Spotify vs Apple Music vs Youtube Music
- music
- 04-Feb-2023
I have been a subscriber to music streaming services for years so I thought it my by useful to share my experience with all of them. Princing is not mentioned as it varies dramatically from one country to another.
Spotify 🥈
I have been a subscriber for over 10 years and I can certainly say that it has a lot of advantages:
Pros:
- Simplicity: Spotify is very easy to use, navigation and interface is very user friendly;
- Duo Subscription: easy to share with a family member or a loved one. There is also a family option but the duo is cheaper and sufficient in some cases;
- Discovery weekly just listening to your existing music is yesterday. Today, a good streaming service means a good discovery service where you can discover new songs to add to your playlists. In this regard Spotify was generally very good. I say was because lately I wasn't really getting high quality suggestions as I did in the past. This might have to do with my declined usage or algorythm deterioration 😅
Cons:
- No videos
- Discovery not as good as it used to be
- Audio quality is very high but not lossless as in Apple Music
Ranking: 🥈
Apple Music
I have been an Apple Music user for probably the very beginning, 18+ years ago. This was before there was a subscription system in place and this is how things get a bit complicated. If you bought songs before the streaming system you still find them in you library and, overall, makes the experience pretty confusing.
Pros: - Audio Quality: with a lot of songs in lossless quality look no further for the best in terms of audio quality. - Integration: If you are an Apple user Apple Music is very well integrated with all devices (Apple TV, Apple Watch, iPhone, Mac etc.) which could be a big plus
Cons:
- User Interface : Somehow I found the user interface to be less clean than Spotify and Youtube Music. It has certainly improved and is difficult to pin point what I dislike but one big plus is that I don't seem to see a simple way to like a song with 👍 or ❤️ and find it automatically in a separate playlist (not just in the media library). I also don't think the "dislike" song does anything.
- Confusing if you bought songs beside the fact that you probably wasted your money if you did 😅 (OK for me it was long ago, but today you have no reason to "buy" songs which is anyway not really like buying them) I found the songs persistently appearing in the library together with the streamed songs confusing.
Ranking: 🥉
Youtube Music 📺🥇
For years I resisted the idea to buy a Youtube premium subscription. I didn't watch youtube that much but, lately, I enjoy watching some videos and on Apple TV the advertising is just too much. I subscribed and I think it was worth every penny! As a free add-on to Youtube premium you also get..Youtube Music. Well, this is just fantastic because it has something no other service has: music videos!!
If like me you are part of the MTV generation you know what it means. The magic to see and listen to music videos is just unbeatable.
Pros:
- Videos Yes! I love music videos and if you listen to music via Apple TV or TV you will "see" a huge difference. Gone are the boring album photos: you can enjoy music videos! Not all songs have one but many do.
- User Interface Simple, fresh and smart. Just 👍 a song and find it in its dedicated playlist. Perfect.
- Free add-on to Youtube premium You don't pay an extra feee so if you have Youtube premium, you have music too.
- Good integration on your mobile you have a separate app but, on the Apple TV app, you do have just a separate tab for music.
- Discovery and mixes The songs discovery seems well curated and the mixes too.
Cons:
Reverts back to audio only if there is no Music video If you select music video and the next song in your playlist has none, you need to re-enable again else it will stick to audio only. e.g. in your Playlist Song 1 has a music video (all good, video plays) Song 2 has no video (audio only plays), Song 3 has a music video BUT it won't switch back to video without your intervention. This is a pretty annoying bug (a bit of a workaround, I am adding to certain playlists only songs that have a music video).
- Audio quality max 256 kbps AAC Spotify offers an higher rate of 320 kbps but I doubt you can notice any different with bluetooth headphones or even less on a tv. Apple Music offers 16-bit/44.1kHz, 24-bit/48kHz, and 24-bit/192kHz which is higher than Spotify.
For me the discovery and mix features are superior than Spotify and I just can't get enough of discovering music videos that are missing in both Spotify and Apple Music,
Ranking:🥇