6 ms·

Apple should have bought Spotify instead of Beats. They have the money, they still could. Spotify is such a far superior service, it works exactly as you'd exp

by notadoc 10y ago

Apple should have bought Spotify instead of Beats. They have the money, they still could. Spotify is such a far superior service, it works exactly as you'd expect it to, it has a free tier and a paid tier, it's basically as good as it gets for a music streaming service.

stcredzero 10y ago
It's amazing how much better Spotify is at finding related music I also like. Pandora, Google Play, that thing in iTunes -- all annoying. The other ones find bands that sound like bands I like but are annoying. Spotify actually finds me stuff I'm glad to have discovered. The other ones just find annoying doppelgangers of my favorite music. (To be fair, Pandora is better than the others, but dependent on genre. It does really well with classical music. With lots of electronica/electronica related music -- very annoying.)
- dv_dt 10y ago
  For me, I find Spotify better at finding & playing known music, but Pandora is better at finding similar music on a discovery basis. Maybe I just don't get the Spotify clients options for discovering music - everytime I go to discover new music there, other than broad genres or single-specific artists - it seems I hit limited options or dead ends.
  - notadoc 10y ago
    I would agree with that actually, Spotify is great if you already know what what you want to hear. Pandora is great if you want to find new music. I can't think of anything that Apple Music is great for, which is not very Apple-like.
  - jefhwite 10y ago
    I find the "Discover Weekly" playlists to be very good at this.
    - dv_dt 10y ago
      Discover weekly is ok, but I can only assume is processed vs your entire library at best. What I would love from Spotify is playlist button that said play this list and related music.
- veritas20 10y ago
  Interesting. I switched from Spotify to Apple Music. The "For You" section with curated playlists were way better than the Spotify playlists IMO. I only wish that I could choose an activity (workout, etc.) and/or mood and a genre and I'd be all set.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    There could be some genre specificity at play here. I like certain stuff that's influenced by Deep House, but find a lot of things that are "cool" in House music to be highly annoying. I'm a fan of British Isles traditional music, but find I already know most of the good stuff. I like certain contemporary French songwriters, but find most of them kinda samey. The Spotify equivalent of "For You" is where I'm having the most luck. Maybe I'll give Apple another go.
    - vintermann 10y ago
      Are you talking of DW or the more generic similar artists/discover tab then? Because the former is far better than the latter. Funnily enough, it has recommended a lot of British Isles trad/folk to me, (and also Québécois, for some reason) most of which is OK but some of which is really interesting. It's found several long medieval ballads, which I would have thought was far too niche to recommend.
      - stcredzero 10y ago
        DW is most fruitful. If you are into British Isles trad/folk, there's a lot of wonderful Québécois stuff. Those guys often have better Irish trad chops than local Irish trad prodigies. Then on top of that, add in all the odd Acadian/french influence. I got to play with some of those guys in Christmas Revels.
  - Alphasite_ 10y ago
    This was my experience as well, I found a couple of really good playlists on Spotify but most are crap.
  - 10y ago
- anoonmoose 10y ago
  I think that Google Play is a little bit better than Spotify at finding related music I also like. Spotify's related bands list was a little better than Google's, but Google's radio-style playlists that you can create off of a song, a playlist, or just "I'm feeling lucky" are awesome almost every time. I used Spotify for longer but I feel like I'm getting a lot more value out of Google Play. Obviously there's a lot of personal preference here. Add in that Google has a TON of info on me, way more than Spotify could ever have, and it's almost not a fair comparison. I should mention that I left Spotify because they have a 10,000-songs limit on how many songs you can save, even with a paid account, and that was absolutely absurd to me- IIRC, Google lets you actually upload more tracks than Spotify would let you save.
- colinthompson 10y ago
  I found Rdio to be the best of all possible options. It still is disappointing to me that 1) Apple didn't buy Rdio and 2) Pandora still has done nothing with the IP they got out of the deal. Rdio had some really creative curation features. The "What's Hot" feature, which was a current hits list of what your friends like and are listening to was really amazing. Their auto-play radio feature (it would start playing similar music based on what you just finished listening to) was great. And lastly their "adventurous" slider, which allowed the radio station song search to land somewhere in the spectrum of just songs in your collection to new stuff you didn't have but was in some way related to the current radio station being played....man.....this feature alone was worth the whole subscription in my opinion.
fullshark 10y ago
My guess is they looked into it and thought this would be cheaper. Especially because in the long run apple might win this fight with exclusive artist deals (Taylor Swift, etc) which may prove more important than a great interface.
malchow 10y ago
I subscribe to all the music services. I subscribed to Google Play because of the Songza concierge asset. One byproduct? It seems that Google Play's CDN and DRM handling, not to mention caching, is way superior to Spotify. Whether I am on wifi, LTE, or getting in my car and therefore in between the two, hitting play on Google Play will always result in a song playing within two seconds. On Spotify, it's more like 10 seconds. And it may not play at all. It may be stuck reauthing my account. It may be stuck in a stateless DRM hypoxia where every track is greyed out, although I am authenticated. It's impossible to predict. I think Spotify built a really cool 2007-era P2P infrastructure. Then turned it off. And never tried to think beyond the state of the art since then.
- matwood 10y ago
  I agree with how well Play music works. I did Spotify for awhile and tracks would disappear and I never really did like the UI. Then Play music came out and I switched over and never looked back. I did the Apple Music beta and it was fine, but I'm still on the early adopter Play deal of 7.99/month and now it includes ad free youtube. Hard to leave at this point.
- cheshire137 10y ago
  I have the opposite problem with Google Play. I use it as a backup system for all my MP3s and it feels like when I hit play sometimes a Google employee is having to go to the shed out back, riffle through some DVDs, find the one that has my song backed up, bring it back, load it in the computer, copy it off, upload it somewhere, and _then_ I get to listen to it. Half the time the track will just sit there and spin without ever playing, and Google will just give up and progress to another track on the album. It's awful.
partiallypro 10y ago
First off, Apple bought Beats for their headphones, not their failing music service; but secondly if Apple had bought Spotify they'd be under the anti-trust microscope.
- Eric_WVGG 10y ago
  Debatable. They had to get into the streaming business sooner or later, Beats Music was comparatively cheap and if not more popular, superior in at least some technical/UI regards.
- notadoc 10y ago
  If Apple wanted good headphones, why not buy Shure?
  - partiallypro 10y ago
    Who said they wanted good headphones? Beats had insane margins. Their headphones cost $7-10 to produce and sell for $100. Apple is about money and cashflow more so than quality.
alexophile 10y ago
If they were going to buy just a streaming service they should have bought Rdio. But–and this was kind of the focus of the article–Apple has an internal bias towards hardware. They saw a music-y hardware play with a huge markup and a ton of brand capital and went for it.
Nullabillity 10y ago
So that Apple could have ruined Spotify instead?
- notadoc 10y ago
  LOL point taken. On a serious note, why is that Apple services are so... lacking?
matthewmacleod 10y ago
The main issue with Spotify for me – bearing in mind it's the music subscription service I use – is that the applications have continued to become shittier and shittier with each release, to the point where I'm actively considering escaping simply so I never have to use them again.
baby 10y ago
Checked all of them and Google Music was just better on all front. My biggest grip with Spotify is that I couldn't upload all my own music/playlists and have them there along with the new music I'll listen to through their service. Made a comparison spreadsheet there: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ptV0sWO2tBT4c3G8aiB0WgQ7asZFK2WBoIlg8OcBKg8/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ptV0sWO2tBT4c3G8aiB0...
rimantas 10y ago
Must be different for everyone. I tried Spotify, could not stand it.

by notadoc 10y ago

stcredzero 10y ago

It's amazing how much better Spotify is at finding related music I also like. Pandora, Google Play, that thing in iTunes -- all annoying. The other ones find bands that sound like bands I like but are annoying. Spotify actually finds me stuff I'm glad to have discovered. The other ones just find annoying doppelgangers of my favorite music. (To be fair, Pandora is better than the others, but dependent on genre. It does really well with classical music. With lots of electronica/electronica related music -- very annoying.)

dv_dt 10y ago
For me, I find Spotify better at finding & playing known music, but Pandora is better at finding similar music on a discovery basis. Maybe I just don't get the Spotify clients options for discovering music - everytime I go to discover new music there, other than broad genres or single-specific artists - it seems I hit limited options or dead ends.
- notadoc 10y ago
  I would agree with that actually, Spotify is great if you already know what what you want to hear. Pandora is great if you want to find new music. I can't think of anything that Apple Music is great for, which is not very Apple-like.
- jefhwite 10y ago
  I find the "Discover Weekly" playlists to be very good at this.
  - dv_dt 10y ago
    Discover weekly is ok, but I can only assume is processed vs your entire library at best. What I would love from Spotify is playlist button that said play this list and related music.
veritas20 10y ago
Interesting. I switched from Spotify to Apple Music. The "For You" section with curated playlists were way better than the Spotify playlists IMO. I only wish that I could choose an activity (workout, etc.) and/or mood and a genre and I'd be all set.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  There could be some genre specificity at play here. I like certain stuff that's influenced by Deep House, but find a lot of things that are "cool" in House music to be highly annoying. I'm a fan of British Isles traditional music, but find I already know most of the good stuff. I like certain contemporary French songwriters, but find most of them kinda samey. The Spotify equivalent of "For You" is where I'm having the most luck. Maybe I'll give Apple another go.
  - vintermann 10y ago
    Are you talking of DW or the more generic similar artists/discover tab then? Because the former is far better than the latter. Funnily enough, it has recommended a lot of British Isles trad/folk to me, (and also Québécois, for some reason) most of which is OK but some of which is really interesting. It's found several long medieval ballads, which I would have thought was far too niche to recommend.
    - stcredzero 10y ago
      DW is most fruitful. If you are into British Isles trad/folk, there's a lot of wonderful Québécois stuff. Those guys often have better Irish trad chops than local Irish trad prodigies. Then on top of that, add in all the odd Acadian/french influence. I got to play with some of those guys in Christmas Revels.
- Alphasite_ 10y ago
  This was my experience as well, I found a couple of really good playlists on Spotify but most are crap.
- 10y ago
anoonmoose 10y ago
I think that Google Play is a little bit better than Spotify at finding related music I also like. Spotify's related bands list was a little better than Google's, but Google's radio-style playlists that you can create off of a song, a playlist, or just "I'm feeling lucky" are awesome almost every time. I used Spotify for longer but I feel like I'm getting a lot more value out of Google Play. Obviously there's a lot of personal preference here. Add in that Google has a TON of info on me, way more than Spotify could ever have, and it's almost not a fair comparison. I should mention that I left Spotify because they have a 10,000-songs limit on how many songs you can save, even with a paid account, and that was absolutely absurd to me- IIRC, Google lets you actually upload more tracks than Spotify would let you save.
colinthompson 10y ago
I found Rdio to be the best of all possible options. It still is disappointing to me that 1) Apple didn't buy Rdio and 2) Pandora still has done nothing with the IP they got out of the deal. Rdio had some really creative curation features. The "What's Hot" feature, which was a current hits list of what your friends like and are listening to was really amazing. Their auto-play radio feature (it would start playing similar music based on what you just finished listening to) was great. And lastly their "adventurous" slider, which allowed the radio station song search to land somewhere in the spectrum of just songs in your collection to new stuff you didn't have but was in some way related to the current radio station being played....man.....this feature alone was worth the whole subscription in my opinion.

fullshark 10y ago

My guess is they looked into it and thought this would be cheaper. Especially because in the long run apple might win this fight with exclusive artist deals (Taylor Swift, etc) which may prove more important than a great interface.

malchow 10y ago

I subscribe to all the music services. I subscribed to Google Play because of the Songza concierge asset. One byproduct? It seems that Google Play's CDN and DRM handling, not to mention caching, is way superior to Spotify. Whether I am on wifi, LTE, or getting in my car and therefore in between the two, hitting play on Google Play will always result in a song playing within two seconds. On Spotify, it's more like 10 seconds. And it may not play at all. It may be stuck reauthing my account. It may be stuck in a stateless DRM hypoxia where every track is greyed out, although I am authenticated. It's impossible to predict. I think Spotify built a really cool 2007-era P2P infrastructure. Then turned it off. And never tried to think beyond the state of the art since then.

matwood 10y ago
I agree with how well Play music works. I did Spotify for awhile and tracks would disappear and I never really did like the UI. Then Play music came out and I switched over and never looked back. I did the Apple Music beta and it was fine, but I'm still on the early adopter Play deal of 7.99/month and now it includes ad free youtube. Hard to leave at this point.
cheshire137 10y ago
I have the opposite problem with Google Play. I use it as a backup system for all my MP3s and it feels like when I hit play sometimes a Google employee is having to go to the shed out back, riffle through some DVDs, find the one that has my song backed up, bring it back, load it in the computer, copy it off, upload it somewhere, and _then_ I get to listen to it. Half the time the track will just sit there and spin without ever playing, and Google will just give up and progress to another track on the album. It's awful.

partiallypro 10y ago

First off, Apple bought Beats for their headphones, not their failing music service; but secondly if Apple had bought Spotify they'd be under the anti-trust microscope.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago
Debatable. They had to get into the streaming business sooner or later, Beats Music was comparatively cheap and if not more popular, superior in at least some technical/UI regards.
notadoc 10y ago
If Apple wanted good headphones, why not buy Shure?
- partiallypro 10y ago
  Who said they wanted good headphones? Beats had insane margins. Their headphones cost $7-10 to produce and sell for $100. Apple is about money and cashflow more so than quality.

alexophile 10y ago

If they were going to buy just a streaming service they should have bought Rdio. But–and this was kind of the focus of the article–Apple has an internal bias towards hardware. They saw a music-y hardware play with a huge markup and a ton of brand capital and went for it.

Nullabillity 10y ago

So that Apple could have ruined Spotify instead?

notadoc 10y ago
LOL point taken. On a serious note, why is that Apple services are so... lacking?

matthewmacleod 10y ago

The main issue with Spotify for me – bearing in mind it's the music subscription service I use – is that the applications have continued to become shittier and shittier with each release, to the point where I'm actively considering escaping simply so I never have to use them again.

baby 10y ago

Checked all of them and Google Music was just better on all front. My biggest grip with Spotify is that I couldn't upload all my own music/playlists and have them there along with the new music I'll listen to through their service. Made a comparison spreadsheet there: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ptV0sWO2tBT4c3G8aiB0WgQ7asZFK2WBoIlg8OcBKg8/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ptV0sWO2tBT4c3G8aiB0...

rimantas 10y ago

Must be different for everyone. I tried Spotify, could not stand it.