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Interestingly, I find the exact opposite-- Beats is inferior to Spotify (or other competition such as Rdio) in my opinion. This isn't necessarily because of th

Interestingly, I find the exact opposite-- Beats is inferior to Spotify (or other competition such as Rdio) in my opinion. This isn't necessarily because of the curated playlists, but it's the service as a whole. Beats is quite rudimentary in terms of music management, and requires way too many taps to add multiple songs to playlists or even just shuffle play a playlist. When I'm trying to listen to music I know I like, Beats falls behind. The curated playlists are kind of a distraction with my usage, and I personally wish they'd focus less on the celebrity playlists and more on letting me listen to music I like. Of course, as you demonstrated, Beats is a hit or miss because of its focus on discovery/curation over music playback. It all depends on the user and how her or she prefers to listen to music. Disclaimer: I do still subscribe to Beats, but only because of the AT&T deal that makes it cheap for 5 users.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
Obviously people have their preferences but there is a point you made that puzzle me: >> "too many taps to[...]just shuffle play a playlist." I don't have my phone on my but isn't there just a shuffle button on the play screen and I thought another one at the top of a playlist? Personally I have an account with Beats and Spotify. I keep my Spotify one for desktop usage. I don't like using any streaming service through the browser but Beats really sucks atm. I have problems with songs not playing again after I've paused.
- andrewmunsell 12y ago
  To shuffle a playlist, you actually have to hit the play button for the playlist so it begins playing in order. Then, you enable the shuffle feature in the now playing screen, and then you can skip past the first track to a random one. I just checked and don't see any specific shuffle buttons, but if there's one I'm not seeing then that'd make me happier. It's not a huge deal, but it's still one of those things I shouldn't have to do manually in this day and age-- shuffle is a rather standard feature.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    Just checked and you're right. It's something I use on Spotify all the time but I guess I've never noticed on Beats - mainly because I'm listening to new curated playlists mostly so shuffle isn't a big deal there.
Osmium 12y ago
> Beats is inferior to Spotify (or other competition such as Rdio) in my opinion. > Beats is quite rudimentary in terms of music management, and requires way too many taps to add multiple songs to playlists or even just shuffle play a playlist. By comparison, I am a Spotify subscriber, and Spotify until recently didn't even have a way to 'save' albums wholesale (which is my preferred way of listening to music). Instead, you had to save each album as its own unique playlist, which got old fast. Now they have introduced a way of 'saving' albums and browsing through them by artist/album/song, but this new feature still hasn't propagated to all their clients (e.g. their Roku client). So it's not like Spotify is that much better.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

Obviously people have their preferences but there is a point you made that puzzle me: >> "too many taps to[...]just shuffle play a playlist." I don't have my phone on my but isn't there just a shuffle button on the play screen and I thought another one at the top of a playlist? Personally I have an account with Beats and Spotify. I keep my Spotify one for desktop usage. I don't like using any streaming service through the browser but Beats really sucks atm. I have problems with songs not playing again after I've paused.

andrewmunsell 12y ago
To shuffle a playlist, you actually have to hit the play button for the playlist so it begins playing in order. Then, you enable the shuffle feature in the now playing screen, and then you can skip past the first track to a random one. I just checked and don't see any specific shuffle buttons, but if there's one I'm not seeing then that'd make me happier. It's not a huge deal, but it's still one of those things I shouldn't have to do manually in this day and age-- shuffle is a rather standard feature.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  Just checked and you're right. It's something I use on Spotify all the time but I guess I've never noticed on Beats - mainly because I'm listening to new curated playlists mostly so shuffle isn't a big deal there.

Osmium 12y ago

> Beats is inferior to Spotify (or other competition such as Rdio) in my opinion. > Beats is quite rudimentary in terms of music management, and requires way too many taps to add multiple songs to playlists or even just shuffle play a playlist. By comparison, I am a Spotify subscriber, and Spotify until recently didn't even have a way to 'save' albums wholesale (which is my preferred way of listening to music). Instead, you had to save each album as its own unique playlist, which got old fast. Now they have introduced a way of 'saving' albums and browsing through them by artist/album/song, but this new feature still hasn't propagated to all their clients (e.g. their Roku client). So it's not like Spotify is that much better.