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Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

160 points by srameshc 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
adamnemecek 9y ago
And here I was thinking they were fighting a lost battle.
- on_and_off 9y ago
  How so ? Isn't Apple Music Pre-installed on all iOS devices ? That's a huge advantage that most new services don't have. (I realize Play Music has the same advantage on Android but Google has completely failed to even try to promote this service)
  - swozey 9y ago
    I cannot think of anyone in my life ever using itunes at pool parties, on boats, etc. It's always Spotify and lately every so often it's GPM. I recently switched from GPM back to Spotify. It's everything I need in that specific app.
    - matwood 9y ago
      I tried Spotify years ago and didn’t like it. None of my close circle of friends use Spotify either. I used GPM for a couple of years and recently switched to AM. It’s hidden in the UI, but you can buy a year in AM for $99. If you look around you can find a $100 iTunes gift card for $80 (sometimes cheaper) pushing the cost of AM down a bit more.
  - rahoulb 9y ago
    There's no free tier, apart from a one-off trial, so the preinstall doesn't count for much. The CarPlay and Apple Watch apps and Siri integration are the main advantages AM has over Spotify (Spotify's CarPlay app is so buggy it's dangerous).
paul7986 9y ago
I’ve been an unhappy subscriber since it started. Siri commands and Apple Music are essential when driving and thus I’m stuck with it(only use it while driving which is frequently). After three years it still sucks for me because... - bloated UX - try asking Siri to play all your “Recently Added,” songs without creating a new playlist. - how can I discover new music when driving? I can ask Siri play similar songs to current song playing but what I need is Apple Music to shuffle all my songs and randomly add new/similar songs that compare to my entire and eclectic song playlist. - there are instances where Apple Music/Siri plays non-copyrighted songs ie. cheesy horrible and lame covers of public domain Xmas songs. Makes me feel ripped off Spotify is better but totally unsafe to use while driving vs. Crapple Music.
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  Google Assistant will happily play you Spotify songs on Android. Obviously Apple won't allow integration with third party software on iPhone.
  - cassieramen 9y ago
    I am happily surprised google assistant not only plays from Spotify but let's you set Spotify as your default music service. No "ask Spotify to play..." just a simple "play..." I feel like Apple bullies people into inferior experiences.
- finaliteration 9y ago
  I’m also stuck with the service due to the hands-free control with Siri. The cheesy/horrible/lame/non-copyrighted songs are awful and made worse by the fact that my kid will ask for nursery rhymes and you never know which version you’ll get because it doesn’t consistently play the same one.
  - paul7986 9y ago
    I was thinking it's a business decision. Let's play as much public domain cheesy songs as possible and not have to pay. Ummm Apple you have so much money and that's because you are so focused on providing the best phone UX. Why aren't you providing the best music streaming svc UX? Boggles my mind!
hprotagonist 9y ago
I have very few complaints about apple music, and most of them are because I regard the Atomic Unit Of Music to be the studio album. 1. No Tool. :( 2. No easy way to reorder search results to be album first. 3. Date of original album release is buried. 4. Hard to filter by "studio album" vs "live album" vs "compilation album" vs "greatest hits album". 5. Siri can't help; "play me the third album by the rolling stones" doesn't help, and neither do i have a voice-controlled "tell me what the album names by X are and let me pick one" interface. My impression is that no streaming service does these things.
- mrep 9y ago
  Has the UX gotten better? I tried it back when it first came out for the free 3 month trial and I went back to paying for spotify because it was so horrible.
  - godzillabrennus 9y ago
    It’s still horrible for me.
  - DrJokepu 9y ago
    Well that being said, Spotify was working really hard in the meantime on making their UX worse than ever before. They came a long way since 2009 (back then it was actually pretty good). A few more years of this innovation and it might get even worse than iTunes.
    - mortenjorck 9y ago
      Every time I launch Spotify on my iPad, I’m stupefied that they regressed from their excellent, scrolling pane-based tablet UI to a blown-up phone layout. If it weren’t for Discover Weekly, I would have switched to Apple Music long ago.
      - KozmoNau7 9y ago
        I dumped tablets a long time ago, since no one seems to be willing to make good tablet apps, instead of just scaling up their phone apps. Tablets had their time, but they're just junk now. Netbooks/ultrabooks have 10+ hours battery life now, and can run an actual full-featured OS, with actual applications.
ClassyJacket 9y ago
Sad. The UI of Spotify is much better - less taps to get where you want to go, dark theme, and it actually has song handoff between devices and a dedicated desktop app for the Mac, none of which Apple Music has. I can't help but think this is because of Apple's monopolistic practice of only allowing Apple Music to integrate with Siri.
- dfischer 9y ago
  Apple Music is on desktop
  - electricslpnsld 9y ago
    > Apple Music is on desktop Not in a dedicated app. The integration with iTunes is a bit of a mess and brings all of the iTunes weirdness along for the ride. I really wish Apple would break iTunes apart...
    - drb91 9y ago
      Heh, my biggest complaint wih spotify is that I can’t use it with my carefully curated itunes library, including my many smart playlists.
      - kiliankoe 9y ago
        I can definitely remember this being possible a while back when I was using Spotify.
        drb91 9y ago
        Yea, it still forces you to listen through the spotify player rather than itunes (which is not at all surprising) and they never supported smart playlists. Again, not surprising, but certainly enough for me to prefer apple music. The player is just way, way better for my needs.
        9y ago
mexicanandre 9y ago
In Australia apple music is given away for free with a few of our mobile providers for free. Is the same in the USA? I dont know a single apple music user in Australia. Spotify is a much better user experience.
- pxeboot 9y ago
  I have never seen a US carrier offer Apple Music. T-Mobile does provide a Netflix subscription with some plans, so it's certainly possible though.
- movedx 9y ago
  I had it free with Telstra too. Sadly this breaches net neutrality rules and shouldn't be encouraged. I eventually moved to Spotify and pay for that instead.
sanjeetsuhag 9y ago
Honestly, I can't imagine switching to Apple Music. Speaking as a guy who owns an iPhone and a Mac. I love being able to smoothly control playback from any device. I love how seamless the experience is, I've only tried the Apple Music Trial when it first came out and I can't see any possible reason to switch to it now. Spotify is excellent for music discovery, and I love the top songs and everything. It's perfect. It's the kind of software I wish I could make someday.
- maxaf 9y ago
  This is why I normally stay away from Apple services. My household runs on an eclectic mix of Android and Apple devices, and this is exactly how we like it. Google seems to have embraced the presence of Apple devices in its ecosystem, so why not the other way around?
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    > Google seems to have embraced the presence of Apple devices in its ecosystem, so why not the other way around? Google must, Apple is not under the same pressure to reciprocate.
  - comex 9y ago
    Apple Music has an Android app.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Google seems to have embraced the presence of Apple devices in its ecosystem, so why not the other way around? Google is an online services company with incidental hardware, Apple Music is a hardware company with incidental online services. Google's primary concern with it's hardware is driving online services. Apple's primary concern with online services is driving it's hardware ecosystem. So, sure, Google has no problem embracing other hardware platforms for it's online services, but Apple has a lot less interest in that.
- rxhernandez 9y ago
  Google music has been the best for me: - IT doesn't block it at work(it blocks spotify) - I don't have to install anything - I don't see ads on youtube - it has all of my music that came from CDs backed up to it - I regularly discover new music through their Radio feature so long as the artist/song isn't super popular
jakereps 9y ago
> Globally, however, Spotify remains in a league of its own, with nearly twice as many paid subscribers than No. 2 Apple, and slightly faster subscriber growth. I mean Spotify has been around a lot longer. Is it weird that new users aren't growing as fast if it already held the majority?
anfilt 9y ago
Do not eat half-eaten rotten fruit. I repeat do not eat. It is bad fof your health.
- anfilt 9y ago
  What's the issue, I am pretty sure it's a bad idea to eat rotten food.
  - dang 9y ago
    Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We eventually ban accounts that keep doing that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - anfilt 9y ago
      Most my comments are not unsubstantiated. However, when comes to Apple. I am not going to be nice. I don't like how they closed off their ecosystem is. I hate how they do stupid things in for sake of fashion. They claim to innovative, but really just repackage existing tech, and force you into their ecosystem. It's just an attempt of vendor lock in. Then you have mindless sheeple drooling over their products. However, I would prefer apple just went the way of the dodo.
      - dang 9y ago
        From a moderation point of view, Apple is not the issue here, the issue is your posting unsubstantive comments to HN. We ban accounts that won't stop doing that, so please stop doing that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
heavymark 9y ago
I like I'm sure many predicted this would be inevitable regardless how better one product is over another. At the end of the day Spotify can't compete with Apple's budget, and music streaming isn't a long term profitable business on it's own. I love Apple and deep into their ecosystem. However, certainly not a fan of Apple Music. When using on the Mac iTunes is rather horrific since everytime I search it searches local music rather than Apple Music or vice versa, or its in the Podcast tab, etc. They need a dedicated Music app for Mac and universal search without the iTunes store. I'm sure they are moving towards this but until then rather miserable. The Spotify app isn't as clean looking but is much more practical and enjoyable to use. Finally, Apple is about curated playlists, where is Spotify is about algorithms which in my experience is the better route. So while Spotify maybe the better product, at the end of the day, Apple Music is more seamless for people in the Apple Ecosystem of Siri, HomePod, AppleTV and all and in the end will win out. Let's hope Spotify stay's long enough to make Apple Music better. Forgot to add, that personally, I love YouTube Music. The algorithms and search and pool of countless remixes, live performances and old videos/music not on other places is unmatched. It lacks the Apple Ecosystem benefit, but is a hidden gem
- Axsuul 9y ago
  You're talking like Spotify's days are numbered. Spotify has many ways it can outcompete Apple on, not just budget. Just like Lyft did with Uber, DuckDuckGo with Google, etc. This is not a winner-takes-all market. What Apple has done here is they've captured their ecosystem users that likely would have never signed up with Spotify in the first place.
  - AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
    No, this also shows that Apple has successfully yanked users out of Spotify. Not surprising in the least. The fact is: the music industry is indeed a winner-take-all market now. The industry's horrible response to Napster crippled them, and their inability to outmaneuver Steve Jobs in the aftermath led to a rather diminished industry overall. We see this in both recorded and live music - just look at LiveNation's rise to dominance following Apple's rise to dominance for distribution with iTunes. Music also suffers from the same problem as other older media - competition for ears and for time. Video games are hurting music just as much as it's hurting film. Music consumption has become cheapened over the years as technology left it in the dust, preferring to adapt video to our current media-heavy lives. Audio mediums have been traditionally not as paid attention to. Our culture is simply moving on from this kind of media, in a sense.
ggg9990 9y ago
If Microsoft bundling a browser is antitrust, why isn’t this?
- aianus 9y ago
  The logic was that Windows had 98% market share and iOS/macOS only around 50%. Ergo no dominant market position to abuse.
- adventured 9y ago
  Browser bundling was among the lower offenses they went after Microsoft for. What they did to OEMs is really what buried their anti-trust case. For example, the first DOJ anti-trust lawsuit in 1994 was primarily about OEM contract/licensing abuses, and set the stage for what came later.
- saratogacx 9y ago
  MSFT wasn't busted for bundling the browser but it was busted for forcing OEM's to not include any 3rd party browser. To get the OEM pricing for the OS, you had to agree that your OS image would not include any software that would compete with IE.
shmerl 9y ago
I'd stick with Bandcamp and other DRM-free FLAC stores.
- AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
  I really hate that you were downvoted for this. It may be only a single sentence, but I think you're correct to bring up the fact that Spotify and Apple Music both don't represent the entire music industry. These two entities are merely soulless peddlers of the Big 5. There are substantially important pockets of the music industry that do not exist in this narrow realm.
  - siquick 9y ago
    > These two entities are merely soulless peddlers of the Big 5 Rubbish - the vast majority of music on both platforms is not released on any of the big 5 record labels. Apple Music has so many playlists featuring underground artists and labels. Spotify Discover Weekly never gives me any big 5 music. The only time people get "peddled' the big 5 tracks is when they want to listen to them.
    - AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
      You know for a fact that the only reason either of these music services exist is because the Big 5 are in on it. Their catalog is what carries the services, and is what makes them profitable. There is no Spotify or Apple Music without the Big 5. You cannot say the same of Bandcamp.
      - siquick 9y ago
        Why is that a bad thing? It's a positive that the big 5 are enabling smaller artists labels to have distribution to new listeners. I love Bandcamp for downloading WAV files for DJ purposes but as a streaming service, it just isn't that great simply because of the lack of breadth of the catalogue.
ritarong 9y ago
Grooveshark :(
whalesalad 9y ago
Gonna be hard to pull me from Spotify. With the Capital One Quicksilver 50% off deal I get the family plan for $7.99 a month (5 users for less than the regular price for 1 user) At times I’m tempted to give Apple Music a shot because I admire some of the UI differences – but my wife is an Android user and she loves Spotify as well. It’s really the most well-rounded and accesssible solution right now.
- MarkSweep 9y ago
  There exists an Android app for Apple Music: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr... Anyone have any idea if it is any good?
KirinDave 9y ago
This is depressing, and I don't get why customers are so fanatically loyal to a service that's consistently trailing the industry in features, security, and has a bad habit of deleting people's music or "forgetting" their accounts.
freddie_mercury 9y ago
Spotify (after years) still doesn't exist in the country I live in. Google Play (after years) still doesn't exist in the country I live in. Apple Music has been available from day one. They also have country-specific pricing, instead of expecting the right price for Americans to be the right price for a developing country.
- a012 9y ago
  This. Definitely, only Apple music and Tidal accept world wide subscribers. We (third world countries) also have internet and valid credit cards to buy whatever we want as like US citizens, what make others discriminate regions?
  - fnordsensei 9y ago
    Can't speak for Google or Apple, but I know that Spotify's entry into a country is largely dictated by rights holders. They themselves would like to offer everything to everyone, of course.
    - nasso 9y ago
      Its directed by spotifys ability to negotiate with rights holders.
      - dx034 9y ago
        Not sure if the unavailability of Spotify in Botswana is due to right holders. Think it's just not high on their priority list.
      - EADGBE 9y ago
        I always considered most of these decisions to come from accounting/taxes/different currency. Getting to play the "well what about digital rights" seems like a cop-out for the previously mentioned reasons. It would anyways in my accounting department.
- ashraymalhotra 9y ago
freewizard 9y ago
One big disadvantage of Apple Music to me is I still can't listen to Apple Music through a browser without iTunes easily. It's just so much more convenient you can just use a incognito Chrome session on friend's PC and start streaming, as comparing to install/logout/login/logout (which is referred as "mobile/app first" experience nowadays).
seanvk 9y ago
Spotify is available via Discord, Xbox, and Playstation. The diversity of clients is key for me. Apple Music has at most what an Android App?
- jpalomaki 9y ago
  Also works with Chrome Cast, which is pretty affordable way to build multiroom setup if you already have some audio equipment around.
vm 9y ago
This is a much better strategy by Apple, than Microsoft’s strategy against Netscape in the 90’s. Here, Apple charges consumers the market price [1]. Microsoft on the other hand gave away its browser for FREE. Free is better for consumers but it sparked antitrust backlash. Apple just let time play to its distribution advantage. [1] The $ are the same for consumers but not for Spotify. It loses margin because of the App Store’s high take rate. As a result, Apple Music makes more than Spotify on a per consumer basis, even at the same price https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....
- hamandcheese 9y ago
  IIRC you can’t sign up for Spotify inside the app, so they wouldn’t pay the App Store tax.
ksec 9y ago
It is interesting how many thinks Spotify is better if it was available in the country, and yet people out of convenience still choose Apple Music. I have heard Apple Music in UK or US are great. That is when only one languages is being used, and mostly English. Whenever Apple Music has to deal with two lanagueges, it sucks. https://atadistance.net/2018/02/04/homepod-and-the-apple-music-japanese-metadata-mess/ https://atadistance.net/2018/02/04/homepod-and-the-apple-mus... And it is not only Japanese, but most of South East Asia. if Apple Music already wasn't better then Spotify, this make it worst. In the old days, Apple was all about being the best to win. Not it has become being good enough to win, and to make the matter worst they stop improving it after they won.
putlake 9y ago
I rarely read the full thread on HN but read this one to see if anyone had mentioned Echo or Alexa-enabled devices. Surprising that no one did, esp given how many they have sold. We are an Apple household primarily but also have a Google Home and recently bought an Alexa-enabled car charger (Anker/Roav Viva). The only service that will work across the board is Spotify. In that regard Spotify is like Netflix -- available on every device.
- ethiclub 9y ago
  Not to sanction further consolidation or oligopoly issues, but Spotify has long seemed like a logical acquisition for Amazon. - Fix Prime's song catalogue size issue (still an issue?) - Grab massive market share and upsell/bundle other services - Provide bargaining power to Spotify - Get access to very advanced IP - Integrate with voice ui further (i.e. smarter voice commands including play list creations, complex requests and vague requests) - Clock / alarm integration for music upon wake from echo/dot - Fix profitability concerns of Spotify's revenue stream - Provide high quality music, podcast services etc. alongside their soon-to-be-formidable film offering - Use Spotify's algorithms and data to potentially improve film/tv recommendations and discovery - Provide the gateway to becoming a record label, thereby cutting out the middle men à la netflix/Amazon film strategy of content creation Would anyone more knowledgeable be able to comment further or point out flaws with this theory?
  - simongr3dal 9y ago
    I’m definitely not more knowledgeable, but in my experience Amazon hasn’t been as good as e.g. Apple at making their services accessible internationally. It’s getting slightly better now with Twitch Prime and Amazon Prime video, which is in the same category. But I fear being neglected if they made an acquisition.
  - noarchy 9y ago
    Prime Music launched in Canada a few months ago, and the catalogue size is very much an issue. It is barely worth using, at this stage.
  - 9y ago
ThomW 9y ago
I love Spotify, but it bugs me that I can't use Siri to launch music from it. It's the only thing Apple Music has over Spotify imo.
fnordsensei 9y ago
Does Apple Music offer something comparable to Spotify's Discover Weekly playlists?
- rahoulb 9y ago
  They have a weekly "favourites mix", "new music mix", and "chill mix". In my experience the choices that Apple Music make are extremely poor, even after months of training. Spotify seems to know what I like, Apple Music has no idea. (Also Apple Music has nothing like the Daily Mixes, which also work really well for me; it suggests a daily set of playlists for you, but again, Apple Music doesn't seem to have learnt what I like, so these are pretty useless)
- pwinnski 9y ago
  Yes, there are three playlists that are tuned to my tastes. Most weeks they're pretty great, although every few months I wonder what I ever did to make Apple's ML model think I like those songs. My daughter also thinks her weekly playlists are good, while my son says they're trash for him. I'm not sure why the results seems to vary so widely.
fredsted 9y ago
I use Apple Music for various reasons, but where I am (Denmark) _everyone_ uses Spotify.
rahulchowdhury 9y ago
I switched from Apple Music to Spotify solely because of Spotify's awesome recommendation engine. Can't even think of switching back to Apple Music after witnessing Spotify's magic. I guess the recommendation system will keep on giving an extra edge to Spotify over the years to come.
rahoulb 9y ago
I tried Apple Music for 6 months, and spent that time diligently training it to my tastes. My latest "favourites mix" had 12 songs that I had to mark as "dislike" after all that training. Likewise the "for you"playlists are garbage - just because I like a couple of songs by guitar bands doesn't mean I want to listen to hours and hours of them. Apple Music on Apple Watch 3 is amazing - leaving a phone at home is strangely liberating. But, for me, the big advantage of Spotify is I don't always need to think about what I want to listen to - I can pick an artist and listen or I can be lazy and just hit a Daily Mix which plays stuff I really like. Asking Apple Music to play "some reggae" or whatever invariably ends up with it playing a load of music I really don't like, even after all that training.
- adim86 9y ago
  I totally agree with this sentiment. The auto-generated lists on Apple music suck compared to Spotify. I do think the curated stuff on Apple music is formidable but that's about it. For people who want to discover music...spotify is still the way to go. Apple is just really good at shoving their stuff on people. Spotify has no ecosystem to leverage like apple
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- gurkendoktor 9y ago
  > the big advantage of Spotify is I don't always need to think about what I want to listen to This is huge when I'm trying to stay in the flow while programming. Spotify is like a personal DJ that really groks how I work, especially now that it silently continues playing matching tracks when a playlist ends. With Apple Music, I ended up switching back to iTunes at least once an hour. I really hope they won't be able to crush Spotify.
  - jeffhuys 9y ago
    They (Spotify) also have some kind of awesome new playlist feature that mixes the songs together automatically. The "Trap Vibes" (don't judge) playlist uses that feature, I'd say try it! Play at least 2-3 songs and notice how gapless they transition into eachother. It really works great. I hope it's automated and not based on cuepoints (it probably is, though).
MarkMc 9y ago
Can someone explain why? Does Apple music have significantly more songs? Is it significantly cheaper? Or is it simply because it's the default music app on iPhone?
- rahoulb 9y ago
  I prefer AM's iPhone UI and it has Siri and Apple Watch integration. Plus Spotify's CarPlay app is essentially useless and dangerous to use when driving. The main one is if you have lots of music already in iTunes, AM let's you access that alongside streaming stuff which I guess is a big advantage to a lot of people.
- ancarda 9y ago
  The sole reason I use Spotify is it’s fantastic (community created) playlists and great recommendations. Once Apple Music catches up to that, I may switch to it because Spotify’s UI is truly awful. I want to go back to Apple Music. I only left because someone showed me some amazing playlists and pretty soon Spotify started recommending great songs to me.
- saturdaysaint 9y ago
  I used to use Spotify. I mostly switched to be able to launch songs/albums using Siri, and Apple TV integration is a nice plus. There were some things I preferred about Spotify, but since their libraries are identical and 99% of my interaction is either voice command, search, or a small rotation of recent albums, TBH it's just not a domain that I'm especially obsessed with optimizing further.
KozmoNau7 9y ago
Spotify has a desktop application for Linux. Apple Music doesn't. So Spotify wins, right out of the gate. Add to this that Spotify's auto playlists are a hell of a lot better than Apple's, and I really don't understand why people bother with Apple Music.
qwerty456127 9y ago
BTW why won't some business fairness commission attack Apple for using their cellphone market domination to thwart competition and promote other products of their own like iMusic (e.g. the way they did with Microsoft when MS started shipping Internet Explorer built in Windows systems)?
- rahoulb 9y ago
  Don't get me wrong - as I've stated elsewhere on here, I don't like Apple Music and it annoys me greatly. But Apple Music is only usable with an optional subscription payment and can easily be uninstalled (pseudo-uninstalled) from an iPhone. It does integrate with Siri, which other music services cannot do, and it streams music on the Apple Watch, which other music services cannot (or will not) do. But it's not essential to the function of the phone. And the iPhone has a 30-40% market share or less on unit sales (depending on where you are). MS was punished for including Internet Explorer for free and then tying it into the innards of the OS so it could not be removed. And Windows had an 80-90% market share at the time.
  - qwerty456127 9y ago
    > It does integrate with Siri, which other music services cannot do, and it streams music on the Apple Watch, which other music services cannot (or will not) do. Any idea why? I think they would probably add this if Apple would provide a reasonable way to. Does anybody know if Siri and Apple Watch expose nice APIs that would let you integrate your iPhone app with them? > And the iPhone has a 30-40% market share or less on unit sales (depending on where you are). Although the iPhone-vs-Android comparison can seem to be in favour of Android, Android means many independent manufacturers competing and much more free market for the apps. No single phone manufacturer but Apple has such a market share, having 30-40-50% of the market under unconditional control of a single company means a way more of actual power and commercial value per percent for them than if it was about shares of multiple companies running same technologies summed. Here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279975 ) is what I have been told in a neighbour thread: "With the iOS market share hovering slightly below 50% in the US, it's iMessage that is the main messenger, at least where I live... I don't use Whatsapp nor was I ever invited by someone to use it, but I heard it's basically the iMessage equivalent in the EU and in other places where the iOS market share is lower." I don't mean to argue nor am I a proponent of regulations. Just sharing thoughts. Thank you for the answer.
fortythirteen 9y ago
I have grown increasingly disgusted with Spotify pushing a political agenda inside their app. The last place I want to have politics shoved in my face is my music streaming service, whether I agree with the stance or not. Yet it seems, at least once a month, the banner of the desktop app is decidedly pushing a playlist promoting one side of the political agenda du jour. With them recently banning the personal playlist of a conservative Australian senator, simply because they don't agree with his politics[0], I'm about ready to jump ship. [0] - https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/spotify-bans-cory-bernardis-australia-day-playlist-ng-b88718551z https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/spotify-ban...
- chrisgd 9y ago
  This article says that several musicians did not want to be included. Seems spotify catered to them, rather than banning based on political viewpoint.
  - fortythirteen 9y ago
    Because several artists didn't want to be included, instead of removing those artists, they banned his whole playlist? Edit: Based on the litany of left-wing politics that Spotify brazenly pushes in their app, I'd be surprised if they would take the same side if the sides were reversed between artist and politician. This only bolsters my original statement of why I'm getting tired of Spotify's politics.
- vr46 9y ago
  It looks like the senator breached terms and conditions by trying to use songs to promote HIS agenda and the artists objected, and Spotify doesn't allow that anyway, so canned his playlist.
  - fortythirteen 9y ago
    So if I make a playlist and then Tweet about it, and some content curator at Spotify doesn't like me, they're going to delete my playlist? Notice I didn't say that don't have the right to do what they want with their business, it's just a crappy move. I wonder if Christian or Muslim artists asked that their music not be on a LGBT figure's playlist, if Spotify would ban the whole playlist, like they did here.
KevanM 9y ago
I use Google Play Music because it has a block explicit songs switch, which is perfect for family journeys.
- dx034 9y ago
  Spotify has that as well, they included explicit warnings a while back.
  - KevanM 9y ago
    Really, that was one of the reasons I left. I might look again.
    - KevanM 9y ago
      Oh, they mark content as explicit but don't filter it out. I don't see what the technical issue is, if I apply a filter, I get the clean version or it skips the track - if I don't have it on, I get the explicit version.
graeme 9y ago
I tried Apple music, then realized it cancels the ability to sync music from itunes. Why?...... I immediately shut off apple music and icloud music library once I learned that. Which is a shame, as I'd love to be able to stream from my watch. But, none of the other music services destroy the functionality of my phone. Yes, I'm sure I could learn how to use icloud music library. But I don't want to. I just want to be able to take a file from my computer and put it on my phone. I guess that's power user behaviour these days.
rhonda456 9y ago
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statictype 9y ago
Every year I used to go to Spotify's site, see that they don't support my country, leave and check again later. Apple Music was the first music subscription service to work in my country and did so pretty much as soon as it came out. A few months later it got support for my Sonos. Done and done. Spotify may be better but I'll never know now.
deleted 9y ago
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jdlyga 9y ago
I was a subscriber to Apple Music for almost a year, until I realized I wasn't discovering music anymore. It's very nice having a combined streaming and local library. But that alone isn't worth it. I've discovered so many new artists and songs through Spotify using their suggested playlists, related artists, Spotify radio, etc. You also can't beat their multi-device interoperability. I can use my iPhone to listen, but control playback through the linux desktop app, for example.

160 points by srameshc 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

adamnemecek 9y ago

And here I was thinking they were fighting a lost battle.

on_and_off 9y ago
How so ? Isn't Apple Music Pre-installed on all iOS devices ? That's a huge advantage that most new services don't have. (I realize Play Music has the same advantage on Android but Google has completely failed to even try to promote this service)
- swozey 9y ago
  I cannot think of anyone in my life ever using itunes at pool parties, on boats, etc. It's always Spotify and lately every so often it's GPM. I recently switched from GPM back to Spotify. It's everything I need in that specific app.
  - matwood 9y ago
    I tried Spotify years ago and didn’t like it. None of my close circle of friends use Spotify either. I used GPM for a couple of years and recently switched to AM. It’s hidden in the UI, but you can buy a year in AM for $99. If you look around you can find a $100 iTunes gift card for $80 (sometimes cheaper) pushing the cost of AM down a bit more.
- rahoulb 9y ago
  There's no free tier, apart from a one-off trial, so the preinstall doesn't count for much. The CarPlay and Apple Watch apps and Siri integration are the main advantages AM has over Spotify (Spotify's CarPlay app is so buggy it's dangerous).

paul7986 9y ago

I’ve been an unhappy subscriber since it started. Siri commands and Apple Music are essential when driving and thus I’m stuck with it(only use it while driving which is frequently). After three years it still sucks for me because... - bloated UX - try asking Siri to play all your “Recently Added,” songs without creating a new playlist. - how can I discover new music when driving? I can ask Siri play similar songs to current song playing but what I need is Apple Music to shuffle all my songs and randomly add new/similar songs that compare to my entire and eclectic song playlist. - there are instances where Apple Music/Siri plays non-copyrighted songs ie. cheesy horrible and lame covers of public domain Xmas songs. Makes me feel ripped off Spotify is better but totally unsafe to use while driving vs. Crapple Music.

ClassyJacket 9y ago
Google Assistant will happily play you Spotify songs on Android. Obviously Apple won't allow integration with third party software on iPhone.
- cassieramen 9y ago
  I am happily surprised google assistant not only plays from Spotify but let's you set Spotify as your default music service. No "ask Spotify to play..." just a simple "play..." I feel like Apple bullies people into inferior experiences.
finaliteration 9y ago
I’m also stuck with the service due to the hands-free control with Siri. The cheesy/horrible/lame/non-copyrighted songs are awful and made worse by the fact that my kid will ask for nursery rhymes and you never know which version you’ll get because it doesn’t consistently play the same one.
- paul7986 9y ago
  I was thinking it's a business decision. Let's play as much public domain cheesy songs as possible and not have to pay. Ummm Apple you have so much money and that's because you are so focused on providing the best phone UX. Why aren't you providing the best music streaming svc UX? Boggles my mind!

hprotagonist 9y ago

I have very few complaints about apple music, and most of them are because I regard the Atomic Unit Of Music to be the studio album. 1. No Tool. :( 2. No easy way to reorder search results to be album first. 3. Date of original album release is buried. 4. Hard to filter by "studio album" vs "live album" vs "compilation album" vs "greatest hits album". 5. Siri can't help; "play me the third album by the rolling stones" doesn't help, and neither do i have a voice-controlled "tell me what the album names by X are and let me pick one" interface. My impression is that no streaming service does these things.

mrep 9y ago
Has the UX gotten better? I tried it back when it first came out for the free 3 month trial and I went back to paying for spotify because it was so horrible.
- godzillabrennus 9y ago
  It’s still horrible for me.
- DrJokepu 9y ago
  Well that being said, Spotify was working really hard in the meantime on making their UX worse than ever before. They came a long way since 2009 (back then it was actually pretty good). A few more years of this innovation and it might get even worse than iTunes.
  - mortenjorck 9y ago
    Every time I launch Spotify on my iPad, I’m stupefied that they regressed from their excellent, scrolling pane-based tablet UI to a blown-up phone layout. If it weren’t for Discover Weekly, I would have switched to Apple Music long ago.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      I dumped tablets a long time ago, since no one seems to be willing to make good tablet apps, instead of just scaling up their phone apps. Tablets had their time, but they're just junk now. Netbooks/ultrabooks have 10+ hours battery life now, and can run an actual full-featured OS, with actual applications.

ClassyJacket 9y ago

Sad. The UI of Spotify is much better - less taps to get where you want to go, dark theme, and it actually has song handoff between devices and a dedicated desktop app for the Mac, none of which Apple Music has. I can't help but think this is because of Apple's monopolistic practice of only allowing Apple Music to integrate with Siri.

dfischer 9y ago
Apple Music is on desktop
- electricslpnsld 9y ago
  > Apple Music is on desktop Not in a dedicated app. The integration with iTunes is a bit of a mess and brings all of the iTunes weirdness along for the ride. I really wish Apple would break iTunes apart...
  - drb91 9y ago
    Heh, my biggest complaint wih spotify is that I can’t use it with my carefully curated itunes library, including my many smart playlists.
    - kiliankoe 9y ago
      I can definitely remember this being possible a while back when I was using Spotify.
      - drb91 9y ago
        Yea, it still forces you to listen through the spotify player rather than itunes (which is not at all surprising) and they never supported smart playlists. Again, not surprising, but certainly enough for me to prefer apple music. The player is just way, way better for my needs.
        9y ago

mexicanandre 9y ago

In Australia apple music is given away for free with a few of our mobile providers for free. Is the same in the USA? I dont know a single apple music user in Australia. Spotify is a much better user experience.

pxeboot 9y ago
I have never seen a US carrier offer Apple Music. T-Mobile does provide a Netflix subscription with some plans, so it's certainly possible though.
movedx 9y ago
I had it free with Telstra too. Sadly this breaches net neutrality rules and shouldn't be encouraged. I eventually moved to Spotify and pay for that instead.

sanjeetsuhag 9y ago

Honestly, I can't imagine switching to Apple Music. Speaking as a guy who owns an iPhone and a Mac. I love being able to smoothly control playback from any device. I love how seamless the experience is, I've only tried the Apple Music Trial when it first came out and I can't see any possible reason to switch to it now. Spotify is excellent for music discovery, and I love the top songs and everything. It's perfect. It's the kind of software I wish I could make someday.

maxaf 9y ago
This is why I normally stay away from Apple services. My household runs on an eclectic mix of Android and Apple devices, and this is exactly how we like it. Google seems to have embraced the presence of Apple devices in its ecosystem, so why not the other way around?
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  > Google seems to have embraced the presence of Apple devices in its ecosystem, so why not the other way around? Google must, Apple is not under the same pressure to reciprocate.
- comex 9y ago
  Apple Music has an Android app.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Google seems to have embraced the presence of Apple devices in its ecosystem, so why not the other way around? Google is an online services company with incidental hardware, Apple Music is a hardware company with incidental online services. Google's primary concern with it's hardware is driving online services. Apple's primary concern with online services is driving it's hardware ecosystem. So, sure, Google has no problem embracing other hardware platforms for it's online services, but Apple has a lot less interest in that.
rxhernandez 9y ago
Google music has been the best for me: - IT doesn't block it at work(it blocks spotify) - I don't have to install anything - I don't see ads on youtube - it has all of my music that came from CDs backed up to it - I regularly discover new music through their Radio feature so long as the artist/song isn't super popular

jakereps 9y ago

> Globally, however, Spotify remains in a league of its own, with nearly twice as many paid subscribers than No. 2 Apple, and slightly faster subscriber growth. I mean Spotify has been around a lot longer. Is it weird that new users aren't growing as fast if it already held the majority?

anfilt 9y ago

Do not eat half-eaten rotten fruit. I repeat do not eat. It is bad fof your health.

anfilt 9y ago
What's the issue, I am pretty sure it's a bad idea to eat rotten food.
- dang 9y ago
  Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We eventually ban accounts that keep doing that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - anfilt 9y ago
    Most my comments are not unsubstantiated. However, when comes to Apple. I am not going to be nice. I don't like how they closed off their ecosystem is. I hate how they do stupid things in for sake of fashion. They claim to innovative, but really just repackage existing tech, and force you into their ecosystem. It's just an attempt of vendor lock in. Then you have mindless sheeple drooling over their products. However, I would prefer apple just went the way of the dodo.
    - dang 9y ago
      From a moderation point of view, Apple is not the issue here, the issue is your posting unsubstantive comments to HN. We ban accounts that won't stop doing that, so please stop doing that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

heavymark 9y ago

I like I'm sure many predicted this would be inevitable regardless how better one product is over another. At the end of the day Spotify can't compete with Apple's budget, and music streaming isn't a long term profitable business on it's own. I love Apple and deep into their ecosystem. However, certainly not a fan of Apple Music. When using on the Mac iTunes is rather horrific since everytime I search it searches local music rather than Apple Music or vice versa, or its in the Podcast tab, etc. They need a dedicated Music app for Mac and universal search without the iTunes store. I'm sure they are moving towards this but until then rather miserable. The Spotify app isn't as clean looking but is much more practical and enjoyable to use. Finally, Apple is about curated playlists, where is Spotify is about algorithms which in my experience is the better route. So while Spotify maybe the better product, at the end of the day, Apple Music is more seamless for people in the Apple Ecosystem of Siri, HomePod, AppleTV and all and in the end will win out. Let's hope Spotify stay's long enough to make Apple Music better. Forgot to add, that personally, I love YouTube Music. The algorithms and search and pool of countless remixes, live performances and old videos/music not on other places is unmatched. It lacks the Apple Ecosystem benefit, but is a hidden gem

Axsuul 9y ago
You're talking like Spotify's days are numbered. Spotify has many ways it can outcompete Apple on, not just budget. Just like Lyft did with Uber, DuckDuckGo with Google, etc. This is not a winner-takes-all market. What Apple has done here is they've captured their ecosystem users that likely would have never signed up with Spotify in the first place.
- AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
  No, this also shows that Apple has successfully yanked users out of Spotify. Not surprising in the least. The fact is: the music industry is indeed a winner-take-all market now. The industry's horrible response to Napster crippled them, and their inability to outmaneuver Steve Jobs in the aftermath led to a rather diminished industry overall. We see this in both recorded and live music - just look at LiveNation's rise to dominance following Apple's rise to dominance for distribution with iTunes. Music also suffers from the same problem as other older media - competition for ears and for time. Video games are hurting music just as much as it's hurting film. Music consumption has become cheapened over the years as technology left it in the dust, preferring to adapt video to our current media-heavy lives. Audio mediums have been traditionally not as paid attention to. Our culture is simply moving on from this kind of media, in a sense.

ggg9990 9y ago

If Microsoft bundling a browser is antitrust, why isn’t this?

aianus 9y ago
The logic was that Windows had 98% market share and iOS/macOS only around 50%. Ergo no dominant market position to abuse.
adventured 9y ago
Browser bundling was among the lower offenses they went after Microsoft for. What they did to OEMs is really what buried their anti-trust case. For example, the first DOJ anti-trust lawsuit in 1994 was primarily about OEM contract/licensing abuses, and set the stage for what came later.
saratogacx 9y ago
MSFT wasn't busted for bundling the browser but it was busted for forcing OEM's to not include any 3rd party browser. To get the OEM pricing for the OS, you had to agree that your OS image would not include any software that would compete with IE.

shmerl 9y ago

I'd stick with Bandcamp and other DRM-free FLAC stores.

AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
I really hate that you were downvoted for this. It may be only a single sentence, but I think you're correct to bring up the fact that Spotify and Apple Music both don't represent the entire music industry. These two entities are merely soulless peddlers of the Big 5. There are substantially important pockets of the music industry that do not exist in this narrow realm.
- siquick 9y ago
  > These two entities are merely soulless peddlers of the Big 5 Rubbish - the vast majority of music on both platforms is not released on any of the big 5 record labels. Apple Music has so many playlists featuring underground artists and labels. Spotify Discover Weekly never gives me any big 5 music. The only time people get "peddled' the big 5 tracks is when they want to listen to them.
  - AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
    You know for a fact that the only reason either of these music services exist is because the Big 5 are in on it. Their catalog is what carries the services, and is what makes them profitable. There is no Spotify or Apple Music without the Big 5. You cannot say the same of Bandcamp.
    - siquick 9y ago
      Why is that a bad thing? It's a positive that the big 5 are enabling smaller artists labels to have distribution to new listeners. I love Bandcamp for downloading WAV files for DJ purposes but as a streaming service, it just isn't that great simply because of the lack of breadth of the catalogue.

ritarong 9y ago

Grooveshark :(

whalesalad 9y ago

Gonna be hard to pull me from Spotify. With the Capital One Quicksilver 50% off deal I get the family plan for $7.99 a month (5 users for less than the regular price for 1 user) At times I’m tempted to give Apple Music a shot because I admire some of the UI differences – but my wife is an Android user and she loves Spotify as well. It’s really the most well-rounded and accesssible solution right now.

MarkSweep 9y ago
There exists an Android app for Apple Music: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr... Anyone have any idea if it is any good?

KirinDave 9y ago

This is depressing, and I don't get why customers are so fanatically loyal to a service that's consistently trailing the industry in features, security, and has a bad habit of deleting people's music or "forgetting" their accounts.

freddie_mercury 9y ago

Spotify (after years) still doesn't exist in the country I live in. Google Play (after years) still doesn't exist in the country I live in. Apple Music has been available from day one. They also have country-specific pricing, instead of expecting the right price for Americans to be the right price for a developing country.

a012 9y ago
This. Definitely, only Apple music and Tidal accept world wide subscribers. We (third world countries) also have internet and valid credit cards to buy whatever we want as like US citizens, what make others discriminate regions?
- fnordsensei 9y ago
  Can't speak for Google or Apple, but I know that Spotify's entry into a country is largely dictated by rights holders. They themselves would like to offer everything to everyone, of course.
  - nasso 9y ago
    Its directed by spotifys ability to negotiate with rights holders.
    - dx034 9y ago
      Not sure if the unavailability of Spotify in Botswana is due to right holders. Think it's just not high on their priority list.
    - EADGBE 9y ago
      I always considered most of these decisions to come from accounting/taxes/different currency. Getting to play the "well what about digital rights" seems like a cop-out for the previously mentioned reasons. It would anyways in my accounting department.
ashraymalhotra 9y ago

freewizard 9y ago

One big disadvantage of Apple Music to me is I still can't listen to Apple Music through a browser without iTunes easily. It's just so much more convenient you can just use a incognito Chrome session on friend's PC and start streaming, as comparing to install/logout/login/logout (which is referred as "mobile/app first" experience nowadays).

seanvk 9y ago

Spotify is available via Discord, Xbox, and Playstation. The diversity of clients is key for me. Apple Music has at most what an Android App?

jpalomaki 9y ago
Also works with Chrome Cast, which is pretty affordable way to build multiroom setup if you already have some audio equipment around.

vm 9y ago

This is a much better strategy by Apple, than Microsoft’s strategy against Netscape in the 90’s. Here, Apple charges consumers the market price [1]. Microsoft on the other hand gave away its browser for FREE. Free is better for consumers but it sparked antitrust backlash. Apple just let time play to its distribution advantage. [1] The $ are the same for consumers but not for Spotify. It loses margin because of the App Store’s high take rate. As a result, Apple Music makes more than Spotify on a per consumer basis, even at the same price https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....

hamandcheese 9y ago
IIRC you can’t sign up for Spotify inside the app, so they wouldn’t pay the App Store tax.

ksec 9y ago

It is interesting how many thinks Spotify is better if it was available in the country, and yet people out of convenience still choose Apple Music. I have heard Apple Music in UK or US are great. That is when only one languages is being used, and mostly English. Whenever Apple Music has to deal with two lanagueges, it sucks. https://atadistance.net/2018/02/04/homepod-and-the-apple-music-japanese-metadata-mess/ https://atadistance.net/2018/02/04/homepod-and-the-apple-mus... And it is not only Japanese, but most of South East Asia. if Apple Music already wasn't better then Spotify, this make it worst. In the old days, Apple was all about being the best to win. Not it has become being good enough to win, and to make the matter worst they stop improving it after they won.

putlake 9y ago

I rarely read the full thread on HN but read this one to see if anyone had mentioned Echo or Alexa-enabled devices. Surprising that no one did, esp given how many they have sold. We are an Apple household primarily but also have a Google Home and recently bought an Alexa-enabled car charger (Anker/Roav Viva). The only service that will work across the board is Spotify. In that regard Spotify is like Netflix -- available on every device.

ethiclub 9y ago
Not to sanction further consolidation or oligopoly issues, but Spotify has long seemed like a logical acquisition for Amazon. - Fix Prime's song catalogue size issue (still an issue?) - Grab massive market share and upsell/bundle other services - Provide bargaining power to Spotify - Get access to very advanced IP - Integrate with voice ui further (i.e. smarter voice commands including play list creations, complex requests and vague requests) - Clock / alarm integration for music upon wake from echo/dot - Fix profitability concerns of Spotify's revenue stream - Provide high quality music, podcast services etc. alongside their soon-to-be-formidable film offering - Use Spotify's algorithms and data to potentially improve film/tv recommendations and discovery - Provide the gateway to becoming a record label, thereby cutting out the middle men à la netflix/Amazon film strategy of content creation Would anyone more knowledgeable be able to comment further or point out flaws with this theory?
- simongr3dal 9y ago
  I’m definitely not more knowledgeable, but in my experience Amazon hasn’t been as good as e.g. Apple at making their services accessible internationally. It’s getting slightly better now with Twitch Prime and Amazon Prime video, which is in the same category. But I fear being neglected if they made an acquisition.
- noarchy 9y ago
  Prime Music launched in Canada a few months ago, and the catalogue size is very much an issue. It is barely worth using, at this stage.
- 9y ago

ThomW 9y ago

I love Spotify, but it bugs me that I can't use Siri to launch music from it. It's the only thing Apple Music has over Spotify imo.

fnordsensei 9y ago

Does Apple Music offer something comparable to Spotify's Discover Weekly playlists?

rahoulb 9y ago
They have a weekly "favourites mix", "new music mix", and "chill mix". In my experience the choices that Apple Music make are extremely poor, even after months of training. Spotify seems to know what I like, Apple Music has no idea. (Also Apple Music has nothing like the Daily Mixes, which also work really well for me; it suggests a daily set of playlists for you, but again, Apple Music doesn't seem to have learnt what I like, so these are pretty useless)
pwinnski 9y ago
Yes, there are three playlists that are tuned to my tastes. Most weeks they're pretty great, although every few months I wonder what I ever did to make Apple's ML model think I like those songs. My daughter also thinks her weekly playlists are good, while my son says they're trash for him. I'm not sure why the results seems to vary so widely.

fredsted 9y ago

I use Apple Music for various reasons, but where I am (Denmark) _everyone_ uses Spotify.

rahulchowdhury 9y ago

I switched from Apple Music to Spotify solely because of Spotify's awesome recommendation engine. Can't even think of switching back to Apple Music after witnessing Spotify's magic. I guess the recommendation system will keep on giving an extra edge to Spotify over the years to come.

rahoulb 9y ago

I tried Apple Music for 6 months, and spent that time diligently training it to my tastes. My latest "favourites mix" had 12 songs that I had to mark as "dislike" after all that training. Likewise the "for you"playlists are garbage - just because I like a couple of songs by guitar bands doesn't mean I want to listen to hours and hours of them. Apple Music on Apple Watch 3 is amazing - leaving a phone at home is strangely liberating. But, for me, the big advantage of Spotify is I don't always need to think about what I want to listen to - I can pick an artist and listen or I can be lazy and just hit a Daily Mix which plays stuff I really like. Asking Apple Music to play "some reggae" or whatever invariably ends up with it playing a load of music I really don't like, even after all that training.

adim86 9y ago
I totally agree with this sentiment. The auto-generated lists on Apple music suck compared to Spotify. I do think the curated stuff on Apple music is formidable but that's about it. For people who want to discover music...spotify is still the way to go. Apple is just really good at shoving their stuff on people. Spotify has no ecosystem to leverage like apple
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
gurkendoktor 9y ago
> the big advantage of Spotify is I don't always need to think about what I want to listen to This is huge when I'm trying to stay in the flow while programming. Spotify is like a personal DJ that really groks how I work, especially now that it silently continues playing matching tracks when a playlist ends. With Apple Music, I ended up switching back to iTunes at least once an hour. I really hope they won't be able to crush Spotify.
- jeffhuys 9y ago
  They (Spotify) also have some kind of awesome new playlist feature that mixes the songs together automatically. The "Trap Vibes" (don't judge) playlist uses that feature, I'd say try it! Play at least 2-3 songs and notice how gapless they transition into eachother. It really works great. I hope it's automated and not based on cuepoints (it probably is, though).

MarkMc 9y ago

Can someone explain why? Does Apple music have significantly more songs? Is it significantly cheaper? Or is it simply because it's the default music app on iPhone?

rahoulb 9y ago
I prefer AM's iPhone UI and it has Siri and Apple Watch integration. Plus Spotify's CarPlay app is essentially useless and dangerous to use when driving. The main one is if you have lots of music already in iTunes, AM let's you access that alongside streaming stuff which I guess is a big advantage to a lot of people.
ancarda 9y ago
The sole reason I use Spotify is it’s fantastic (community created) playlists and great recommendations. Once Apple Music catches up to that, I may switch to it because Spotify’s UI is truly awful. I want to go back to Apple Music. I only left because someone showed me some amazing playlists and pretty soon Spotify started recommending great songs to me.
saturdaysaint 9y ago
I used to use Spotify. I mostly switched to be able to launch songs/albums using Siri, and Apple TV integration is a nice plus. There were some things I preferred about Spotify, but since their libraries are identical and 99% of my interaction is either voice command, search, or a small rotation of recent albums, TBH it's just not a domain that I'm especially obsessed with optimizing further.

KozmoNau7 9y ago

Spotify has a desktop application for Linux. Apple Music doesn't. So Spotify wins, right out of the gate. Add to this that Spotify's auto playlists are a hell of a lot better than Apple's, and I really don't understand why people bother with Apple Music.

qwerty456127 9y ago

BTW why won't some business fairness commission attack Apple for using their cellphone market domination to thwart competition and promote other products of their own like iMusic (e.g. the way they did with Microsoft when MS started shipping Internet Explorer built in Windows systems)?

rahoulb 9y ago
Don't get me wrong - as I've stated elsewhere on here, I don't like Apple Music and it annoys me greatly. But Apple Music is only usable with an optional subscription payment and can easily be uninstalled (pseudo-uninstalled) from an iPhone. It does integrate with Siri, which other music services cannot do, and it streams music on the Apple Watch, which other music services cannot (or will not) do. But it's not essential to the function of the phone. And the iPhone has a 30-40% market share or less on unit sales (depending on where you are). MS was punished for including Internet Explorer for free and then tying it into the innards of the OS so it could not be removed. And Windows had an 80-90% market share at the time.
- qwerty456127 9y ago
  > It does integrate with Siri, which other music services cannot do, and it streams music on the Apple Watch, which other music services cannot (or will not) do. Any idea why? I think they would probably add this if Apple would provide a reasonable way to. Does anybody know if Siri and Apple Watch expose nice APIs that would let you integrate your iPhone app with them? > And the iPhone has a 30-40% market share or less on unit sales (depending on where you are). Although the iPhone-vs-Android comparison can seem to be in favour of Android, Android means many independent manufacturers competing and much more free market for the apps. No single phone manufacturer but Apple has such a market share, having 30-40-50% of the market under unconditional control of a single company means a way more of actual power and commercial value per percent for them than if it was about shares of multiple companies running same technologies summed. Here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279975 ) is what I have been told in a neighbour thread: "With the iOS market share hovering slightly below 50% in the US, it's iMessage that is the main messenger, at least where I live... I don't use Whatsapp nor was I ever invited by someone to use it, but I heard it's basically the iMessage equivalent in the EU and in other places where the iOS market share is lower." I don't mean to argue nor am I a proponent of regulations. Just sharing thoughts. Thank you for the answer.

fortythirteen 9y ago

I have grown increasingly disgusted with Spotify pushing a political agenda inside their app. The last place I want to have politics shoved in my face is my music streaming service, whether I agree with the stance or not. Yet it seems, at least once a month, the banner of the desktop app is decidedly pushing a playlist promoting one side of the political agenda du jour. With them recently banning the personal playlist of a conservative Australian senator, simply because they don't agree with his politics[0], I'm about ready to jump ship. [0] - https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/spotify-bans-cory-bernardis-australia-day-playlist-ng-b88718551z https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/spotify-ban...

chrisgd 9y ago
This article says that several musicians did not want to be included. Seems spotify catered to them, rather than banning based on political viewpoint.
- fortythirteen 9y ago
  Because several artists didn't want to be included, instead of removing those artists, they banned his whole playlist? Edit: Based on the litany of left-wing politics that Spotify brazenly pushes in their app, I'd be surprised if they would take the same side if the sides were reversed between artist and politician. This only bolsters my original statement of why I'm getting tired of Spotify's politics.
vr46 9y ago
It looks like the senator breached terms and conditions by trying to use songs to promote HIS agenda and the artists objected, and Spotify doesn't allow that anyway, so canned his playlist.
- fortythirteen 9y ago
  So if I make a playlist and then Tweet about it, and some content curator at Spotify doesn't like me, they're going to delete my playlist? Notice I didn't say that don't have the right to do what they want with their business, it's just a crappy move. I wonder if Christian or Muslim artists asked that their music not be on a LGBT figure's playlist, if Spotify would ban the whole playlist, like they did here.

KevanM 9y ago

I use Google Play Music because it has a block explicit songs switch, which is perfect for family journeys.

dx034 9y ago
Spotify has that as well, they included explicit warnings a while back.
- KevanM 9y ago
  Really, that was one of the reasons I left. I might look again.
  - KevanM 9y ago
    Oh, they mark content as explicit but don't filter it out. I don't see what the technical issue is, if I apply a filter, I get the clean version or it skips the track - if I don't have it on, I get the explicit version.

graeme 9y ago

I tried Apple music, then realized it cancels the ability to sync music from itunes. Why?...... I immediately shut off apple music and icloud music library once I learned that. Which is a shame, as I'd love to be able to stream from my watch. But, none of the other music services destroy the functionality of my phone. Yes, I'm sure I could learn how to use icloud music library. But I don't want to. I just want to be able to take a file from my computer and put it on my phone. I guess that's power user behaviour these days.

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statictype 9y ago

Every year I used to go to Spotify's site, see that they don't support my country, leave and check again later. Apple Music was the first music subscription service to work in my country and did so pretty much as soon as it came out. A few months later it got support for my Sonos. Done and done. Spotify may be better but I'll never know now.

deleted 9y ago

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jdlyga 9y ago

I was a subscriber to Apple Music for almost a year, until I realized I wasn't discovering music anymore. It's very nice having a combined streaming and local library. But that alone isn't worth it. I've discovered so many new artists and songs through Spotify using their suggested playlists, related artists, Spotify radio, etc. You also can't beat their multi-device interoperability. I can use my iPhone to listen, but control playback through the linux desktop app, for example.