Is Apple Music Better Than Spotify?
The two biggest names in today’s music world are Apple Music and Spotify. Thinking of which one is better? Here’s a guide to help you find the best choice out there.
Apple Music
Apple Music is a music streaming service that charges a monthly fee and offers access to more than 60 million songs, podcasts, and artists. To offer its fans the finest class of streaming and music, Apple Music launched in 2015. It’s not particularly difficult to access Apple Songs even if it doesn’t let customers stream music for free. It is a very user-friendly app, and registration requires only the activation of an Apple ID. Today, more than 100 nations offer access to Apple Music.
The atmosphere on Apple Music is much more personalized, and there are fewer new artists there. It has an advantage over Spotify in terms of sheer selection thanks to its 90 million song library. Apple Music offers weekly bespoke playlists built around the music you listen to most frequently. There is also a tonne of top 100 charts from all over the world, playlists made based on the songs your friends like, and so forth.
There are several exclusives available, including live performances, special sessions, and interviews with well-known and up-and-coming musicians. Along with the Beats 1 radio station, which hosts live performances by DJs like Zane Lowe, there are other additional stations that specialize in various genres.
Apple Music is now a fantastic all-arounder for music, radio, and video content after making rapid progress. You can test out its services for a month for free so you don’t have to spend any money. The most recent addition, the Voice plan, only lets you use Siri for control, but you still have access to the entire library. Get to know iOS 16 New Features.
Spotify
Spotify is an online music service that provides you access to millions of songs, podcasts, and videos from artists all over the world. Because you can access content for free by joining up with just an email address or by logging in with Facebook, Spotify is immediately enticing. If you don’t want to pay the monthly subscription fees for Spotify Premium, or if you simply want to try it out, it’s simple to get started and there’s no obligation.
You can sign up for Spotify using your Facebook account, email address, or even phone number and immediately start listening. At the present, Spotify is accessible in more than 76 nations. There are radio stations created around certain songs and artists, as well as Daily Mix options, as well as Release Radar and Time Capsule, which showcase recent and timeless recordings that the service believes you’ll love.
The videos of live performances and music documentaries are also scattered throughout. It’s a powerful combination for finding and appreciating new music when you combine it with the social component that enables you to immediately share playlists with friends while also being able to see what they’re currently listening to.
Apple Music vs Spotify: Songs Library
Apple has signed exclusive partnerships with Dr. Dre, Frank Ocean, Drake, and Britney Spears, among others. This is because they don’t provide any sort of free service. Spotify can’t compete with this and has been known to downgrade those artists in their search ranking outcomes.
When it first started out, Spotify was quite well-known for having the biggest music library available. Over 50 million songs are currently available, and 40,000 new songs are reportedly being added daily. Based on this, they were able to acquire a significant market share. It’s also pretty good for keeping you updated on the latest musical releases. Look under the “new releases” tab. You may find a list of the newest albums, singles, and live performances from your favorite artists that is updated every Friday.
Winner: DRAW
Apple Music vs Spotify: Podcasts
Speaking of podcasts, Spotify has 4 million shows available on its platform, compared to a little over 2 million on Apple Podcasts, a platform entirely unrelated to Apple Music. In September 2022, Spotify will start selling a variety of 300 million audiobooks. Although individual titles must be purchased by customers, Spotify already has 100 million more audiobooks available than the well-known audiobook service. If you want to speed through episodes, the Spotify app is great for podcast listening because it has timers and playback speed controls.
Spotify offers access to music, podcasts, and audiobooks on a single platform, in contrast to Apple, which requires three different apps to enjoy the aforementioned functions.
Winner: SPOTIFY
Apple Music vs Spotify: Streaming Quality
Apple Music now supports lossless and spatial audio on some songs and plays 256Kbps AAC files. On the iPhone, you must select the lossless audio option under Settings, Music, and Audio Quality. Later in 2021, Spotify will introduce a HiFi subscription for lossless audio. Both equalizers may be customized to your tastes, albeit Apple Music’s EQ can be found in the Settings app rather than inside the app itself.
Ogg Vorbis or AAC are the formats that Spotify accepts. When streaming content on a mobile device, you can select the bit rate in increments up to 320Kbps, which is helpful if you’re concerned about using up too much mobile data. The web player for Spotify plays music in AAC at 128Kbps for free users and 256Kbps for premium users.
Winner: APPLE
Apple Music vs Spotify: Pricing
The full editions of Apple Music and Spotify are also available for a free three-month trial. The only service without a free version is Apple Music. Each of the three family plans costs the same and accommodates up to 6 members per subscription. Three months of Apple Music’s service are available without charge. The annual cost of a single subscription is $99, which represents a savings of around 20% compared to the monthly cost.
Trial and fixed discount plans are available on Spotify as well, but they appear to vary at least once a year. Sometimes you can buy Spotify Premium for a full month for nothing, and other times you can get it for a full three months at a steep discount. In the event that you want Premium for a period of time longer than a month but not a full year, Spotify also offers extra options for fixed-time subscriptions. However, compared to Apple Music, the annual subscription is still more expensive.
Apple Music | Spotify Premium | |
Free Trial | 3 months | 3 months |
Free Plan | Not available | Free with ads. No offline mode, no downloads |
Student Plan | $5.99/month | $4.99/month |
Standard Plan | $10.99/month | $9.99/month |
Family Plan | $14.99/month 6 users per month | $15.98/month 6 users per month $12.99/month 2 users per month |
However, Spotify dominates due to the fact that it includes a key feature that Apple Music lacks: a free-tier alternative. Sure, there are drawbacks like required advertisements, a limited number of skips, the option to listen exclusively on shuffle on mobile devices, and the inability to listen offline, but at least you get to access the service. You’ll have to pay for Apple Music unless you’re signing up for a free trial.
Winner: SPOTIFY
Apple Music vs Spotify: Music Discovery
The most obvious distinction between Apple Music and Spotify may be their recommendation engines. Based on the music you already enjoy, the two services might introduce you to new songs. Release Radar is one of the newly created playlists on Spotify that are automatically updated each week with new music. Similar playlists are available on Apple Music, including New Music Mix.
The “Discover Weekly” playlists on Spotify are well-known; they’re an algorithmically created collection of songs based on your listening preferences that are updated every Monday. Similar new music is available on Apple’s “For You” tab, which is refreshed every Friday.
Winner: SPOTIFY
Apple Music vs Spotify: User experience
You can download and save tunes on both Spotify and Apple Music, but Spotify has a 10,000 songs limit while Apple Music allows you to keep up to 100,000 songs. If you like to record everything you hear, this might be something to think about. The greatest bit rate that Spotify can transmit is 320 kbps, compared to Apple Music’s 256 kbps. You probably won’t be able to tell the difference in sound.
Both Apple Music and Spotify are compatible with a wide range of gadgets. In particular, Spotify is supported by Amazon Echo, Bose products, Google Home, Sonos, and many other devices. Until then, as long as it complies with the system requirements, Spotify apps can be used on any Android smartphone, iPhone, PC, or Mac. Any phone or computer may use Apple Music apps, and they’re also available on Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Apple Watch, AppleTV, and the HomePod.
Winner: SPOTIFY
Apple Music vs Spotify: Personalization
Although Apple Music’s personalization is comparable to Spotify’s, it isn’t as effective at recommending new music. Most of the time, Apple Music struggles to adapt to your musical tastes and occasionally doesn’t pick songs you’ll truly like. It’s true that some people may benefit from its algorithm, but overall, Spotify is more sophisticated and performs a better job of recommending content you’ll like. Apple Music leads Spotify in radio.
Apple Music’s radio is still live radio; however, Spotify’s more entertaining because it can be personalized. It suggests radio programs and artist interviews that it believes you will like. Although Apple Music’s artwork doesn’t stand out as much, its personalized playlists look and sound comparable to those on Spotify.
You can listen to a selection of songs and radio on Spotify’s “Daily Drive” playlist. That doesn’t even touch the sides of their personalized options. Your Spotify home screen will always seem different than someone else’s since Spotify organizes categories for you based on what they think you would want to listen to that day. Even radio stations are personalized for you. Although Spotify’s radio stations aren’t live, they are special since they are personalized based on your preferences rather than just playing the most well-known songs in the world.
Winner: SPOTIFY
Apple Music vs Spotify: Artist Support
For each stream, Apple Music pays its artists around $0.00783. You would require roughly 136 streams to earn $1. Many artists may not receive 100% of the money generated by streams, but they do receive a percentage because the music being streamed is theirs. A variety of factors, such as the artist’s popularity and where they live, affect how much they are paid per stream.
Spotify’s artists are paid between $0.003 and $0.005 for each stream. Therefore, if you do the calculation, you would need around 250 streams to generate one dollar. Depending on their fan bases and distribution agreements, Spotify pays its artists a certain sum for each stream. Of course, making music for a living won’t be a problem for major musicians who receive millions of streams each day. However, if you’re a young musician hoping to become well-known and don’t work another job on the side, you can run into financial difficulties.
Winner: APPLE
Apple Music vs Spotify: Offline Downloading
With a limit of 100,000 tracks, Apple Music allows you to download music for offline playback across 10 different devices at once. Spotify falls short in this regard; its maximum is 10,000 songs on up to five devices.
Winner: APPLE
Apple Music vs Spotify: Social Features
Spotify’s numerous social sharing options are one of its major benefits. Sharing Spotify content on Facebook and Instagram stories is simple. Plus, you may share album art on Snapchat, which connects pals to the music. You could even make Spotify-like QR codes to share playlists and Apple Music across any messaging service.
With Apple Music, you can make content links that you may post anywhere and share playlists with other registered users via AirDrop. However, compared to Spotify, it has less social media integration. If you don’t mind sharing your listening preferences with the rest of the globe, it is feasible.
Winner: SPOTIFY
Apple Music vs Spotify: Easy To Use
When viewed on a mobile device, Apple Music has a crisp white appearance, while Spotify’s apps are all painted in a dark color. The primary tabs for both apps can be found at the bottom of the user interface, making them both rather simple to use.
Both allow you to view lyrics on-screen for specific songs if they are available. However, only Apple Music enables you to search for songs whose names you don’t know by entering a stream of lyrics. Spotify or Apple Music audio may be listened to and controlled within the Google Maps navigation experience on iOS and Android. Similar functionality is available to Spotify customers through Waze.
Even if you don’t have a car that supports Android Auto, Spotify still provides a smart player for your car called Car Thing. Apple Music for Android now supports Android Auto, so you can manage to play through the infotainment system in addition to CarPlay.
Winner: DRAW
The Bottom Line: Is Apple Music Better Than Spotify?
So, Spotify is better than Apple Music. You may prefer Spotify to Apple Music.
Why Apple Music?
Apple Music is for those who are more invested in music. Compared to Spotify, it offers a much broader selection of songs, including music videos, and it also lets you download more music to more devices for offline listening. It also boasts a simple UI that works nicely with programs like Siri and iTunes, making it perfect for users who are already accustomed to Apple products. But maybe the coolest aspect of it is the ability to communicate directly with your favorite musicians.
Why Spotify?
If you choose function over fashion, go with Spotify. Although Spotify’s user interface isn’t as nice as Apple Music’s, it is suitable with a much larger number of third-party services and is accessible on a much wider range of devices. Additionally, it features a built-in podcast section, more social sharing options, and a better (and faster) mechanism for recommending new music to you. Spotify also offers a free, ad-supported service option, which Apple Music particularly lacks.
Winner: SPOTIFY
Both streaming platforms have their own set of limitations in their current state. But Spotify still holds the top spot, in large part because of its accurate music discovery algorithm, compatibility with a wide range of hardware and software, built-in podcast system, and abundance of social connection, and sharing opportunities. Also, it is free to use. Apple Music has made tremendous progress in a very short period of time, but it is still not quite at the same level as Spotify.