Apple Music or Spotify? what do you use and why?

Apple Music. The initial reason was that my own music was uploaded to be part of it. Along the way I've been using Spotify and many others. Today, I refuse to use Spotify. Why?

• They pay musicians an even more ridiculously low amount per stream than most other services.
• They have attempted to leech off the open podcast ecosystem to lure people into theirs and lock them there.
• They actively pay and host Joe Rogan's lies and bullshit

Apple Music, I listen to lots of unreleased music and iCloud Music Library works so much better than Spotify Local Files. Also just works with all my devices. I don’t love the UI sometimes but it is improving with every update. I don’t really use new music recommendations often but whenever I make a station I usually find it’s ok?

Spotify Premium - because firstly don't care about paying for it as I use it literally every single day and after using it for nearly 10 years the algorithms are perfect when it comes to music recommendations - plus it has a better catalogue as I listen to some pretty obscure non-mainstream dance and jazz/funk music. As for the UI it's fine as I guess I am used to it. As for music sound quality - if I want music sound quality I will listen to my CD collection but for streaming via Bluetooth buds out and about with ANC it's a moot point really....

I’m on Spotify, but I’d really love to switch to Apple Music for the better sound quality and to stop paying for dumb podcasts I don’t want. The one think keeping me on Spotify is connect. Apple doesn’t have anything comparable. I can be playing music on my Sonos and controlling it from my PC. I can seamlessly transfer what I’m listening from my iPhone to my car. It’s a huge quality of life feature.

Tidal. Better audio quality and revenue share than Spotify, plus no Joe Rogan.

Apple Music all the way!

Under the “Listen now” tab, I always get new releases form the artists I like!

YouTube Music. Apple Music and Spotify are both technically better products, but YouTube Music is free with YouTube Premium and so I can save on a music subscription.

Before I made that call I had picked Spotify as it gave me access to a web player, and just worked better on my Google Home speakers.

Spotify because I’ve been on it since it was in beta, so my music recommendations are really good. I just don’t really feel like starting over.

I’m also grandfathered in with a deal where I get Hulu with it (Hulu has commercials but whatever, I don’t pay for it), so I don’t really feel like giving that up.

Apple Music because it doesn’t shove podcasts down my throat. I also prefer the algorithm on Apple Music over Spotify. Spotify is too safe by only recommending music that I already like, while I have discovered new genres that I now love from using Apple Music. Spotify is just too repetitive in my experience. I do miss the Discover Weekly playlist though. That was the one thing that helped me discover new music on Spotify.

I use Apple Music on GrapheneOS. Here in my country the other lossless streaming services are too damn expensive. Spotify is cheap but doesn't have lossless, and the privacy on Spotify is a nightmare. So that left Apple Music. Although I like the music quality, the rest of the experience is just kinda mid. The algorithm is okay, but the Android app sacrifices too much functionality for looks. Every single action takes one or two more clicks. Wanna heart a song? Hidden behind a menu. Repeat, shuffle? Hidden behind a menu. Sleep timer? ALSO hidden behind a menu. It really is too cumbersome.

I'd be subscribed to Apple Music of it were available on more platforms. It's definitely my favourite music streaming service and I've tried A LOT.

Apple Music because it’s fully functional/supported across all Apple devices. I have iPhones, iPads, Watches, MacBook, HomePods & Apple TVs. No need to screw around with trying to airplay Spotify to a HomePod when it’s just available natively with Apple Music. Apple Music can be integrated into “scenes” in the Home app. Apple Music can stream over cellular on an Apple Watch. I pay for Apple One Premier and share with 5 family members, FWIW.

I used to prefer Apple Music because the audio quality is higher.

But I've gone back to buying music on iTunes. I don't want to spend the rest of my life paying a subscription for music. I'd rather buy a new album every few months and keep it forever without DRM.

I use Spotify.

I used to go back and forth a lot but I think I'm sticking with spotify.

I like the design of Apple Music but their recommendations suck.

I find most of my new music by using a button on spotify that's called enhanced shuffle or something. but you click it on a playlist and it will insert random recommendations that you can easily add to the playlist if you like it.

i love it cause it just mixes it in with your regular music so you can really tell if it flows nicely in that playlist or if it kills the vibe a little.

Kind of in the same boat right now. I'm using Apple Music right now for the following:

• Lossless should be the base level at this point, not a premium.
• The library management in Apple Music is way superior to Spotify, especially for uploading local files. Going to upload some Bandcamp stuff to my Apple Music library in the future.
• I have an issue on Spotify for Android where my 10k+ liked songs list slows to a crawl. This doesn't happen to Apple Music. Yeah, it's choppy when scrolling but I'd rather that than Spotify taking seconds to load the list.

Though it's not perfect...

• there's no Linux client at all, and though Cider is a great effort there's some things that I miss using it (gapless playback is one, it's essential for album listeners like myself) so I'm having to install a Windows VM to run Apple Music.
• There's some weird gaps in some artists' libraries. I listen to quite a bit of Kaskade, and I find it weird that some of his music isn't on Apple Music in the UK even though it is on Spotify.
• Scrobbling is an issue. I actually coded a manual scrobbler plugin for MusicBrainz Picard to deal with this.

Using Spotify Premium, and thanks to it I discovered a lot of great artists (just recently Yosi Horikawa) Once I switch to iPhone, I might give Apple Music a try.

Apple Music because I live in the Apple ecosystem and have been in iTunes since the beginning. I tried out Spotify with each redesign. I did not like their interfaces at all. The only thing I found that is better in Spotify (for my needs) is they have way better and more user-generated playlists. That's one thing I miss in Apple Music, but there are apps that will allow you to copy a playlist across services.

Spotify for several years, then Apple for a year, now back to Spotify.

I’m sort of lazy about music discovery and delegate that to whatever app I’m using. In that respect, Spotify is way better. It offers more variety, the music I get that way seems to be better suited to my preferences. I also like to explore other people’s playlists and Spotify makes that insanely easy compared to Apple. After using Apple for a year, I found myself listening to music a lot less because it kept suggesting the same three dozen songs day in and day out. The algorithm didn’t offer much variety.

Apple Music because I get it through Apple Family, which includes iCloud storage and Apple TV+.

Spotify with a family deal. Recommendations and daily playlists make the difference

Apple Music because it's part of my Apple One subscription. I'd use it over Spotify regardless.

I only pay for one other music related subscription...SiriusXM

Spotify:

1. not linked to Apple ecosystem (which I don't use at all). not part of any of the other big corps (Google, Amazon) trying get full control of our digital life.
2. properly multi-platform. has a Linux client
3. cheap enough, no ads. advertise
4. great family plan, the best of all subscription services I have seen. Single payment, but each family member has their own separate account with their own password, not just a profile like on Netflix
5. most of the music I care about is available there
6. great remote control between different Spotify apps and devices. When I start Spotify on my Linux box I can control it with my Android phone, just like that

I use both but overall prefer Apple.

It is very nice to just open my Library tab by default without any pop ups or ads/suggestions/promotional anything.

Also prefer the way Apple implements the way you go back to the main album/list.

Spotify because the duo subscription.

I have both and like Spotify better. It‘s WAY easier to navigate. It‘s also possible to listen/resume on several devices (eg. switch from iPhone to Mac to Alexa to TV etc.) without interrupting or restarting the playlist.

Qobuz, for audio quality.

Spotify just because I've been using it almost since it came out and especially because Apple Music is absolute chaos for scrobbling to last.fm

I like Apple Music. I don’t listen to a lot of music, and it just works for me. I have several HomePod minis and it just works. Also, being able to ask Siri to play something while I’m in the car is very important to me.

Spotify since I use ios and android. I also prefer there algorithm more and integrations (discord, samsung watch, etc).

Spotify. I'm on a duo plan at $13/mo which is my ideal price point versus need. Apple Music only has individual or family plans, and the family plan is $17/mo.

I like Spotify's recommendations and the overall style of its app. That being said, I'm sure Apple Music is much better for privacy-oriented folks, given how much data Spotify seems to collect.

For me, the dealbreaker with Apple Music is that they nuke your library a few months after you canceled your subscription. I tried it back in the day when it was new and used it happily for some time, but the difficulty of finding new tracks that I like drove me back to Spotify. I then wanted to give AM another try recently, only to find out that my old library was empty. I immediately canceled the AM trial after that…

Also I found that Spotify has a greater pool of niche stuff that I listen to.

The other reasons why I prefer Spotify have already been mentioned:

• better discoverability of new music
• better cross platform support (I use both Mac and Windows)

Currently Spotify. Would like to change to stop supporting them (they don’t prioritize development in Apple ecosystem, e.g. HomePod support, audio quality could improve, supporting of podcasters I wish to not support, etc.), BUT my other half enjoys Dax Shepard’s podcast too much.

Fuck you, Dax, for going exclusive on the same platform as Joe Rogan.

There is one nit feature that is making me hold on to Spotify — sync “Now Playing” queue among devices. Also its extension, control music playback of a device from another device.

These are features that I use day to day, and in the 3 months I used Apple Music, I was reminded of its absence every time.

The discovery algorithm used by Spotify is also better but the aforementioned features inhibit Apple Music’s UX enough to make me not use it.

I've used both Spotify premium (for 3 years) then switched to Apple Music to try it, keep it for a couple of months, back to Spotify premium, then finally back to Apple Music. In my opinion Spotify has better suggestions, but it may be because I used it for longer, but I hate the app and if your privacy conscious it's a nightmare. Apple Music has a superior audio quality in the base plan, if you are on an Apple system it's worth the price for its integration and at least your not selling your data to others as much as spotify. I think both web interfaces works really well anyway, if you don't like the apps

I use Apple Music. I don't mind the app menus and have a fairly good grasp on where everything is now. The real draws are Apple Music Classic's new app, spatial surround sound and lossless audio. In addition, it comes with my Apple One subscription and makes it that much of a better deal.

musi cause I'm broke, but if I wasn't I'd use spotify

Apple Music. I have a very large library and am an album listener. AM is much better at library organization for me.

Using Spotify Family and the pricing is fair. I love the Discover Weekly and Release Radar playlists. The auto-generated Made for are pretty good too. I absolutely HATE the Apple Watch app. It’s buggy as hell. Whoever is managing that project should be fired. @prwnr

Spotify. I've been using them for years. I see no reason to switch to another service and start all over again

I used Spotify before but canceled the premium subscription as it became expensive. I'm now listening to Deezer's free tier.

VLC and Spotify.

I'm poor, and prefer going with a free service, it's just as good as the radio.

VLC I've found to be less clunky than the iTunes/Apple Music sync pipeline, and when I had my older iPad, it was a convenient media hub for things that might not be natively supported by iOS' default player.

ViMusic lol

My partner and I may be the only people on earth using Tidal, but I love it!

The main benefit is that it pays artists like double what the next highest per-stream rate is (I think that’s Apple Music).

The Tidal app is basically Spotify but without podcasts shoved in your eyes. It has personal mixes, daily discovery, new music you might enjoy, etc. All that useful discovery stuff.

I’m mostly on Spotify but there is at least one radio show (Beats In Space) that I use Apple Music for since it’s exclusive to that platform. I do like listening to mixes by some of the artists/label that I love as they offer the track list as well.

I use Spotify simply because my FiL had an extra spot on the family plan. If that weren't the case, I'd probably be trying one of the Apple bundles. I'm actually quite happy with Spotify, but I'm curious what Apple Music's native integration would feel like.

Spotify Premium.

Spotify Connect alone is worth the choice between the two services, in my opinion.

Besides, Spotify doesn’t require you to update your OS in order to update the app.

I’m a producer and have a slightly different relationship with these platforms than the average consumer.

Apple Music SUCKS promoting my music and gets way less listeners than Spotify by a lot. The comparison is not even close.

The lack of reach with Apple Music when I go look at my metrics compared to Spotify is really sad. So for that reason alone I choose Spotify over all of the other platforms.

Apple Music, but not for any reason. Just because I use Apple devices and I’ve never given it any thought.

As others have mentioned, I’ve not had an issue with the Apple recommendations, especially when it comes to “stations” - I think it does a good job of recommending similar artists, and I like it (but I’ve not used Spotify so don’t know if they’re better at it, or what better might look like).

Just a reminder, Apple’s Lossless tech doesn’t work over Bluetooth (that’s a Bluetooth limitation not an Apple limitation) so if for example your regular speakers are connected via Bluetooth then Apple’s Lossless isn’t a good reason to move services since you won’t experience it most the time anyway.

I would factor your primary device into your choice. I mostly control music via my iPhone, and the iOS music app is fine for that. Apple Music is… not ideal… on Mac, and if I used that as my primary controller I suspect I’d shop around for a better service. As an example of two baffling things that irritate me:

1. Playlists are listed in a different order on Mac compared to iOS. There is no reason for this except that Apple is careless.
2. Mac Apple Music sometimes throws a tantrum after e.g. a Zoom meeting and will refuse to produce any audio until you’ve closed and reopened the app. It does it with YouTube as well (e.g. you pause music to play a video, but when you unpause the music afterwards it won’t play). It’s erratic and has been reported elsewhere and is annoying.