Free Tier FTW! Though I only occassionally use Spotify, I've never used Apple Music. I'm not sure why labels hate the free Spotify. It's basically Internet radio. How else do they think people are going to discover new artists?
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.
Spotify Continues to Grow Faster Than Apple Music Thanks to Free Tier
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The ability to add other artist or genres of music to one station without having to make another station because of one song is the reason I still use pandora..what they did as a company when they first started I believe is a HUGE selling point if they are looking for a buyer...here's to hoping Apple either buys em outright or copies pandora's radio station set up! Adding more value to Apple Music(and the family plan I pay for!) would be yet another feature that would make it nearly impossible for me to leave!
Spotify announces their paid subscriber count in March. Between 2016 and 2017 they added 20 million subscribers, bringing them to 50M. But this is now a 3 month old metric.
Apple took 18 months to get to 20M subscribers (which they did around Christmas) and is currently (?) at 27M.
This would mean that Spotify's consumer base is growing at around 10M every 6 months, and Apple at around 7M. They are growing 30% faster than Apple.
Please don't bring nothing to a data fight.
Unfortunately, as much as I love Pandora, their Premium service that's meant to compete with Apple Music and Spotify is terrible. 70% of the time I can't even listen on demand, I have to make a station for that song and hope it plays. I rarely have that problem with any other streaming service and for that reason alone I can't even use it. It's very annoying because I love Pandora's algorithms.
I have no problem being locked into iTunes and Apple because I would never use anything else. All the other hardware out there is garbage in my opinion.
It actual annoys me how all the Warner Bros and Sony pictures movies that come with digital copies only support ultraviolet and do not give the option for iTunes. I hate ultraviolet and never buy physical disc copies of those movies because of this. Disney's DMA system is actually the best solution I've found. You can register your DMA account with iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, etc, and it syncs your collection across.
I love Apple Music and it's deep integration with the hardware so I would never use Spotify or Tidal anyway.
Unless Spotify is actually contracting. There is reason the chose to suddenly only report the free tier. Something I amiss. It like when Phone makers stopped reporting sale.
The "Apple lockdown" is the deal-breaker for many, myself included.
I own many non-Apple devices, so I have to go with the options that play nice with everyone. Simple as that.
Which is why I'll NEVER buy anything in iTunes again. I have hundreds of songs I cannot play anywhere other than my Apple devices, because they predate the DRM-free Apple deal. I'd have to rebuy them DRM-free. Of course, I found this out after switching.
Never again.
I own many non-Apple devices, so I have to go with the options that play nice with everyone. Simple as that.
Which is why I'll NEVER buy anything in iTunes again. I have hundreds of songs I cannot play anywhere other than my Apple devices, because they predate the DRM-free Apple deal. I'd have to rebuy them DRM-free. Of course, I found this out after switching.
Never again.
I like Apple Music because of how well it integrates with a large local library. A lot of the music I listen to often is not on either Apple Music or Spotify and I don't like having to switch apps to play or sync libraries.
Apple music is only geared toward minorities and whites that are RAP-washed. They don't support white rock or any other style of music. Until they become more supportive of other styles of music they will remain LAMES AF
Apple Music works on Windows and Android.
YEP i ditched iTunes LONG ago. they utterly ruined it.
Or you know... maybe because their user interface is better?
Have used both and just appreciate Spotify's approach more.
Have used both and just appreciate Spotify's approach more.
Same thing was said when Nokia was king. There is no "deep integration" with hardware, only Apple hoarding APIs, because they apparently aren't able to compete fairly on their own platform.
What Apple Music needs is a separate app. The subscription has ruined my library several times and it is difficult to keep my own music and subscribed music seperate. It much easier to have a cloud library in spotify, and "owned" music in iTunes
Apple Music's problem is iTunes. It's an overweight, bloated mess of code that needs total re architecting.
I'd prefer Spotify if they made the 'Downloads' music library simpler to access; Apple Music is seamless and syncs music to all of my devices, but it is still very buggy considering it's on its second year. iTunes is Apple Music's Achilles heel. (UI-wise, there is a lot of room for improvement from both platforms.)
Still, I do see Spotify's appeal when it comes to the general public (their endless playlists that introduce people to new music come to mind, my non-music geek friends love that feature and the darker themes throughout the app are also welcomed).
[I love talking about these music services for some reason, haha.]
Still, I do see Spotify's appeal when it comes to the general public (their endless playlists that introduce people to new music come to mind, my non-music geek friends love that feature and the darker themes throughout the app are also welcomed).
[I love talking about these music services for some reason, haha.]
Which is why I stuck with AM. I really tried to like Spotify as it has great sound quality but when I did the 3 month 0.99 trail they kept removing older albums all the time. I listen to older music I hate the new music sync pop rap crap so I don't listen to it ever so I love the older music. This is the reason why I dropped Spotify.
The only other service that matches AM in albums is Play Music however when my trail ends I will drop Play Music because of there horrible poor muddy flat sound quality. Really they still use MP3 even though is it a dead non supported format. Only if they switch over to AAC, OGG I will try them again.
