Spotify or Apple Music

Fretwired

Spotify ... I tried Apple Music and it's poor IMHO.

duotone

Philly_Q said:

duotone said:

BigMonka said:

What about Amazon Prime music? Some guys at work say that is as good as Spotify, but I haven't tried it.

Much smaller library, No way as good as Spotify imo

Amazon Music Unlimited (as opposed to the selective streaming you get with a regular Prime membership) claim to have 40 million songs, isn't that more than Spotify?  But of course you have to pay for it. I've been tempted to give it a try, but I know I'd forget to cancel it after the free trial and I'd be stuck with paying for it (just as I did with Prime itself).

No idea what the functionality is like.  I'm very fond of the "related artists" feature in Spotify and I don't know if Amazon Unlimited has anything similar.

My apologies, I thought we were talking bout Amazon Prime Music. 

andyp

I've been using Apple Music for the past year or so... maybe more. I moved over from Spotify and have generally found it great, but there's a few annoyances with it - not least that when I want to copy something from my laptop to my phone, I have to switch Apple Music off, copy over what I want then switch it back on and re-download all the saved stuff again.

I've always liked being able to mix and match my owned / purchased stuff with downloaded stuff and streamed stuff in one place on Apple Music, but the (seemingly deliberate) flaws have made me decide to go back to Spotify. I think I'll be swapping back and binning my Apple subscription tonight when I get home.

Wazmeister

I used Apple for ever, but Spotify overtime for me...

Especially if you combine it with the amazing Sonos

Philly_Q

duotone said:

Philly_Q said:

duotone said:

BigMonka said:

What about Amazon Prime music? Some guys at work say that is as good as Spotify, but I haven't tried it.

Much smaller library, No way as good as Spotify imo

Amazon Music Unlimited (as opposed to the selective streaming you get with a regular Prime membership) claim to have 40 million songs, isn't that more than Spotify?  But of course you have to pay for it. I've been tempted to give it a try, but I know I'd forget to cancel it after the free trial and I'd be stuck with paying for it (just as I did with Prime itself).

No idea what the functionality is like.  I'm very fond of the "related artists" feature in Spotify and I don't know if Amazon Unlimited has anything similar.

My apologies, I thought we were talking bout Amazon Prime Music. 

Sorry, it was me making assumptions!  Amazon Prime Music is exactly what was mentioned, but I just assumed @BigMonka (or rather his work colleagues) were talking about Amazon Music Unlimited because that's the only service which might conceivably be able to compete with Spotify.

I've looked it up now - Unlimited claims to have 40m songs, Prime has 2m and Spotify apparently has about 30m.

TimmyO

I've been a paid user at different times on Apple Music, Amazon Unlimited, and Spotify.

Overall the winner for me is Spotify by a fair distance.

The Apple UI was fucking terrible when I had it - it may have improved since, and it would insist in replacing music I owned with mismatched tracks it already had. Infuriating. About the most un-Apple-like experience I've had. 

Amazon Unlimited is very good, but lacked the neat recommended and auto-generated playists of Spotify.

That Spotify have been doing this the longest shows, in a good way.  It took me a couple of days to get comfortable with what was where in the app but once I did I found it simple to create or follow playlists, select tracks or lists to be downloaded to my device (for the Tube or flights) and so on. We have a familty sub so we each have our own login - costs c. £15/mo in total 

Fiftyshadesofjay

Spotify is so much better. Even if you ignore how crap Apple music is Spotify still wins as I normally have my PS4 plugged into my stereo as my main media player. 

Being able to use my phone/Ipad/laptop as a remote is so handy. 

andyp

Well...

Some findings from an experiment I carried out.

Last night I flipped back over to Spotify and cancelled my Apple subscription. Turns out it's cost me £15 and I'm back with Apple... here's why.

One of the big plus points was having all my music in one place. Owned, Saved / Downloaded for free and Streamed. All in the same app and integrated seamlessly so I can make playlists etc. with whatever combination of tracks I want. That doesn't work as well with Spotify so I was instantly back to thinking Apple was easier for what I want from things.

Secondly, I find the Spotify user interface a little awkward. Everyone else seems to love it, but something doesn't jive with it for me. Apple did revamp theirs recently-ish and now it's as good as Spotify for me, I certainly have no issues with it that I did before when it was first available.

Third, I went to look for a few things on Spotify last night and couldn't get them on there. No big deal, but I've only had this twice with Apple so far that I can remember.

Fourth and the real clincher for me, the sound. Spotify Extreme settings are a higher bitrate it seems than Apple's highest setting, but I find Spotify sounds very dark and deep and I don't like it. I back-to-backed some tracks this morning and instantly found Apple sounded much clearer and sharper, even if the claimed bitrate is less. Go figure.

The one app thing and the sound really mean Apple is the clear winner for me. I'll keep my free Spotify account running and be able to hear the very few tracks that Apple don't have on Spotify but other than that it's been a £15 experiment to prove I was already using the service that worked best for me. I'll just have to continue to work round the buggeration when I want to move my purchased music over from iTunes in lossless. Why it has to be so much faff, I've no idea. When it's all considered, that's the only negative I've found with Apple so far with a high level of daily use. It was a no-brainer to revert back to Apple for me.

crunchman

For me, I'd always go Spotify as it's platform independent.

Even if you are a fully paid up member of Apple's ecosystem now, you don't know what you will do in the future.  If you go back 15 years, almost everyone used Internet Explorer to access the internet.  Microsoft had total dominance.  Look at it now.  They don't even have the majority of the PC market, without even considering the other devices people use.

andyp

What's with the LOL?

It's just how I found it. I am wary of having all my stuff in iTunes and using Apple Music, but it's what I find simplest. If the landscape changes then I'll have to change too - like I did when I put it all on there and stuck all my CDs in the loft.

Andy

guitarfishbay

crunchman said:

For me, I'd always go Spotify as it's platform independent.

Even if you are a fully paid up member of Apple's ecosystem now, you don't know what you will do in the future.  If you go back 15 years, almost everyone used Internet Explorer to access the internet.  Microsoft had total dominance.  Look at it now.  They don't even have the majority of the PC market, without even considering the other devices people use.

Why does it matter when you own nothing?

Changing service is no big deal in that environment. There are even apps to recreate your playlists on another service if you move.

andyp

Aye, I was wondering about this too. Worst case for me I see is that I have to re-rip all my CDs into something other than iTunes at some stage. That's not really that bad in the scheme of things.

Streaming wise, you just bin it and start on another one (whatever that turns out to be in the future).

holnrew

I use Spotify, still get the student half price deal. I used Play Music a couple of years back and it was decent, but Spotify is just right. Even at full price it's a bargain for how much I use it.

RobDavies

The only issue I have with Spotify is that I can't get some of the MP3 tracks I own, to sync with it. 

They look to be in my 'albums' but will not play or download for all the tea in china.  

koneguitarist

Spotify for me.