Apple Music vs. Spotify Buyer's Guide

[nnoble]

I am trying Apple Music again on their free trial and it is astonishing how terrible it is. There’s small hiccups in the audio playback quite often (as in every third song), hard to find anything to listen to unless I search for every song myself and manually add it to a playlist, lacking the big library of original live sessions that Spotify has, no direct to device streaming like Spotify Connect.

Honestly it feels like a beta and many many years behind Spotify as a music streaming service, I won’t continue paying for it after the free trial and delete the app and use Spotify again instead.

Apple’s services really feel like a compromise these days, Music is the same as Maps, sure it technically does what it says it will but it does it substantially worse than the competition did it 10 years ago.

I returned to Apple Music after Classic was introduced despite having a current Deezer subscription. When this Apple Music subscription expires I’ll remain with Deezer. Deezer has all the benefits of Spotify over Music but without the noise and clutter. I’d like to see Macrumors do a comparison between all three.
As for the ‘music WE love’ playlists; no thanks, I’m interested and pay to hear the music I love.

 

[svish]

Definitely prefer Apple Music. Will be interesting to see comparison between Apple music and Amazon music prime

 

[Lee_Mac]

Something is missing off that list. Apple Music offers that free U2 album 🤪

 

[AbhijitShanbhag]

I found the new discoveries in Apple Music to be exactly inline with my tastes with suggestions being quite accurate.

Very true, since the Apple Music updated somewhere in late of 2023, the recommendation engine (While not perfect) has got substantially better. At the end of each playlist, the new Suggested Songs list, sometimes does provide really good recommendations for music to listen to, based on the current playlist I am listening (almost one or two in six songs quite match my taste)

Also, the UI/UX on Apple Music, again for me, is far far more superior than Spotify, along with multiple features like Apple Music Sing (the Karaoke Mode), it's just way better for me

 

[mellonseed]

I'm not quite familiar with Spotify but I've been using Apple Music since its launched. It's great for me most of the time but it is also terrible, disaster in some cases.

• Very unfriendly to multilinguals. I listened to musics of different languages: EN, JP, CN most of the time. Apple would always do what they think smart to display ALL tracks using letters, which I DONT need and I DONT want. I need them to be original languages for those I understand. Luckily I could modify them using Desktop version of Apple Music but it's very very very very painful and tedious. As far as I know, Spotify doesn't do this stupid smart localization.
• iCloud Music Library is a great feature most of time, you would be able to upload and match your musics, which is very convenient when the albums and tracks are not available in Apple Music's Library. I use this feature quite often because some JP artists only release their works in Japan. I could purchase them either from OTOTOY or mora or CD and import to my library. At this point, it's very good. And then I started to realize that Apple Music doesn't count my plays from these tracks for the annual Replay. So at the end of the year, what's coming out from the official Replay playlist is far from accurate and useful. Not sure how Spotify performs at this point.
• iCloud Music Library management on Desktop can be confusing and damaging sometime. When you have tracks imported from external resources and when the tracks are uploaded to cloud library, the app would have "delete from Library" and "Remove Download" options when you right click the tracks. If you just want to remove the tracks from the cloud and keep your local files, you wouldn't be able to do this on computer. Because the first option would delete the file and the files on the cloud at the same time, and the second option would delete your local files and keep the cloud files. But if you delete your local files (If Apple Music doesn't have a match, that means what you have as your local files have better and original audio quality compared to what's been uploaded to the cloud), and you don't renew your subscription for certain amount of days, you would lose everything (You have to go through the whole process to check the metadata and import to the library again).

 

[lowkey]

I have both. I really should cancel Apple Music as I never use it except for on my HomePod (but I think that support Spotify now?) and to occasionally listen in hi res.

The interface on Spotify is just way better. So much easier to find new music I like. And I think more obscure music? Or maybe just easier to find obscure music.

 

[LouisLoh]

Looks like there aren't many audiophiles around here. AM wins for hi-res and streaming quality alone, and it's not even close.

As an audio enthusiast I use AM on various devices across various OS's. It's on my Sony WM1AM2 Android DAP, my iPhone, my iPad, my MacBook Air, my Apple TV, my Pixel Tablet > digital out to Shanling EM5, and it works great on all the devices.

And the user experience on Classical is next level.

 

[Calle68]

IMHO Apple Music (to which I'm tied since the beginning) suffers from a Year 2010 interface and experience, even today. Let's talk about the music experience on windows, still based on a 2005 iTunes and a laughable web interface. And the lack of an app specific to classical music out from the iPhone? As regarding other Apple strategies: what Tim Cook does not like, it is not developed or supported.

 

[joecomo]

I have Apple One and need Spotify for HEOS so I have them both in family subscriptions.
There is some value in both. Unless either Apple Music supports Spotify connect or HEOS supports
Airplay2 (it doesn‘t, despite partial claims to the contrary) no way to ditch either.
My preference would be HEOS to support Airplay2 - that be a big win.

 

[joecomo]

I've used both. I eventually went with Spotify because it tends to have better recommendations. Not sure if Apple Music ever resolved this. At the time, Apple Music's big focus always seemed to be the curated stuff, but my music taste is pretty far from the people who curate mainstream playlists, and the algorithmic recommendations was stuff I'd already heard.

Spotify‘s playlists are still way better - even if your kids mess with the selection

 

[BMox81]

I’ll be honest-Spotify is the better service.

And if Spotify’s Apple TV app was the same as the Smart TV/Android version where lyrics was a feature I’d move the family back. But the lyrics and Atmos keep me on Apple Music for the time being.

 

[joecomo]

Something is missing off that list. Apple Music offers that free U2 album 🤪

That piece of **** has been filling up my devices forever …

 

[GtrDude]

Until Apple Music has folders and sub-folders where you can put your playlists they’re useless.

 

[videosoul]

Should also compare how each platform supports artists, works with labels, per stream royalty payments etc.

Also the fact the Apple Music also has the iTunes Store, allowing people to own the music and better support artists.

For me, whilst it has some quirks, I prefer Apple Music a) because of integration in the Apple ecosystem (which I use), and b) because it allows me to store, organise, and sync my own music that I’ve either bought, ripped from CDs, or isn’t available to stream. That’s the main winner.

 

[GtrDude]

Deleted.
Missed the quoted post.

 

[GtrDude]

Music quality... Tbf I went forth and back and tried to compare it. With my headphones (Momentum 4 Wireless) there is no noticeable in quality. Some songs seem to be mixed slightly different but I couldn't even tell which one is better.

If you’re using Bluetooth headphones it won’t matter if one is CD quality (or of course lossless) and the other compressed.
Bluetooth can’t stream anything that high.
So you were listening to both at the same quality.

 

[one more]

I want to be able to use Apple music on my google device - will it ever happen? Unlikely

Happy days, Apple Music is on Google Play Store!

Apple Music - Apps on Google Play

Stream over 100 million songs, all ad-free.

play.google.com

 

[fikonhjul]

This!

Oh, and Spotify pays its artists less.

 

[urtho]

I ditched both Spotify and Apple Music, and YouTube Music, because all of their interfaces are missing basic features like searching in a playlist. I also prefer Pandora's algorithm to Spotify's when I am looking to make a radio of something. Because of the issues I had with all three, I switched to Deezer. Deezer also surfaces easier multi-select than the other three from the last time I used them, which was about two years ago.

The biggest downside with it is they have slightly fewer songs from big artists mostly from over a decade ago. New releases they have all of, but for instance the oldest Mumford and Sons is not available in the US. Deezer is about on par for me for radio to Spotify, so if I do not want to leave the app I just use that, certainly not something I use regularly though.

 

[flottenheimer]

Thank you for this thread MacRumors and thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences.

I've researched for many hours, on and off, during the past 4-5 years.
Yet, I've ultimately ended up undecided.

After reading all of this I finally feel comfortable subscribing to the one I believe to be the superior service.
Thanks.

 

[Greg12]

If you imported your personal CDs in their original AIFF format into Apple’s Music library you do NOT want to sign up for Apple’s Music subscription as it will complete destroy your existing library. Apple’s Music will replace the files in your library with Apple’s files which typically are compressed. Music will also misread some of the metadata in your files and consequently delete songs, duplicate others, change song titles, and worse. I experienced this first hand and Apple’s technical support recommended that I rebuild my music library and not sign up for Music.

There’s another wrinkle in this as well. I recently tried to sync my CD music files to my iPhone and iPad. It was a complete disaster. Apple Music randomly split albums into several separate albums. Apple tech support told me they were surprised I was able to share any CD files with my iOS devices. I was told that most CDs lack the DRM file structure Apple Music requires and that is why files can not typically be added to iOS devices. I was told the ONLY way to transfer CD quality files to an iOS device was to subscribe to Apple Music streaming service.

 

[alternamelka]

The worst thing about Apple Music is the delay after hitting play on a song. I’ve got the latest iPhone and MacBook, and a gigabit connection.

I get Apple Music for free from my carrier and I only use it for library sync for song that leaked.

 

[sdz]

Personally with all the furore over security I don't want any app having a clue what my taste is or anything else similar.

They don't really know who you are if you use Spotify Voucher codes that you purchase from 3rd party vendors...

 

[sdz]

The worst thing about Apple Music is the delay after hitting play on a song. I’ve got the latest iPhone and MacBook, and a gigabit connection.

I get Apple Music for free from my carrier and I only use it for library sync for song that leaked.

noticed that too. It really lacks the "fluidity" of spotify. You press on a title and it IMMEDIATELY starts playing.

 

[Jentera]

I switched to Spotify about 8 years ago because Apple kept switching things up in terms of file ownership, playlists, and basic music organization. I spent soooo much time curating music, first by ripping my CD's, then downloads, then purchasing the digital files, and finally streaming. I just got sick of them switching things up and lost patience for learning new UIs and "features". Spotify changes things too but seems more or less the same...