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My Music Subscription Service Ranking (Apple's Music Offering to Be Added Once Released)

Service gets better and better the more I test it. The Apple Watch does display album artwork now too! Once Beats 1 audio quality improves and perhaps if Apple decides to add 320kbps AAC or better, than Apple Music will be perfect.
 
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I recently re-signed up to Spotify since they offered 3 months for $.99. So far I'm liking it more then the first time I tried it. The music selection is larger then pandora.

I also signed up to Apple's 3 month trial and so I'm trying that out and comparing the two.
 
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MICHAELSD said:
Service gets better and better the more I test it. The Apple Watch does display album artwork now too! Once Beats 1 audio quality improves and perhaps if Apple decides to add 320kbps AAC or better, than Apple Music will be perfect.
Click to expand...

All of the music on the iTS is at 256kb/s anyway. The relatively tiny jump from 256 to 320AAC would only be a psychological/academic difference for so many people. It's unfortunate that Apple has this against them, even though 256AAC is as good as 320 MP3 on Spotify, and to boot consumes less data.

Would be a plus for Spotify with their bitrate selection (96?, 192, 320). I tried using AM as much as I could today. Ended up using 250MB, which would equate to around 192kb/s assuming I estimated right on streaming time.

Btw, Spotify's OS X is the worst. And the iOS app is drudgery. IMHO, of course.
 
maflynn said:
I recently re-signed up to Spotify since they offered 3 months for $.99. So far I'm liking it more then the first time I tried it. The music selection is larger then pandora.

I also signed up to Apple's 3 month trial and so I'm trying that out and comparing the two.
Click to expand...

I've found Apple Music vastly superior to Spotify, but I believe the deep iOS integration is the icing on the cake for most people deciding between the two.
 
sammich said:
All of the music on the iTS is at 256kb/s anyway. The relatively tiny jump from 256 to 320AAC would only be a psychological/academic difference for so many people. It's unfortunate that Apple has this against them, even though 256AAC is as good as 320 MP3 on Spotify, and to boot consumes less data.

Would be a plus for Spotify with their bitrate selection (96?, 192, 320). I tried using AM as much as I could today. Ended up using 250MB, which would equate to around 192kb/s assuming I estimated right on streaming time.

Btw, Spotify's OS X is the worst. And the iOS app is drudgery. IMHO, of course.
Click to expand...

Sure, it may be more of a psychological difference but I would be happy to have the option since I personally find 320kbps stands up well to lossless.
 
So far, Apple Music gets an A across the board for recommendations, curated playlists, and music discovery features. By far the best of any service. The ease it makes finding good new music is overwhelming.

Interface also receives an A. Best-looking service and far superior to the iTunes Store.

For some reason the non-hosted radio, at least on Mac, seems to load songs at a lower quality but the curation can definitely be felt.

Finding myself genuinely enjoying Beats 1 and getting excited about upcoming programs. Best radio station in the country if not the world.
 
I've started up Tidal again to offer some more comparisons on sound quality vs Apple Music. I have to say that lossless music, whether placebo or not, does make me feel differently. It definitely feels fuller.
 
I ended up switching to Apple Music. The main reason I prefer it to the other options is because I use iOS and Siri is amazingly useful. Also, the recommendations are fantastic and the service works better and has more features in my car's nav interface. The fact that it will eventually have Siri integration on the AppleTV 4 will make it that much better. I also like the video feature on the AppleTV4 (never bothered with them on iOS).

I would probably go with Youtube Red if I was on Android, but I like Siri, so I don't see that changing unless they can get Google Now integrated into the iOS app (if that happens, I would at least try it out).
 
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