Honest opinions - should I switch from Spotify to Apple Music?

[Cromulent]

I've used Spotify pretty much since it first came out but seeing as I am buying a MBP and an iPhone I've been thinking of switching to Apple Music. Has anyone done an objective comparison of the two. I've tried pretty much all of the streaming music services and always find it much easier to find new music on Spotify. Does Apple Music make it easy to find new music based on what you have listened to in the past?

 

[Expos of 1969]

I've used Spotify pretty much since it first came out but seeing as I am buying a MBP and an iPhone I've been thinking of switching to Apple Music. Has anyone done an objective comparison of the two. I've tried pretty much all of the streaming music services and always find it much easier to find new music on Spotify. Does Apple Music make it easy to find new music based on what you have listened to in the past?

I used iTunes and then Apple Music and then I tried Spotify. Much prefer Spotify for recommendations. And as an added bonus, Spotify works much better on my Mac than does Apple Music.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I have no experience with Spotify, so no basis for comparison. You can get a free trial of Apple Music (presuming you haven't had one in the past), so why not try it out for yourself?

When I go to Music app > Listen Now there is a Made for You section with four ready-made mixes/playlists that are very much defined by my past listening and my expressed interests in genre and artist (which is part of setup when you start using Apple Music). I find the AI mixes to be scarily on-target - drawn not only from what I've listened to previously, but also songs/artists that are consistent with my tastes. At times it's like listening to the great FM album-oriented rock stations of my youth - lots of relatively obscure album cuts and artists as well as the greatest hits. It's nice to be surprised by the unexpected! I can ask Siri (HomePod) to simply "Play" and it'll serve-up all sorts of pleasant (and sometimes jaw-dropping) surprises along with my favorites.

Sometimes this will come from formal playlists, other times it'll come from Apple Music Radio "stations," which certainly seem to be curated with very much the same sensibility as those great old FM radio stations - a mix of hits and "deep dive."

As to reviewing recent play history... it's easy enough to access (once you know where to look), but for those looking for ways to analyze their listening history... none that I've found. The Music app on Mac does provide a play count of songs that have been actively added to your Library (Library > Songs), but if you're just streaming (whether requested songs/artists, playlists, orRadio)... those don't find their way into the Library play count unless you actually add those songs and playlists to your Library.

 

[Cromulent]

I used iTunes and then Apple Music and then I tried Spotify. Much prefer Spotify for recommendations. And as an added bonus, Spotify works much better on my Mac than does Apple Music.

I have no experience with Spotify, so no basis for comparison. You can get a free trial of Apple Music (presuming you haven't had one in the past), so why not try it out for yourself?

When I go to Music app > Listen Now there is a Made for You section with four ready-made mixes/playlists that are very much defined by my past listening and my expressed interests in genre and artist (which is part of setup when you start using Apple Music). I find the AI mixes to be scarily on-target - drawn not only from what I've listened to previously, but also songs/artists that are consistent with my tastes. At times it's like listening to the great FM album-oriented rock stations of my youth - lots of relatively obscure album cuts and artists as well as the greatest hits. It's nice to be surprised by the unexpected! I can ask Siri (HomePod) to simply "Play" and it'll serve-up all sorts of pleasant (and sometimes jaw-dropping) surprises along with my favorites.

Sometimes this will come from formal playlists, other times it'll come from Apple Music Radio "stations," which certainly seem to be curated with very much the same sensibility as those great old FM radio stations - a mix of hits and "deep dive."

As to reviewing recent play history... it's easy enough to access (once you know where to look), but for those looking for ways to analyze their listening history... none that I've found. The Music app on Mac does provide a play count of songs that have been actively added to your Library (Library > Songs), but if you're just streaming (whether requested songs/artists, playlists, orRadio)... those don't find their way into the Library play count unless you actually add those songs and playlists to your Library.

Thank you both. When my new Mac and iPhone I'll try out the Apple Music trial and see what it is like but it is going to be hard to adjust to a new system when I've been using Spotify for so long.

 

[nrvna76]

I’m considering the opposite switch. I’ve had Apple Music since I got my homepod, but then I justified apple one because I have iCloud and Apple Music.. now I’ll be getting a Tesla in a couple of months and that has A Spotify app. Might give it a try to see which I like better.

 

[Smithwicks]

I’m considering the opposite switch. I’ve had Apple Music since I got my homepod, but then I justified apple one because I have iCloud and Apple Music.. now I’ll be getting a Tesla in a couple of months and that has A Spotify app. Might give it a try to see which I like better.

The Spotify app is garbage in Tesla. Poor SQ, and the playback is glitchy. Better off streaming it via Bluetooth audio if you care about sound quality l.

 

[Sullivan0930]

im also contemplating the switch since apple one will be cheaper than apple tv and Spotify.

..i just really like the analytics Spotify provides and apple music does not. and the end of the year playlists, wrap ups.

 

[NYCValkyrie]

I have both so let me offer a little insight. Remember that YMMV as I can only speak to my personal experiences & uses for AM (my personal acct) & Spotify (reimbursed & used for work). Both have things I like and things I don't like. But the reason I initially moved from Spotify to AM years ago was because of the Apple Watch integration. And that Spotify bought & killed a 3rd party app that allowed downloads to the Watch. It left a really bad taste in my mouth that they would do that. So I left and moved to AM.

Apple Music obviously has great integration with Apple products across the board and works much better with Siri. The Siri part really only matters, to me, when using CarPlay or when I'm using it on my ATV. It has integrated easily w/ my Sonos speakers and works fine with Alexa once configured correctly. And as stated above, Watch integration was key for me. The playlists have gotten better over the years and I really like the Friends playlist. As for selection, this has also improved for the things I listen to over the years. I've seen other complain about the lack of Classical music. Others have complained about Jazz as well but haven't seen anything missing that wasn't also missing from Spotify.

But I really hate the AM interface on Mac, on iPhone on iPad. It's really bad. Why is everything stark white and all the icons so large??? Why is it so hard to figure out which playlists are downloaded? If you go to the Downloaded section, even if there is only 1 songs that overlaps in another playlist, it'll show that playlist with that singular song! Why???

It isn't intuitive to find things or for discovery. There are actually TONS of playlists but you have to have intention to find them. The radio stations are good. And the music shows are a nice throwback to actual radio but I don't find I listen to them often. I really recommend it for people who know what they want to listen to and like to build their own playlists. It takes little time to train their algorithm but it's in a good place for me and they are building more playlists.

I kept my free Spotify account and used Houdini or SongShift to move playlists over and it worked pretty well. I no longer use personal MP3s to upload to the iCloud library. That got messy but I have them backed up on a drive just in case. I've not found a need to go back to those. I do have a couple of dozen not-on-any-streaming-platform albums that I loaded up after the initial debacle but wow what a mess that was. I'm not an audiophile so sound quality is fine for me.

Best if used on your own Apple devices only. The windows app sucks but they do have an online site now https://music.apple.com/login

Spotify. If only they had played nice with Watch in the earlier years, I probably never would have left. But that's fixed now and works well. Better than AM, actually. I really like the way music, podcasts and syncing to the watch are all inside the app. I'm so annoyed it took so long. lol. I Obviously their playlists for discovery are so much better, great for social sharing and seeing what your friends are listening to. There are also the Year-end playlists & metrics that are awesome but this is available on the free account as well.

The UI is much easier to navigate and more intuitive but it has been getting more and more cluttered over the years. I recommend the Premium account to people who want playlists made for them or have their own library they want to sync if they have lots of not-on-any-streaming-platform music. It's much easier to manage on Spotify than AM. Playlist & folder organization is MUCH better on Spotify. By a lot.

Spotify works great w/ Alexa and my Sonos speakers. Does not play well with Siri, as we all know. Great if you use mutiple non-personal Apple platforms.

ADVICE: Sign up for the free Apple Music trial (there are a few ways to get this so do a search or if you have Verizon). and use Houdini or SongShift to start building playlists and training the AM algorithm. Keep your Spotify Premium account for now but try to use AM more during the trial to see if you like it in all the different ways you use use. Look for the music you like, dig into the Radio & playlists. It takes time to switch and get used to something new! Set a reminder about 2 weeks before the trial is up and decide if you want to keep.

 

[NYCValkyrie]

im also contemplating the switch since apple one will be cheaper than apple tv and Spotify.

..i just really like the analytics Spotify provides and apple music does not. and the end of the year playlists, wrap ups.

AM has them also. They are just way hidden and less fun/social than Spotify's. You have to scroll allllllll the way down on the Listen Now tab to the "Replay: Your Top Songs by Year." But the Spotify EOY playlists are available to the free accounts also, not just paid accounts.

 

[xxray]

Spotify

• Faster
• More intuitive
• Available on more platforms
• More innovative
• Better social capabilities and public playlists
• Spotify Connect (how does Apple, king of flexing its ecosystem, not have a comparable feature to this?)
• Last.fm integration

Apple Music

• More battery efficient
• Better library management, especially for local files
• Sound quality (I would argue Apple Music’s AAC 256kbps is a perfect middle ground for great sound quality without taking up huge amounts of data or space. Spotify forces you into either 160kbps or 320kbps. Apple Music also has lossless all the way up to 24-bit/192 kHz plus Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio)
• Radio
• Better integration with Apple products, services, and software
• Better curated playlists (in my opinion)
• Pays artists more money
• The Mac app is notoriously buggy and slow. The Spotify app is much more reliable and quick despite Apple controlling Apple Music, macOS, and the Mac hardware.

Equal

• Price (similar, with Apple you can get discounts through Apple One bundle, annual plan, family plan, or student plan with Apple TV+. But Spotify has deals often like 3 months for $0.99, the student plan comes with Hulu and Showtime, duo plan (couple living together), and family plan)
• Music recommendations - both services have been very good and very bad at recommending music for me at times

I had Spotify from 2014-2021 and tried out Apple Music a few times throughout the years. Every time I tried it, I found it frustratingly slow, unreliable, and unintuitive compared to Spotify. However, a month ago, I got that horrible battery drain bug on Spotify that was making my phone hot and draining my battery ridiculously quick.

I switched over to Apple Music, and surprisingly, I’m really enjoying it this time around. So much so that I don’t have plans to switch back to Spotify as of now. I think it’s still slower than Spotify, and has more questionable UI choices, but it’s more reliable/less buggy this time around. I’m enjoying lossless, Dolby Atmos, and the 256kbps standard high quality taking up less space on my phone compared to Spotify. I also like the iOS/iPadOS widgets better, and how my local files actually integrate and play on shuffle with rest of my music library instead of being forced into a separate playlist.

 

[bumbo]

I think in all the major ways, there's not much in it. Yes AM has the radio stations etc but I think it comes down to how you'll use it.

I had Spotify then moved to AM because it just integrates so much better with Apple products. And, at the time, you couldn't load songs onto the Watch.

Since switching it's apparent Spotify are so much more focused on podcasts and AM has 'caught up' with how they handle music.