The two most well-known brands in music streaming are Apple Music and Spotify. It can be challenging to determine which one best meets your needs because they essentially charge the same monthly subscription fee. Both Apple Music and Spotify are well-known music streaming services. You can weigh factors like the sound quality, how you find new music, and how you share music when deciding between the two.
Social Features and Music Discovery
Spotify continues to be the industry leader in music discovery thanks to its well-curated playlists, such as Release Radar and Discover Weekly. To help you discover new music based on your listening preferences, they have even included an AI DJ. Apple Music excels at music discovery as well, providing a combination of human-curated content and playlists generated by algorithms.
It offers a more conventional radio experience with a contemporary twist through its Beats1 Radio station, which is hosted by actual DJs. Another area where Spotify excels is in social features. Spotify Codes make it simple to share music, work together on playlists, and see what your friends are listening to in real time. Connecting with friends through music is more difficult with Apple Music’s more constrained social features.
Apple Music-Desktop Program
When it comes to the desktop experience, Spotify has long outperformed Apple Music, but recent updates from Apple are closing the gap, while Spotify appears to have faltered and is no longer in the lead. The desktop version of Spotify is notable for its responsiveness, speed, and cross-platform compatibility.
The desktop application has minimal features aside from a personalised EQ. The friend’s feed, which makes it easy to keep track of your friends’ musical tastes, is its main advantage over the mobile version. Additionally, a lot of the design flaws that plague the mobile app haven’t been transferred to the desktop version.
Availability
iOS, macOS, iPadOS, Android, and Windows all support both services. Additionally, you can stream through the internet and a number of other platforms. But because Spotify is available on more platforms—including Linux, smart TV operating systems, game consoles, smart speakers, and more—it has an advantage over Apple Music.
As an early player in the industry, you’re more likely to find Spotify on a certain platform than Apple Music which was mainly exclusive to Apple devices. Additionally, unlike Apple Music, Spotify provides a consistent streaming experience across platforms.
Cost
All users can afford the pricing plans offered by both platforms. The cost of Apple Music’s individual plan is $9.99 per month. This is equivalent to Spotify Premium’s $9.99 monthly plan. A quick summary of the pricing plans for Apple Music and Spotify can be found.
Playlists and suggestions
Recommendation algorithms are the lifeblood of music streaming services. Even though Spotify had a significant lead in this area at first, Apple Music has been gradually catching up. Spotify’s algorithm still does a better job of suggesting music right now, but Apple Music offers many great human-curated playlists that might be more appealing to some users. Depending on the genres you like, this is a very personal argument that can go either way. It is therefore best to try services and see if the playlists and suggestions suit your needs.
Spotify-Quality of Sound
Apple is the undisputed leader when it comes to audio quality. In actuality, not only does Apple provide higher-quality audio than Spotify, but all of Spotify’s rivals in the streaming music market do the same. The “very high” audio quality setting, or “about 320 kbit/s,” is the only one available to Spotify Premium users.
In contrast, almost all of the songs in Apple Music’s collection can be streamed in lossless format, which is an uncompressed format that provides a CD-like listening experience. With the correct hardware, Apple Music offers albums that can be streamed at hi-res lossless, which produces sound quality that is even better than CDs.
Interface and experience for users
Although both platforms provide user-friendly experiences, Spotify’s interface is frequently commended for being simpler and easier to use. Despite being a little more complicated, Apple Music has better accessibility features that make it simpler for people with disabilities to use the app. The application is well-structured, with personalised playlists prominently displayed on the home screen and simple navigation. The slick, eye-catching interface of Apple Music complements the design aesthetic of other Apple products. It provides a more polished and integrated experience than Spotify, despite being a little less user-friendly, particularly for users accustomed to Apple’s ecosystem.
Special characteristics
Both Spotify and Apple Music have special features that might entice you to choose one over the other. Apple Music Sing syncs song lyrics with the song that’s playing and displays them in a karaoke-style user interface. This facilitates lyrics comprehension, particularly on a large-screen device like an Apple TV.
Compared to Spotify’s synchronised lyrics feature, the experience is far more comprehensive. On your iPhone, Apple Music also provides Music Haptics, a fantastic accessibility feature. Depending on the section of the song that is playing, it uses the iPhone’s Taptic Engine to produce haptic vibrations for your songs that can range from hardly perceptible to lengthy reverberations. It improves everyone’s listening experience, but it especially benefits those who struggle with hearing.
Exclusive Content
In my experience, exclusive releases are occasionally available on both platforms. But in this regard, Apple Music is unique. Apple Music places more of an emphasis on artist partnerships and exclusive content. It is therefore the best option for music lovers looking for unusual musical experiences. Exclusive songs, live performances, and interviews can all be found here.
These releases can change your life if you’re a big fan of a particular artist. On occasion, though, Spotify does offer original content. But accessibility and diversity of content are its real assets. Spotify offers a fantastic selection of podcasts and music. Additionally, it has cutting-edge tools like Spotify DJ. This feature simulates a live radio broadcast using artificial intelligence (AI). This was a really interesting and cool feature.