Apple Music vs Spotify – Pick Your Music King
If you’re a music lover, you must always be on the lookout for some of the best music streaming services around. And, if you want to find such apps for your iOS device then you are certainly no short of options. But are all the available options really worth it to make way into your iPhone or iPad? Probably not! In fact, the biggest competition that you’ll find is Apple Music vs Spotify. Both the apps really have some great features that make them really worth comparing to find out the best streaming service for your iOS device. And, if you are also stuck and are looking to find out which of them is better than the other, here we have an Apple Music vs Spotify comparison for you.
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Apple Music vs Spotify –Features Comparison
So, want to have a comparison for Apple Music vs Spotify? Here we have compared the two based on their major features and how each of these apps performs. Let’s take a look and try to find out which of them is the best.
Music Library
Both Apple Music as well as Spotify come with Music Libraries that feature somewhere around 40 million unique songs. However, what makes them different from each other is the exclusives on offer from both these music streaming services. Ever since it was first introduced back in 2015, Apple Music has really come up with quite a lot of high-profile albums offered as exclusives.Though many others often criticize the practice from Apple and said that it’s not great for the fans, but reluctance of Spotify when it comes to dealing in exclusives means that the users must have developed some sort of patience in these past few years. However, there are reports that contract negotiations have been going on lately between some big record labels and Spotify and they may lead to something like this for some new releases.
Besides the exclusives, the Music catalog of Apple, also known as “Apple Music Library” works by pulling the music numbers from iTunes. But one thing worth mentioning here is that not all the songs from iTunes can be streamed on Apple Music.
You can augment the Music Libraries available on Apple Music as well as Spotify with some tracks of your own collection as well. Spotifyallows users to add their music files that reside on their personal computers. So, if you have something that you want to listen to along with the streaming tracks, you can add those files to the Spotify playlists. When it comes to Apple Music, any tracks that you have added to iTunes in past years – whether through CD rips or by buying them from store – are automatically added.
So, we can say Apple Music is the winner here as you don’t have to keep waiting for your favorite new music if you’re using the app as your preferable streaming service.
Music Quality
Though the bitrates haven’t been announced formally by Apple for streaming the songs on Apple Music, but any files that have been saved locally are the 256 kbps AAC files. If you can figure it out, it’s the same format as that of the tracks that you buy from iTunes.
On the contrary, there are three streaming rates at which music is streamed by Spotify. They are 96 kbps, 160 kbps and 320 kbps and all these files are in Ogg Vorbis format. Keep one thing in mind here that highest caliber files are available only to Premium subscribers. There are reports that a lossless audio quality format has also been in tests which is going to be a pricier alternative as well. However, nothing has been confirmed yet.
So, if you take it as Apple Music vs Spotify here, none of the two services really outsmart the other by a big margin. Both are pretty much the same when it comes to Music Quality.
Design
The redesign that Apple Music received with iOS 10 made it to focus on blocky text and big pictures which make it easier to browse through and read the titles. Nothing much has changed in Spotify over the years as its users are pretty satisfied with the black-and-neon-green design of the app. However, there’s lot going on in both these apps that you have to do lots of tapping around to find some features like curated playlists.
Overall, both the apps have simpler user-interfaces but when it comes to ease-of-use, they differ to a great extent. One common aspect of the two is three-dot button towards the right side of artist, tract, album or the playlist title. Tapping that button opens up a menu featuring various different options and these options are different in both the music streaming apps.
Though Apple Music seems beautiful with its typical Apple design, we can’t be so sure about the navigation. Here they have preferred design over functionality. It is not possible to create playlists while you are listening to your favorite tracks on Apple Music. Even accessing an album or artist’s page isn’t that straight forward. For each of the two tasks, you have to go to some other section within the app. With its disjointed navigation, you get a sort of fragmented experience with Apple Music. And, obviously, that’s quite unattractive.
With Spotify, making new playlists is pretty simple and straight forward. Spotify keeps things simple here. Despite being not equally elegant as Apple music, the app is easy-to-use and contains plenty of features to ensure a smooth listening experience. Creating new playlists is pretty simple as mentioned earlier. There’s an ‘Add to Playlist’ option available that allows you to make playlists quite conveniently. There is easy navigation for artist’s pages as well as entire albums and you just need to tap that three-dot button towards the right side of title to do that.
Special Features
One of the most compelling features in Spotify, which probably sets it apart as well, is user-specific Discover Playlists option. Earlier it used to be a weekly option for music fanatics to find the type of tracks they love but now they can discover the latest tracks fitting to their taste on daily basis. There’s a similar sort of section in Apple Music as well which is called My New Music Mix. However, people talk highly of what Spotify has to offer.
While there are curated playsists available with Apple Music to discover new tracks, the online Beats 1 radio station is where artists can launch their new music. As far as radio stations are concerned, Spotify comes up with automatically-generated playlists which are populated by choosing a song or an artist.
One of the special features that put Spotify ahead is social sharing. The app integrates itself with your Facebook account allowing your friends to keep track of what you love listening to. There can be exchange of links to trending songs as well. However, the release of iOS 11 makes Apple Music more social.
Connect section in Apple Music becomes an inherent social network where artists can share their photos, lyrics, videos, demo tracks, and mixtapes among other stuff with the fans. The fans can follow their favorite artists and comment or like the updates coming from them. Apple also allows upcoming musicians to publish their music and promote it.
Connect section of Apple Music app reads more like Facebook feed that is less interactive and allows you to follow publications and musicians.
The features you get with Spotify are basically designed for different places where you usually listen your favorite music, like relaxing at your home or running around in your neighborhood. A running feature has been added recently which detects the tempo at which you are running and it plays appropriate music matching your speed. There’s fading effect at the end and beginning of the songs to make things go seamlessly.
There are also some built-in tools that you can access with Spotify for playing your favorite music via external speakers. You can connect the app to speakers while controlling music right from the iPhone you are using.
When it comes to special features, the biggest one you get with Apple Music is iCloud Music Library. With this feature, the MP3 collectors are allowed access to their libraries featuring rare tracks on the go.While original rollout of the service made highlights with collection-distorting bugs, right now it is one useful feature which proves to be helpful for the service to stand out from the rest.
There is some non-music content made available by both Apple Music and Spotify, however none of them has had much of success with that. There are some selected podcasts available from Spotify, including some exclusives like Showstopper series of interviews, but it may not turn out to be your podcast app replacement as you’re not allowed to have anything outside pre-selected list of the app.
Apple Music plans on coming up with some latest episodes of the show Carpool Karaoke and there’s going to be reality series as well with the name ‘Planet of the Apps’.
But if you take it as Apple Music vs Spotify, the latter definitely does a great job when it comes to delivering some of the latest tracks that you will fall in love with. Apple keeps its focus on ensuring that you have a seamless connection with the favorite artists of yours, while with Spotify you can be able to enjoy your favorite music regardless of the situation.
Sharing Your Favorites
Yes, everyone of us has that tendency to share our favorite stuff with others. And, if you like to share your favorite songs, both Spotify and Apple Music allow you to do that. However, one of them comes with more robust features here.
With Spotify you can post albums, artists, individual tracks or playlists on your personal Facebook, Spotify, Tumblr and Twitter feeds. It is also possible to share your favorite stuff individually with your friends through Facebook, text message, e-mail, Google Hangouts or WhatsApp. You can also follow your friends and get to know what they are listening to.
Now comparing Apple Music vs Spotify, the sharing selections of the Music App from Apple aren’t that great. If you have to share some album, artist, track or playlist, the only options you have are text, Twitter, Facebook, email and AirDrop. There’s no such social feature that connects you with other listeners and your friends.
So, if all you need to share with your friends is a song every once in a while, you can be fine with Apple Music. However, if you want some continuous music exchanges then Apple Music might not be the thing for you. Do an Apple Music vs Spotify comparison and you will find Spotify way ahead when it comes to sharing music. It doesn’t just let you share music with others using Spotify but also allows you to chat with them using a dedicated chat window. Apple Music doesn’t even give you a feature for directly sending music to other users of the app.
On the concluding note, if you want to compare Apple Music vs Spotify, both of them offer great streaming features. However, they both have their own set of strengths. Apple Music may be a great choice if you’re always interested in keeping an eye on the trend-setters while Spotify should be your choice if you are more inclined towards noticing your friends’ activities. One thing you should also keep in mind is that Apple Music isn’t available for free and that’s where Spotify gives it some real hard time. Other than that, your choice should be based on your sole preferences and the app offering what you’re looking for in a better way should be preferred.
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