Anyone using Apple Music over Spotify?

[lidl e]

Thinking of making the switch

[BigRedX]

Yes.

 

Has the advantage that you can add any tracks that are in your iTunes library but not normally available on Apple Music for streaming on all your associated Apple devices. This is absolutely essential for me as about a third of my record/CD collection is not on Spotify.

[spongebob]

I had an AM trial with my phone - I'm a serial streamer, and usually Qubuz subscriber. 

 

Within a few days, I'd given up on the trial and returned to Q. Quality wasn't as good (very dependent on your setup), but not as user-friendly, either. 

 

Not sure if all usual content was there, either. 

[ped]

Yep, prefer the app being mostly album based, whereas Spotify seemed to push you in the direction of playlists and singles, or even books or podcasts. Quality seems fine, certainly over Spotify. I do miss the Spotify Connect functionality which seems crazy given Apple's Handoff abilities, but maybe that'll be added. Also liked that it gives (usually) full track credits. With someone would make it possible to flick through the booklet of an album.

[nige1968]

Found Apple to have much more of the awful noise I like to listen to, available with lossless compression. On the downside, I wish it would stop changing the album artwork I spent so long getting right.

[oldslapper]

Yes. 

[Ruarl]

I’m an Apple Music user. 
 

I like that there are other apps that use the Apple Music database, such as LongPlay and MusicHarbour. Perhaps there are similar things for Spotify? 

[Beedster]

Yes, never seen a reason to change and I like that it’s easy access across all mine and my family’s devices. As per @ped post I like the album model 

[Apeneck Sweeney]

I've used a lot of different streaming sites. started on Spotify, moved to Deezer for a couple of years, tried Apple Music, then to Google Play (which I left when it merged with youtube), and have been using Qubuz for the last couple of years. It's a little more but I prefer it. Like nige1968 I hated what Apple did to the artwork so I left it after the 3 month trial. I also find iTunes slow and bloaty, though I do have a stupidly large number of files in my library which I could try and pare down to a more manageable second library as default. I tend to use VLC when I need to play something on my mac as it's quicker.

Edited June 10 by Apeneck Sweeney

[Grahambythesea]

Neither, I still like CDs.

[NancyJohnson]

I've stuck with Spotify, but was thinking about going to Tidal (did a free trial), simply as they have 5.1/Atmos/Lossless content.  Insofar as non-streaming content goes, I would generally use the (currently broken) Sonos app to squirt this content around the house.

 

Had a trial with Apple a while back, but didn't go any further as the UI was bloated/unnecessarily complicated.

 

Reckon I'll migrate to Tidal at some point, but it'll be a trawl to get everything/playlists from Spotify.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

2 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

Had a trial with Apple a while back, but didn't go any further as the UI was bloated/unnecessarily complicated.

That’s exactly how I feel about Spotify. I’ve never been a paid subscriber, so maybe it’s different for those that do.

Apple Family subscriber here, so we get Apple TV, Music and storage.

Apple Music makes my life so much easier. Whatever I do on one device syncs on all the others automatically.

Edited June 11 by hiram.k.hackenbacker

[ped]

2 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

 

Reckon I'll migrate to Tidal at some point, but it'll be a trawl to get everything/playlists from Spotify.

 

There are various apps which will export, match and import your fave albums and playlists from one service to another. I think the one I used was called Tune my Music which was quite cheap and worked perfectly.

[NancyJohnson]

Just off the back of the two posts from ped and Warren above, we're probably of (or approaching and age) where historically we actively went out to try and find music we were interested in; we read music weeklies, we went to gigs, we appreciated word-of-mouth referrals, we listened to radio content/shows that appealed to our tastes, we may also have been lucky enough to have a record store nearby where Sounds journalists would drop off their review copies and owners who allowed us to listen to music on headphones (all hail, Record Scene, Staines (RIP)).  Now - with all these platforms - we are spoonfed/dribbled content to the apps.  I get what Warren is saying about the Spotify UI.

 

If I look at Spotify on my phone, all I really want is a big old button that points to my search options and the playlists I've set up.  I know what I want to listen to, I have a vast musical library on Spotify (and on a NAS, which because of the failure of the Sonos app I'm unable to access across my network at the moment).  I've got panels for 'Recently Announced', 'Picked for you', 'New releases for you', 'Recently Played', 'Fresh New Music', 'Recommended for Today', 'Your Favourite Artists', 'Huge Playlists', 'Audiobooks For You', 'Jump Back In', 'Episodes For You', something called 'Our Generation', 'Alternative 70s', 'Alternate 60s', 'The Indie List', 'misfits 2.0', 'Made In Scotland', 'Massive Dance Hits', 'Made In Liverpool', 'Altar', Rap UK#, 'Powerpop'...there's about 20 more.  I don't need any of this at all.  I am no more going to click on some acne-faced indie group from Liverpool any more than I've going to go out and find something praising he merits of Allah. 

 

Let me do my own diligence rather than forcing all this poop on me (which is likely sponsored by labels anyhow).  Most of the good stuff I've 'discovered' recently has come via a US indie station called W-EQX, which is based in Manchester, Vermont.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

Yeah, I’m with your there Paul. I don’t use any of that stuff either. What I do like is once Apple Music has finished a track I have picked, it then cherry picks stuff of the same genre it thinks I might like. I can’t be messing with it whilst I’m driving around the city, so it let it do its thing and it’s quite good at it. I went through the whole night  just listen thinging to what it threw at me the other day and hardly skipped any. Far better than what commercial radio has to offer these days.

[BigRedX]

59 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

If I look at Spotify on my phone, all I really want is a big old button that points to my search options and the playlists I've set up.  I know what I want to listen to, I have a vast musical library on Spotify (and on a NAS, which because of the failure of the Sonos app I'm unable to access across my network at the moment).  I've got panels for 'Recently Announced', 'Picked for you', 'New releases for you', 'Recently Played', 'Fresh New Music', 'Recommended for Today', 'Your Favourite Artists', 'Huge Playlists', 'Audiobooks For You', 'Jump Back In', 'Episodes For You', something called 'Our Generation', 'Alternative 70s', 'Alternate 60s', 'The Indie List', 'misfits 2.0', 'Made In Scotland', 'Massive Dance Hits', 'Made In Liverpool', 'Altar', Rap UK#, 'Powerpop'...there's about 20 more.  I don't need any of this at all.  I am no more going to click on some acne-faced indie group from Liverpool any more than I've going to go out and find something praising he merits of Allah.

 

I think a lot of the problem isn't completely down to the app but the fact that you are trying to get too much out of the tiny phone screen.

 

Accessing any of these services on a proper computer with a decent sized screen is far easier. I think that app developers (certainly for things like streaming services) need to understand that on mobile devices with limited screen real-estate need to allow the "home screen" to be customisable so that each individual user can have exactly what they want on there and hide all the other options. 

 

I've side-stepped the issue by doing all my "power-user" stuff on a computer with a big screen, and then when I need to access the app (Apple Music in my case) on a mobile device I'm just accessing a handful of previously selected playlists, and my user interactivity is simply picking which playlist I want and whether it's going to be random order or not.

[ped]

1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

Just off the back of the two posts from ped and Warren above, we're probably of (or approaching and age) where historically we actively went out to try and find music we were interested in; we read music weeklies, we went to gigs, we appreciated word-of-mouth referrals, we listened to radio content/shows that appealed to our tastes, we may also have been lucky enough to have a record store nearby where Sounds journalists would drop off their review copies and owners who allowed us to listen to music on headphones (all hail, Record Scene, Staines (RIP)).  Now - with all these platforms - we are spoonfed/dribbled content to the apps.  I get what Warren is saying about the Spotify UI.

 

If I look at Spotify on my phone, all I really want is a big old button that points to my search options and the playlists I've set up.  I know what I want to listen to, I have a vast musical library on Spotify (and on a NAS, which because of the failure of the Sonos app I'm unable to access across my network at the moment).  I've got panels for 'Recently Announced', 'Picked for you', 'New releases for you', 'Recently Played', 'Fresh New Music', 'Recommended for Today', 'Your Favourite Artists', 'Huge Playlists', 'Audiobooks For You', 'Jump Back In', 'Episodes For You', something called 'Our Generation', 'Alternative 70s', 'Alternate 60s', 'The Indie List', 'misfits 2.0', 'Made In Scotland', 'Massive Dance Hits', 'Made In Liverpool', 'Altar', Rap UK#, 'Powerpop'...there's about 20 more.  I don't need any of this at all.  I am no more going to click on some acne-faced indie group from Liverpool any more than I've going to go out and find something praising he merits of Allah. 

 

Let me do my own diligence rather than forcing all this poop on me (which is likely sponsored by labels anyhow).  Most of the good stuff I've 'discovered' recently has come via a US indie station called W-EQX, which is based in Manchester, Vermont.

 

I agree with you about the spoon feeding. Most of the chat about the comparative merits of Spotify vs Apple Music on the Reddit threads revolve around the quality of the algorithm. Frankly I don't use it very often - I still find music like I used to, most of the time - and that's often facilitated by the artist credits that you get on Apple Music. I always used to look at who played on what, find out what else they played on (using Discogs) and listen to that stuff too, then get lost in research about them, who they toured with, what other bands the performers have been in, etc etc. 

 

For what it's worth, I found Spotify would usually serve up tunes I liked more often, but 99% of the time I'd click to see more from that artist and find they have a couple of singles only. On Apple Music, 99% of the time the artist has at least one full album.

[Doctor J]

I tried to migrate from iTunes to Apple Music last week and will never make that mistake again. A horrible experience, trying to weed out what I don't want from it to get to what I do. A few years ago, I decided on a policy where I bought a phone with a very large storage capacity and keep all the music I've bought over the years on that. Sod streaming (not one of them pays a decent rate, it's not just Spotify), sod radio, sod algorithms, I'll choose the music I want to listen to as and when I want to listen to it. Use Picky on the phone, iTunes at home (or the original CD or record) and buy from Bandcamp when I want something new. No fuss, no muss.

[dave_bass5]

I have both but only use Spotify occasionally if someone sends me a play list. 

I don’t really like the AM interface, i find it awkward to use, but it just seems more convenient as it works on all my devices without extra effort. 

I also like that it can put our rehearsal and gig recordings in it and have them play back from the music apps.

[Woodinblack]

Yes, I use apple music all the time and never really got on with spotify.

[lidl e]

My kids are resisting the switch.  They're locked in on spotify.

 

I think they dont want to lose access to their friend's playlists.

 

[dave_bass5]

6 minutes ago, lidl e said:

My kids are resisting the switch.  They're locked in on spotify.

 

I think they dont want to lose access to their friend's playlists.

 

Thats the thing, you can share Spotify much easier than Apple. I only have it because my wife pays for it and can share it out, and she only pays for it so our son can use it. We both have AM and find its a lot better for us (we also have Airpod Pro’s so get the full benefit). Also lossless does sound noticeably better through my Mac and Apple TV compared to Spotify. I believe that is coming but at a premium. 

[borntohang]

On 11/06/2024 at 09:15, NancyJohnson said:

I've stuck with Spotify, but was thinking about going to Tidal (did a free trial), simply as they have 5.1/Atmos/Lossless content.  Insofar as non-streaming content goes, I would generally use the (currently broken) Sonos app to squirt this content around the house.

 

Had a trial with Apple a while back, but didn't go any further as the UI was bloated/unnecessarily complicated.

 

Reckon I'll migrate to Tidal at some point, but it'll be a trawl to get everything/playlists from Spotify.

I've been on Tidal since Neil Young took his back catalogue off Spotify (I realise he's on again now) and it's been good. Migration of playlists was as simple as using an app to transfer it over and the catalogue access has been 1:1 so far. I don't use the FLAC stuff for streaming so can't comment. Also don't know if my 0.00005p or whatever Tidal pays over Spotify per stream makes much of a difference to anyone, but every little helps. 

 

My main complaint is that I can't contribute to the communal playlist in the band van any more, so I just make myself inconvenient and get somebody else to add songs for me. 🙂

[NancyJohnson]

3 hours ago, borntohang said:

I've been on Tidal since Neil Young took his back catalogue off Spotify (I realise he's on again now) and it's been good. Migration of playlists was as simple as using an app to transfer it over and the catalogue access has been 1:1 so far. I don't use the FLAC stuff for streaming so can't comment. Also don't know if my 0.00005p or whatever Tidal pays over Spotify per stream makes much of a difference to anyone, but every little helps. 

 

My main complaint is that I can't contribute to the communal playlist in the band van any more, so I just make myself inconvenient and get somebody else to add songs for me. 🙂

 

I suspect that once we get off BT Internet and sign up to 900mbps Zen Internet, I'll just migrate things over to Tidal.  

[Quatschmacher]

Yep, ditched Spotify years ago and have been using Apple Music since then.