Spotify Vs Apple Music

As a music enthusiast, I do enjoy the rivalry between Spotify and Apple Music. Because, in this way, we as an audience experience the best digital music that is incorporated by some exceptional features of the two closest rivals of the industry. It is a daunting task to pick the one in duo music streaming apps. For instance, in one place Spotify’s free-off-cost tier choice alongside the benefit of enjoying a popular music-sharing experience. On the flip side, Apple Music’s conspicuous exclusives, a vast hearty library, curated radio, and seamless integration with iOS.

Spotify or Apple Music, Who has a better algorithm?

It is observed after studying the six criteria, that Apple Music is the champion. It is because of Its:

• Better audio quality
• Offers many options
• The platform pays artists better
• Extensive catalog

But Spotify may be the final decision of many users, if:

• Financially restrained
• Heavy playlist maker
• Podcast consumer

Spotify vs Apple Music: Users and Subscribers

When it comes to users and subscribers of Spotify and Apple Music, it is presumed that at present Spotify has over 433 million users and 188 million Premium subscribers worldwide. Spotify crowns the leading streaming audio service with a substantial lead over Apple Music. The primary reason behind this factual excitement of Spotify is its concerns about branching out into audiobooks and podcasts to keep its nearly 200 million paying customers and aiming to hunt more in the coming years. On the contrary, Apple Music is a distant second with a 15% market share and has 50 million paid subscribers globally.

Many people get motivation from music while running, and both Apple Music and Spotify brag about workout-themed playlists. The rivalry between Spotify and Apple Music fetch a healthy impact on garnering digital revenues and experiencing the best streaming service, and this contest has ignited an unrelenting battle to mark the best.

Here are some judgmental metrics, based on which we access both music streaming services. Read more about Spotify vs Youtube Music which one is better

Music Library

Spotify:

The Swedish streaming service, Spotify is the home of over 8 million songs and 4.7 million podcasts. It has a gigantic music catalog even an obscure music track can easily be searched. Plus, Spotify has won the hearts of music freaks with:

• Release Radar Playlist
• Latest releases
• Exclusive live sessions
• Special Friday treat of new releases

If you have budget issues and don’t mind hammering shuffle and sitting through ads, Spotify-free could be your best bet to quench the thirst for music.

When it comes to the audio quality of Spotify it entirely depends upon your chosen subscription tier. For instance,

• The free version’s audio quality is not appealing and streams at AAC 128Kbps via the web player, and controls streaming quality from 24Kbps to 160Kbps.
• When you switch from the free version to Premium, the sound quality boosts up to AAC 256Kbps.
• The most awaited lossless tier of service is still imperceptible.

How to find new music on Spotify?

Finding new music can be a daunting task with a plethora of choices. Thanks to the multiple useful tools Spotify offers to find a new track of your choice. You can latch to new music by enjoying “Discover Weekly” which allows you to listen to new artists who have never stumbled across on their own. You can easily pick from the playlist, and from the recommendations based on your frequently listened to songs, from editor-curated playlists that help you create your personalized one. It is pertinent to note, that the sunshine and rainbows are much more limited for free users.

If you are new to Spotify, you need to take a deep dive into “Discover Weekly” which is considered to be a darling feature in the streaming world. Spotify allows you to offset Monday blues by adding to your feed every Monday morning. The exclusive feature is a two-hour playlist that is a mirror reflection of your music taste.

Spotify lets you create, share or follow playlists to show your taste in music, and music is an intrinsic part of anyone’s identity. Whatever your mood is, and which music genre you are interested to listen, Spotify has everything for you.

Apple Music:

Apple Music streaming service brags more than 100 million songs, the numbers are undoubtedly higher than Spotify’s current figures and also surpassed newer contenders like Amazon Prime Music and Jay-Z’s Tidal. Apple Music doesn’t offer a free tier, and its competitors are fretting as artists prefer signing deals with Apple Music. Another shrilling achievement of Apple over Spotify is the fanciful mixing of the iTunes library. Alongside Apple’s standard catalog, you can freely browse your favorite music. Everything will appear in your Apple Music Library regardless of the route:

• iTunes Store
• Ripped from a physical CD
• Uploaded to iTunes Match

Spotify on other hand showcases a similar function of transferring your local music files to a separate tab. However, Spotify does not let you access your local music via extensive searches as you can do with Apple Music.

The stock of 100 million Apple Music songs is now offered in lossless audio. Thanks to Apple’s free audio quality advancements for all subscribers. Apple’s Lossless Audio Codec keeps the music to the original audio file. Tiers of lossless audio available are:

• Starting with CD quality
• 16-bit at 44.1kHz
• Lifts to 24-bit at 48kHz
• Hi-resolution lossless plan is up to 24-bit at 192kHz

Thanks to surround-sound spatial audio format that allows a wide range of music libraries available. Spatial audio allows:

• Additional profundity
• Superfluous compatibility with dynamic head-tracking
• Personalized spatial audio with iOS 16 (and a newer iPhone)

How you can find new music on Apple Music?

Apple Music senses your music choices from the info you have given whilst creating an account. The music streaming app intuitively traces your intrinsic music taste and gives recommendations based on your:

• Listening history
• Music sent to you from your friends via the Messages app
• Fully curated playlists by a team of experts

The Ultimate Winner:

Spotify’s curated playlists, Discover Weekly, and Release Radar segment have a persuasive edge over Apple Music and crown the ultimate win.

Radio

Spotify:

Spotify did something amazing with the past Radio by spicing up with the music streaming app. You have an option now to create a radio mode to enthrall music for your favorite artist, album, playlist, or any particular song. What you need to do is:

• Move to the Three-dot menu icon
• Choose Go to radio to produce one to amuse you
• The chosen radio “stations” can also be saved and kept in the library as playlists
• You can also create a personalized playlist than opting for full radio mode. For instance, captions of the associated preferences such as workout, lonely, depressed, or love
• Spotify then starts absorbing music and continues to fill your playlist with tracks based on your past listening history
• You can be ecstatic with the free tier playlists option to enjoy personalized automation ranking

Apple Music

• Apple Music follows human touch technology and is based on radio-style programming
• The modern radio philosophy is personified in Apple Music 1
• Apple Music’s premier radio station broadcasts unobstructed music mixed by DJs on live radio shows
• Radio stations run intriguing shows on Apple Music 1, that are hosted by eminent musicians such as Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Haim, and Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest)
• Radio shows run on Apple Music allow the listeners to experience an inimitable expression of artists they appreciate
• Apple Music is fetched up with generic radio stations to listen to classic rock, jazz, or Top 40 hits
• Non-stop live radio streaming on Apple Music such as BBC News and ESPN is a pack of an unrivaled menagerie of options

The Ultimate Winner:

The ultimate winner is the one that amuses the audience for over 40 hours of music across 15 playlists. Yes, it is Spotify that allows free users to enjoy the quirky delight that is explicitly based on their musical preferences, and which they can listen to up to 24 hours. Music enthusiasts lure the absolute pleasure that is a bit different from radio-style listening. Though, empowers the user with more control over music discovery and personalization. It is pertinent to note, Spotify’s victory is rampant but Apple Music is not on its heels either, though is on the route of taking big steps to capture more audience.

Podcasts

Both music streaming apps are tremendously thoughtful about podcasts, as it has a natural home on audio platforms.

Spotify:

Spotify is the ultimate podium for the fastest-mounting podcast destination since emerging with this feature in 2015. It is a podcast champ and surpassed many in the digital arena of podcasting by offering 4.7 million as of 2022’s fourth quarter.

Here is much more to know:

• Enticing podcasts are loaded with popular programs
• Spotify app handsomely levers podcasts, by setting timers and playback speed controls to spree your listening sessions
• Spotify also offers a Duo plan for $13 to enjoy romantic couple delight subscribing together, and a Family plan for $16 that covers up to six accounts in the family. Spotify Kids is also a peculiar plan to amuse kids with educational and recreational fanciful songs, secured by vast parental controls
• If you are earnest to get some premium benefits, grab the opportunity of Spotify Premium Individual service costs $10 per month as does the other market contenders. On the contrary, Apple Music is on some expensive route, and upstretched prices to $11 per month, not a huge shift but a single dollar mater a lot
• Spotify enthralls students with ad-supported Hulu access with Showtime

Apple Music:

Though Apple Music does not embrace such integral functionality but has initiated to infringe iTunes into little bits and pieces to hold the predictable future.

Here is some important information, you need to know about Apple Music

• One-month free trial for new subscribers
• It offers a family plan for $17 that covers up to six people in the household
• Student plan is also a money saver, an applicable student email can get a discounted monthly subscription of just $5, and is pretty negotiable
• You can get yearly service for $109 to enjoy music

The Ultimate Winner:

Apple Music lags behind Spotify when it comes to free ad-based Tier because the sunshine and rainbows are only under the umbrella of Spotify. Users prefer free listening, and Spotify is the right choice (unskippable ads on the app, and can be muted on the web app). However, the service is a bit restrained for mobile devices. The snitching news for new Spotify users is the one month of Premium for free.

User interface and mobile experience

Spotify:

When it comes to sheer usability, Spotify is the darling music streaming app. Music enthusiasts love Spotify as it is more device-agnostic and allows easy mobile and desktop applications to:

• Browse Music
• Access playlists
• Snoop into internet radio
• Discover new music

On mobile phones, your music behest requires only three tabs:

• Home
• Search
• Your Library

Each section is further segregated into subcategories, and these straightforward directives allow some shining features. The search window is similar to the Google search engine, just type what you want and you will get what you want.

Spotify also offers customary support for voice activation through devices like:

• Amazon Echo
• Google Home

Back in 2020, Spotify initiated momentous changes to:

• Mobile interface to assist streamline your playback exertions
• A unified button is added to the playlist to Play and Shuffle functions

However, many users have reported the improper functioning of the added button. That’s why it is removed in an update to hew out the confusion.

Additionally, Spotify has long offered a web player that allows:

• Intuitive desktop app
• Offers quick lightweight access

Spotify is a socially enhanced podium that allows:

• Follow friends (either on Facebook or through Spotify accounts)
• Can share and recommend playlists
• Can publish your listening history to Facebook (it allows your friends to follow the activity and can comment on the particular activity)
• The collaborative Playlist can be revised by you or your friend
• Spotify enthuses weight watchers and can be used in conjunction with running/ jogging apps such as Runkeeper, Nike Run Club, and RockMyRun that inexorably pick and play your favorite music. Regrettably, this feature is no longer natively supported in in-app

Apple Music:

Apple Music is a persuasive competitor of Spotify and is adored by many music enthusiasts.

Here are its enchanting offerings you might have missed out

• Vast catalog
• Exclusive releases
• Human-curated playlists
• Apple Music 1
• Apple Music’s mobile interface is uncluttered and simple to use
• Music Library is settled on the homepage for an instant reach
• If you are reluctant to use your mobile data to access Apple Music, you can access the library tab and can easily filter by Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, and Downloaded music
• Displaying lyrics gives a good feel
• Listen Now is loaded with various personalized options
• You can explore new music videos and Apple exclusives with the Browser tab

The Radio tab lets you access to:

• Hundreds of Apple-curated music stations
• Broken up by genre, Artist, and Host

If you are earnest to find something specific, you can use the Search tab to find any obscure song. You can opt for two routes:

• Personal library
• Apple Music library

The smart and cool features of the streaming app are integrated Siri with Apple Music which allows subscribers to use voice commands via Apple TV, iPhone, or Mac. However, Android users cannot get this feature because they cannot access Siri.

The Ultimate Winner:

Apple Music undoubtedly offers one of the most imposing music services around. Nevertheless, you need to know that felicity is limited to Apple’s smartphones, tablets, computers, and streaming boxes. On the flip side, Spotify has the upper hand over Apple Music for its:

• Decent and handy user experience
• Ubiquity
• Increased accessibility of third-party integrations
• Manageable playlist
• A dazzling fresh: Discover Weekly
• Solid social media Integration

Apple Music has irrefutably made some grave strides, but its social functionality is confined and few, which makes Spotify supreme and dominating. When it comes to downloading music for offline playback, Apple Music allows 10 different devices at once, with a maximum of 100,000 songs. Regrettably, Spotify hangs back in this area, because of its ceiling sitting at 10,000 songs on up to five devices.

Verdict

Wrapping up the discussion, both Spotify and Apple Music offer very similar services. We have discussed everything from every possible aspect, and throughout it all, Spotify has stayed No. 1 with a zestful ascendency over Apple Music. The primary reason for Spotify’s victory is its social features which are pretty robust. And it has propelled its competitors to ponder on the reason: What keeps Spotify users hooked on the platform? The allure of Spotify Wrapped is also irresistible, and Apple’s Replay is not getting the same approbation when December rolls around.