a crapshoot in terms of discovery but it completely fkd up my iTunes library. To the extent that not only am I put off from Apple Music in terms of streaming, I’ve pretty much switched off iTunes and by extension the iTMS. Great thinking, Eddy. So it’s Apple’s incompetence that drive me to Spotify and I’ve not spent a penny buying a record since. Guarantee that doesn’t happen on Steve’s watch.
 
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cknibbs said:
Being able to upload my own tracks is what keeps me with Apple Music. That would be an important comparison to include.
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Did you read the article? That would be an important thing to do before suggesting points that are in fact already in the article:

Unlike Apple's Music app, one notable limitation of the Spotify app for iOS is that you can't merge local music stored on your device with your Spotify library -- you have to use the Local files feature in the desktop app to sync them across from your computer, and unfortunately it doesn't work as well as Apple's iCloud Music Library feature.
Click to expand...
 
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Beats 1 is the only reason why I use Apple Music over Spotify. If you’re not into dance music is hip hop, I understand it doesn’t provide that much value either. For me however it is my main way of discovering new music I wouldn’t have otherwise found.
 
i prefer A Music. but two little wishes.
1. Bookmarks: please Apple, when i restart the App i want to continue my last played playlist at the last played song. At the moment Apple Music starts always from zero.
2. Show „Like“ tags. At the moment you cant see your „like tagged“ songs. Only songs which like others are visible (the star tag). Apple please, make the heart visible.
 
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I actually prefer Spotify’s algorithms over Apple Music. I also prefer the equalizer that is included with the Spotify mobile app. Unfortunately the desktop Spotify Mac / PC app has no such option which leaves one to use a third party equalization add on which are really not that great. Until Spotify adds an equalizer it will be Apple Music for me.
 
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cknibbs said:
Being able to upload my own tracks is what keeps me with Apple Music. That would be an important comparison to include.
Click to expand...
Why does uploading your own tracks matter if you can a cess them anyway?

Not being mean, just wondering.
 
Yep, I have 2 Homepods, Apple tvs, iPhone and few iPads for the family

It really doesn’t make sense for me to hold on with Spotify (been using one since 2012). But I just gotta switch to Apple Music family plan for my wife and kids and enjoy Apple ecosystem as it is.

Owning many Apple products and NOT using  MUSIC is like the biggest sin of them all, might as well switch to google ecosystem and call it a day. Spotify works waaay better with google assistant, but pretty much nothing on Siri.

Apple music is excellent with Siri, and recent news is it’s coming to google home and assistant. That makes it even better service, and hopefully tighten up the numbers between both.
 
For us non US music listeners, Spotify has been much better with greater collection of music artists, not only English speaking ones.

Also it is soooo much easier to listen to music with Spotify when on the move with mobile network instead of the hoops that needs to be done for Apple Music to make it work without wifi.
 
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