Is Spotify the best music streaming service available across the world? For a majority of users, who seek easy access to their music, it certainly is.
Courtesy of a free-tier plan and subscriptions available at reasonable prices, Spotify has become the new go-to streaming service for millions of users. Regardless of platforms and devices, your Spotify playlist can be easily accessed anywhere. This poses a great challenge for Apple Music, which is presently one of its biggest rivals in this space.
Positioned as a premium-tier music streaming service for Apple users, Apple Music follows a different philosophy of delivering a high-quality experience. It is tied deep with the Apple ecosystem, which makes it a great choice for users surrounded by iPhones, AirPods, Macs and iPads in their household.
The two apps are quite similar yet different. No wonder that their rivalry extends to both streaming services providing periodical round-ups of your listening patterns and other insights, leading to the Spotify Wrapped vs Apple Music Replay debate.
So, if you were to make a choice between these two music streaming services, which of these would be your pick? Will it be the Apple ecosystem-friendly Apple Music or the feature-rich Spotify? While the answer to this dilemma seems easy, our Apple Music vs Spotify comparison sheds light on the most crucial aspects and helps you with a surprising suggestion.
Apple Music vs Spotify: Looking beyond the price factor
Music library
Whichever music streaming service you choose, you are assured of a wide variety of collections. Apple and Spotify claim that there are over 100 million songs to choose from across the world. Hence, even if you are looking for a number from a local artist, chances are that you may find it listed on both.
Fans of radio channels will also be happy to find popular stations available on Spotify and Apple Music. Both services also curate annual playlists celebrating the best releases of a particular year. You can find procedurally generated playlists tailored to your personal music listening preferences.
However, Spotify commands a marginal lead over Apple Music with its vast collection of podcasts, which add a lot of value for subscribers. Apple Music misses out on podcasts entirely.
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Then there’s the matter of automatic recommendations. Spotify is usually perceived to provide superior recommendations based on your listening preferences, thereby creating favourable listening experiences for users. Apple Music’s auto playlist generation tends to limit its recommendations and is often known to include repetition in its collection.
Hence, Spotify takes the win in this round.
Winner: Spotify
Sound quality
The perception of audio quality is largely dependent on the gear you use for listening to music. In the basic settings, both Spotify and Apple Music rely on the AAC codec to deliver a decent audio quality while streaming from online. Spotify’s premium tier plans usually offer higher bit-rates of streaming and are suitable for users with high-performance headphones.
However, Apple Music now offers lossless quality as well as Hi-Res lossless quality. Turning on these options from the Settings menu allows one to listen to music with greater details, provided you have supporting hardware, i.e. a combination of a PC, an external DAC and a pair of professional wired headphones.
Spotify is also rumoured to bring a higher quality streaming mode but as of now, it is Apple Music that has an edge in this regard.
Winner: Apple Music
Compatibility
In 2024, Apple Music and Spotify’s services are accessible on almost all major platforms. Whether you listen to music on your high-end gaming laptop or host a music party on your Xbox console or smartphone, you will find dedicated apps for these services. PC users can also access Spotify and Apple Music via their websites by logging into their accounts.
While availability is no longer an issue for either of these services, it is the integration where they start to differ. Spotify can easily integrate with your smart voice assistants and smart speakers across most non-Apple platforms. The clever integration allows you to control the playback from other devices effortlessly. Hence, if your gadget collection comprises Android phones, Amazon Alexa smart speakers and Windows PCs, Spotify will work effortlessly.
On the other hand, Apple Music’s integration is limited to the Apple ecosystem. iPhone users get to enjoy perks like handing off the music to the HomePod speaker, streaming it via AirPlay to other Apple devices, transferring the playlist to Apple Watch and more. However, it fails to offer any integration benefits for subscribers on non-Apple devices, which makes it difficult to digest given it charges similar subscription fees as Spotify.
Winner: Spotify
Pricing
Spotify has always been a free-to-access streaming app and as is the case with free services, it manages to onboard a lot more people. Once a new user signs up, Spotify offers a standard streaming service experience with access to the latest playlists and a limited number of skips. The premium plans offer additional benefits like unlimited skips, offline downloads, access to podcasts, higher-quality music streaming and more. The premium membership starts at HKD 68 per month.
Apple Music, on the other hand, provides no free access to its streaming service. As a new user, you get access to a limited-time free trial with all the perks enabled. Once the trial period expires, you have to purchase a subscription that costs HKD 33 per month. Apple Music is also available to Apple One members as part of the benefits.
While the prices for both services are equal, we will give this round to Spotify for offering a free plan.
Winner: Spotify
Apple Music vs Spotify: Our verdict
Winner: Spotify
As a music lover, you won’t be disappointed with either of these services. Both Apple Music and Spotify are considered among the best music streaming services and hence, you are likely to have a great time with either of these. However, in our direct comparison, it is Spotify that comes up with an edge over Apple Music.
Spotify’s smartly curated playlists, availability of podcasts, affordable pricing and easier accessibility make it an easier choice for most listeners. Between these two, it is the more no-nonsensical pick.
That said, if audio quality is of prime importance, Apple Music will cater better to your needs.
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(Hero and Featured Image Credits: Courtesy @felipepelaquim via Unsplash)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
– Which one is cheaper: Apple Music or Spotify?
Apple Music and Spotify are priced similarly but the latter has a free-tier plan.
– Which has a higher song count: Apple Music or Spotify?
Both Apple Music and Spotify claim to offer a library of over 100 million songs.
