Seems like a waste of money doing that, to be honest. Apple Music is good enough to just pay and use that.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Music vs. Spotify Compared
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
100k may be too much for any sane person. But 10k isn’t that far ahead. I’ve seen enthusiasts collected more than 500 CD albums. That’s easily close to 10k tracks in total.
Anyhow, AM’s limit is better. The least Spotify could do is match what AM offers.
It is still crazy. Maybe cause I rarely have a chance to watch tv or listen to music. I couldn’t imagine having more than 1,000 tracks on my phone. And trying to listen to them. Most of those songs would never be heard by me.
It's easy to get up to 10,000 and pass it. I have had a digital library, in some form, since 1998. I used to rip to 64kbps WMA for my Rio 600 portable player with 32MB of built-in storage and an additioanl 64MB through a proprietary memory backpack. Their software was ahead of the curve as it supported CD ripping, ratings, auto-playlists, etc. Back then, I only had 20 or so CDs. I joined Columbiahouse and my CD collection increased to 80 albums by 1999 and then to 300 albums by 2003 when I purchased my first iPod. I migrated to MusicMatch because that's what iPods originally synced with and then iTunes was released. Even back then, I had more than 1000 songs on my iPod.
My point is that 10,000 songs is an absolute joke for any service, especially the number one service. It is something that people have complained about ever since Spotify first started and they've contiually ignored people. The only thing they've done about that is increase the download limit from 3333 songs (per device, up to 3 devices) to 10,000 songs (per device, up to 3 devices). But library caps are still 10,000 songs. With some people having subscribed to Spotify for 11 years now, it would be easy for them to hit the 10,000 song cap if they haven't already. No music service should limit their customers like that.
Shared playlists Apple. Family members cannot tribute to a mutual playlist
Apple Music and Spotify are the biggest players in the music streaming space -- and for good reason. Spotify essentially created the market as it exists today and has millions more users globally than any other service, but Apple Music is catching up, thanks to its deep integration in Apple's popular iOS ecosystem.
Both Spotify and Apple Music offer as much music and related content as your ears could handle - including exclusive new releases from top artists - and all of it can be streamed ad-free (with Spotify's paid tier) or downloaded for offline play. So which is the best option for you? Keep reading as we pit the two services against each other.
Subscriptions and Price Plans
An individual Apple Music subscription costs $9.99 per month in the United States, with slight price variations in other countries and territories. Likewise, an individual Spotify subscription or "Premium" plan costs $9.99 per month, with some regional variations. In addition to its paid plan, Spotify also offers a free ad-supported service that allows users to shuffle-play songs, although premium features remain off limits.
Both services offer student and family plans for $4.99 per month and $14.99 per month, respectively. Spotify's student offering currently includes additional access to an ad-supported Hulu TV plan and unlimited access to the SHOWTIME streaming service. Apple Music and Spotify family plans meanwhile are very similar. Up to six people can access the services using a personal account for each family member, with the exception that Apple Music members can also share iTunes purchases in addition to catalog content. Apple Music does, however, require all family members to use the same credit card for App Store purchases.
Both Apple Music and Spotify memberships automatically renew each month, but you can cancel renewal at any time and your subscription will run out at the end of your current billing cycle. A canceled Spotify premium subscription reverts your account to the free, ad-supported service at the end of the current billing cycle. (Related: How to cancel an Apple Music subscription)
Free Trials
Apple Music offers a free three-month trial of its paid service, which converts to a paid membership unless the user cancels before the trial period is over.
Spotify also offers a free trial of its Premium plan, but it only lasts for 30 days before billing begins, although you do have the option to use the free plan for as long as you want if you need more time to make up your mind about the service.
Libraries and Offline Listening
All paid Apple Music and Spotify plans give you access to a huge catalog of songs when you sign up. Apple Music boasts 50 million songs in its catalog, while Spotify subscribers have the pick of "over 35 million" songs, so regardless of which one has the most content, both allow you to build up a large collection of music.
However when it comes to offline listening, there are limits. Apple Music users can download a maximum of 100,000 songs to their library, and using Apple's iCloud Music Library feature these can be synced across devices signed into the same Apple ID. Spotify Premium members can download up to 10,000 songs on each of up to 5 different devices, but this number doesn't include saved playlists.
Offline listening on the services covers songs, video content, concerts and artist exclusives. In addition, Spotify subscribers have access to audiobooks and podcasts, and the company is known to be investing heavily in its podcasts offering, so users can expect a lot more content in this department soon.
Streaming quality
Apple Music streams 256kbps AAC files, while Spotify uses the Ogg Vorbis format and lets you choose the bitrate depending on how you're listening. On mobile you can elect to stream in Low (24 kbit/s), Normal (96 kbit/s), High (160 kbit/s) or Very High (320 kbit/s) quality.
Apart from audiophiles, most listeners probably won't notice much difference between the highest-quality Spotify and Apple Music streams of the same song, but Spotify's ability to select the bitrate can come in handy if you're worried about using up your cellular data.
Mobile, Desktop, and Web Apps
The Apple Music catalog is accessed within the Music app, which has a clean white interface and comes pre-installed on every iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, and is available as a separate downloadable app on Android devices. Spotify's apps have a contrasting uniform black interface and are also available on both iOS and Android.
The Apple Music mobile app is organized into tabs to access your music library, browse the Apple Music catalog, and listen to radio stations, while a "For You" tab lets you check out suggestions based on your listening preferences. The Spotify mobile app has a similar tabbed format, giving you access to listening recommendations, a catalog search function, and your library.
Both apps are easy to navigate and include fullscreen media players that showcase album art as you listen. These screens also put add-to-playlist, sharing, song queuing, and audio device options at your fingertips, with Apple Music having the advantage of 3D Touch support on compatible devices, allowing you to quickly access additional menus.
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.
On desktop, Apple Music subscribers can access the service through the iTunes app for Mac and PC. Apple Music in iTunes is largely based on the same format as the mobile app, but it's not quite as pretty. It's also a little less navigable, but it does have one trick up its sleeve: Smart Playlists. These can be automatically generated by iTunes based on genre, date added, loved/disliked, and so on, meaning you don't have to manually build playlists yourself if you don't want to.
Spotify also offers apps for Mac and PC. They recreate the mobile interface for desktop well, and are slimmer and easier to navigate than iTunes, which feels bloated in comparison.
In addition, Spotify offers a handy web player for accessing the service from any web browser, which is convenient if you want to access the service on a computer that doesn't have the Spotify app installed (your office PC, for example). Apple Music still lacks an equivalent, but subscribers can use a free third-party web player called Musish, although it's currently in development and still missing a few features.
Discovery Features
When you sign up for Apple Music, Apple asks you to select some of your favorite artists so that the service can get a sense of your tastes. Using this information, Apple Music populates its regularly updated For You section with new releases, daily mixes and playlists to appeal to your preferences. Playlists can take on a style (pop or jazz, for example), a particular artist, or even a particular activity like studying.
Comparatively, Spotify's Home screen is where the service's personalization is centered. Discover Weekly is added every Monday morning, and delivers a two-hour playlist of personalized music recommendations based on your listening habits, as well as the habits of other users who listen to similar artists. Meanwhile, Daily Mixes playlists feature tracks and artists in a certain genre that you've been listening to, plus a few additional recommendations, while Release Radar is a playlist of new releases recommended just for you.
While Spotify's Home screen also features new releases and "Made for Everyone" playlists categorized into genres and moods, Apple Music's non-personalized content lives in a separate Browse tab showcasing trending artists and playlists, top charts, and music videos. Browse is also home to a TV and films section that features Apple-made programming like "Carpool Karaoke" and artist documentaries.
Apple Music's Radio tab features curated music stations tuned to your listening habits as well as Apple's Beats 1 radio station. Beats 1 offers live radio 24 hours a day, and also plays a big part in the platform's music discovery. The Radio tab also has an archive of its most popular radio shows and playlists from years past.
Spotify doesn't really have an equivalent, although when you create a station from a song, album, artist, or playlist, Spotify Radio creates picks the music for you, and while Apple Music has the same feature, Spotify's suggestion algorithm is generally much better. On the flip side, Apple Music's Search tab includes the option to search the Apple Music catalog using a lyric phrase, which is really handy when you don't know or can't remember the name of a song.
Music Sharing
Both services allow you to follow friends who are also subscribers and share playlists with them that you've personally created. Spotify and Apple Music also let you share song links via text or over social media. In the Spotify desktop app you can see what song your friends are currently listening to, provided they choose to share this information. Similarly, Apple Music's For You tab shows what your friends are listening to if you've connected to them.
Speakers and Voice Assistants
As an Apple Music subscriber, you can use Siri as a personal DJ to control song playback, queue up songs, find song facts, add songs to your library, play your favorite playlists, or even play something new. This is a big advantage Apple Music has over Spotify, which requires a more complicated solution using Siri Shortcuts to get Siri to play nice with the Spotify app, and even then it lacks many equivalent features.
Apple's HomePod speaker is essentially made to be used in conjunction with Apple Music. In fact, one of the main reasons for Siri on HomePod is to control your Apple Music collection. There are Siri voice commands for accessing content like playlists, genres, moods, liking or disliking songs, playing more music based on something you've heard, starting a new radio station, and much more. None of these functions will work with a Spotify subscription -- you can stream audio to HomePod from a device running the Spotify app, but that's it.
On the plus side, Spotify supports lots of different third-party devices, from game consoles to smart speakers. And if you own an Amazon Alexa-enabled speaker you can link it to both Apple Music and Spotify, but check your region first as support can vary depending on where you live.
Listening in the Car
Apple's CarPlay system supports Spotify and, of course, Apple Music. If a car doesn't have CarPlay, most newer models have their own entertainment systems, which often make it easy to connect your chosen streaming service. Usually you can do so either direct from a built-in app, over Bluetooth, or via a cable connection.
Apple Music highlights
[*]Seamless integration with Apple's eco-system
[*]Beats live radio and archive
[*]Human curated recommendations
[*]Social features
[*]Support for uploading/matching your own music files
[*]Works natively with HomePod
Spotify highlights
[*]Extensive playlist selection
[*]Official web player
[*]Excellent personalization algorithms
[*]Free ad-supported tier
Summing up
If you're just looking for a free music streaming service and you don't mind ads, Spotify is the obvious choice. However if you're willing to pay, choosing between Apple Music and Spotify gets tricky. If you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem (perhaps you own an Apple TV or a HomePod as well as an iPhone) then the decision should be easier, given Apple Music's hardware integration and its ability to import your existing iTunes music library. But if these aren't considerations, Spotify is certainly a strong alternative, thanks to its excellent music discovery and personalization features.
Article Link: Apple Music vs. Spotify
How is Apple Music less if you’re paying $120/year vs. $25/year? I already have a huge library and care very little about today’s mainstream music. Everything that I care about was made from the 60s to early 2000s. I wish it weren’t this way but it’s out of my control.
I honestly don’t really even “need” iTunes Match. I just feel like the $25 is worth it for the convenience of not having to waste storage on my iPhone, iPad and even MacBook. What I did was transfer my iTunes library to a large external drive when I first set up macOS. Anytime I want to make changes (add music) I must do it with the external drive connected. Then I can just stream whatever I want wherever I am and just delete the cache.
I also like having access to my library through the Apple TV hooked up to my receiver. Again the sound quality is a trade off for the convenience of not having to get up and switch discs constantly although sometimes I’m in the mood to listen to physical CDs.
Last edited:
Wow, you didn’t even mention by far the biggest feature that Spotify has over Apple Music and that’s Spotify Connect. It’s absolutely amazing to be able to seamlessly transition between devices while listening to music. I can be listening to music on my Xbox while controlling the playlist on my phone. I can then put my airpods in to have to playback transfer to my phone without me having to touch anything. When I get to my office, I can switch playback to my office computer to listen with nicer on ear headphones. All while keeping the place in the playlist and song through each playback source. If Apple can add something like that, then I might consider switching. That feature alone is huge for the way I listen to music
That is one of the biggest reasons i use Spotify. But not only would Apple have to enable a connect type feature. But it would have to be available on more platforms. Not just Apple stuff. I love that i can have so many different non Apple products. And still be able to use Spotify connect on all of them.
I fail to see how one station playing music that isn't really to anyone's taste would be an advantage. Check the top50 lists in different countries - people don't listen to the same **** all over the world. Thank god for that. Not to mention those (like me) who view top50 lists as more of a list of songs to avoid at all costs.
Spotify has every week 4 different lists for me built based on my listening habits. Most of the times it's stuff I've listened to plenty of times, but sometimes there are gems in there, too. Not that I use even those that often. I go with whatever moves me. Being able to start a 'radio' from any song is much more useful, the added benefit being it usually ends up picking songs I haven't heard before sooner than those pre-made playlists.
[doublepost=1552118287][/doublepost]
I disagree. It may be better for those who spend all their days talking to Siri. Other than that I find Spotify plays nicer with my gear than Apple Music did. Of course an added benefit are my active speakers with Spotify Connect support. If your audio gear costs less than $10k you won't hear the difference between these two no matter what some people say. With good gear you will, but then again you wouldn't use any streaming service if you wanted quality. I'm talking to you, Tidal Hi-Fi. What a disappointment.
[doublepost=1552118702][/doublepost]After commenting on a few I'll have to add my own quick comment: I've tried both and the choice was easy. Spotify. It has quite a few of songs Apple Music doesn't, the UI is better, the playlist handling is better, the collaboration features are better, the web player is better and the suggestions are so much better it's not even funny. Spotify Connect is how all things should work.
I acknowledge things might be different if I thought Siri was worth anything. For me it isn't. In English it works pretty ok although not nearly as well as I'd like were I to use it on a daily basis. Change it to my native language (Finnish) and it gets maybe 10% of what I tell it even though they claim it supports Finnish. Oh well. I can dictate facebook comments without too many issues at times, Waze understands me really well in Finnish, but Siri... thanks, but no thanks.
Anyway, the point was just to say that for Siri users Apple Music might sound more tempting. For the rest of us, not so much. Everything else Spotify really does do better. Fanboys can disagree all they want.
Siri is really terrible with Finnish. Of course, my gear is all for the American market, and I use English, but Siri can’t understand any of my Finnish music requests. Eppu Normaali, Juice Leskinen, J Karjalainen, even more recent acts like Mikko Pohjola and Jenni Vartiainen. Those are all very mainstream, yet I’ve even tried switching to Finnish language and she doesn’t get any of them.
I don’t know if anybody replied to you about this, but on Spotify, you can upload your own mp3s from your computer. You just have to connect it to a local file on your Spotify computer app. Once it’s downloaded through your phone, you can listen to it anywhere. One of the reasons why I put off Spotify is because of that and would choose Apple Music over it. But recently finding that out, I’m now gonna stick with Spotify as my main music streaming service. I like the equalizer better on Spotify and also like the crossfade option.
As a XS Max owner, I "want" to prefer Apple Music over Spotify, but at the end of the day, the latter convinces me a lot more. I even came to the point of paying for both services during a few months, until I noticed Apple Music remained untouched. Hopefully Apple manages to improve algorythms, recommendations and overall functionality, then I may switch back, just as many who own Apple products would to. Until then, I remain a loyal Spotify owner lol.
Had 6 months free Apple music with my mobile contract, so put my Spotify sub on ice, to give it a try;
I'm a heavy desktop user, and the UX of iTunes is simply abismal, navigation is so awkward, and bizarrely slow. Spotify for the desktop is leagues ahead, fast, intuitive and easy on the eyes with its dark theme. I'll add imo, the mobile app is also stronger from team Spotify
Like others have said the curated playlists are far better on Spotify, and making custom playlists is also a doddle. With iTunes I found I was being recommended music I didn't like, and making my own playlists was a chore.
Spotify has full integration with my multiple Echo devices, Apple Music is a no show...another black mark.
needless to say, as soon as my trial was up, I hot footed it back to Spotify.
I'm a heavy desktop user, and the UX of iTunes is simply abismal, navigation is so awkward, and bizarrely slow. Spotify for the desktop is leagues ahead, fast, intuitive and easy on the eyes with its dark theme. I'll add imo, the mobile app is also stronger from team Spotify
Like others have said the curated playlists are far better on Spotify, and making custom playlists is also a doddle. With iTunes I found I was being recommended music I didn't like, and making my own playlists was a chore.
Spotify has full integration with my multiple Echo devices, Apple Music is a no show...another black mark.
needless to say, as soon as my trial was up, I hot footed it back to Spotify.
I just found out after a D.R.I. song ended up in my "Favourites Mix" that thy indeed to have albums from them.
It is just spread out over "D.R.I.", "dirty rotten imbeciles" and "dirty rotten imbeciles d.r.i.". I stand corrected! My other comments still stand though.
Spotify recently officially launched here in India and it has taken the market like a storm. They're marketing aggressively and there are hoardings up on bus stands and road sides. The marketing seems to be focused around their playlist curation, it revolves around having a playlist for every occasion.
Further, Spotify has in my opinion been very innovative with their pricing strategy. They have One day and One week plans, the former would suit those hosting a party and the latter, for a trip. The one day premium costs $0.20 and the weekly premium account is for $0.56. India is a very price sensitive market and these plans imo will be very beneficial for the company.
Furthermore, Spotify India mobile app seems to allow users to play any song they like, so it is not restricted to playing on shuffle.
On the other hand, Apple really hasn't marketed Apple Music in India. It seems to be secondary business for them.
BUT, with all the good things I've listed about Spotify, where it loses out on is their legal battle with Warner Brothers India, due to which a lot of big artists' music isn't available on Spotify. For example, Coldplay!
Also, Spotify will have a hard time competing with Amazon Prime Music. Just to give you a perspective, Amazon Prime is very cheap in India, it costs ~$14/year and it comes bundled with Prime Video and Prime Audio. So it is tough to compete with a service that provides you streaming video and audio content alongwith Prime benefits on Amazon shopping.
Spotify also seems to be aggressively betting on the podcast market with their purchase of Anchor app. Here is an interesting take on the growing podcast market -
Further, Spotify has in my opinion been very innovative with their pricing strategy. They have One day and One week plans, the former would suit those hosting a party and the latter, for a trip. The one day premium costs $0.20 and the weekly premium account is for $0.56. India is a very price sensitive market and these plans imo will be very beneficial for the company.
Furthermore, Spotify India mobile app seems to allow users to play any song they like, so it is not restricted to playing on shuffle.
On the other hand, Apple really hasn't marketed Apple Music in India. It seems to be secondary business for them.
BUT, with all the good things I've listed about Spotify, where it loses out on is their legal battle with Warner Brothers India, due to which a lot of big artists' music isn't available on Spotify. For example, Coldplay!
Also, Spotify will have a hard time competing with Amazon Prime Music. Just to give you a perspective, Amazon Prime is very cheap in India, it costs ~$14/year and it comes bundled with Prime Video and Prime Audio. So it is tough to compete with a service that provides you streaming video and audio content alongwith Prime benefits on Amazon shopping.
Spotify also seems to be aggressively betting on the podcast market with their purchase of Anchor app. Here is an interesting take on the growing podcast market -
My dictionary says you're full of **** ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
music | ˈmyo͞ozik |
Vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion: couples were dancing to the music | baroque music. • the art or science of composing or performing music: he devoted his life to music. • a sound perceived as pleasingly harmonious: the background music of softly lapping water.
Any sound that produces what someone calls beautiful or expresses emotion IS music...
Then you have no shield. Your personal opinion does not shape what is and isn't music. There is no truth in your statement.
Spotify’s discover playlist is killer but i subscribed to apple music since spotify doesn’t support slideover... And the UI has a lot of wasted space. Though im sure spotify doesn’t have slideover bc apple doesn’t allow it.... shame bc slideover is great.
Spotify could add it. It’s up to them. Took them an eternity to develop an Apple Watch app too even though all of their competitors did long ago. Spotify is just slow. Despite Spotify’s whining Apple isn’t blocking them.
Tried to switch to Apple Music this weekend, Specifically because I want to use the Marvis app because it is gorgeous and has landscape mode, it also has streaming last.fm even if it’s not songs from my library... went back to Spotify.
Could not deal with out Connect and last.fm full integration
Apple pros:
Sounded louder and richer
Siri support
UI is starting to come along
Song lyrics
Better Shazam functionality
Spotify Pros:
Spotify connect
Last. Fm streams directly into the app
Better discovery by far
Better song to radio station creation
Could not deal with out Connect and last.fm full integration
Apple pros:
Sounded louder and richer
Siri support
UI is starting to come along
Song lyrics
Better Shazam functionality
Spotify Pros:
Spotify connect
Last. Fm streams directly into the app
Better discovery by far
Better song to radio station creation
I just switched from Android to iPhone XR and started a free 1 month trial of Apple Music. I only get 1 month because I have had apple music before but switched to google play music. I like Apple Music a lot, but there is one major limitation that might force me to have to cancel. I can't add music from my computer to my iPhone or iPad. I have a few concert DVD's that I extracted the audio from. I was able to add them to google play music but cannot do it with Apple.