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Transcript:
It’s been 5 years since Apple Music was released to compete with Spotify, and now they’re the top two most popular music streaming services, and in this video I’ll compare them head-to-head to see which one is the best in 2020 and at the end I’ll share which one I’m choosing. Big thanks to Visible for sponsoring today’s video.
Pricing
First, let’s talk about pricing. Both apps have pretty much the same three paid plans to choose from: $9.99/month for individuals, $14.99/month for a family plan up to 6, and $4.99/month for students. Both apps also offer 3 month free trials. However, there are some key differences. Spotify’s student plan is far superior to Apple Music’s because Spotify Student comes with extra perks like access to Hulu and Showtime. However, Apple Music offers a secret annual plan for individuals so if you’re a current Apple Music subscriber you can go to the subscription settings on your iPhone and choose the $99 annual subscription which saves you $20 a year. Spotify does not currently offer an annual plan. However, Spotify does offer a completely free plan that has some limitations like shuffle only and it has ads, but it’s still a big advantage over Apple Music which doesn’t have a free plan comparable to Spotify’s but instead only offers free access to their Beats radio and nothing else.
Music Collection
The total number of songs that are available on each service is slowly becoming less of a differentiating factor, but Apple Music still has the advantage. Spotify currently offers over 50 million songs while Apple Music offers 60 million songs so they are very close depending on what Spotify means by “over 50 million” which could be 51 million or 59 million. Either way, Apple Music still claims to have more songs. Another advantage for Apple Music is that it is available in 167 countries while Spotify is only available in 79 countries. So depending on where you live you may be limited to only one option.
Library Limit
This next category is where they are both very different. Library limit is the amount of songs you can save to your library. Spotify currently has a library limit of 10,000 songs meaning you will get an error if you try to add more than that to your library. Update: Spotify has removed their 10,000 song library limit and is now unlimited. Apple Music has a library limit of 100,000 songs.
Supported Devices
Both apps are available on the most popular devices such as iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and they both have web players. But Spotify is more “open” because it supports a wide variety of devices like Samsung Gear, Amazon Alexa, PlayStation, Smart TVs, Roku, and of course it’s integrated into my Tesla which is nice. Apple Music is still more of a “closed” environment and works best with Apple products like the Apple TV, Apple Watch, CarPlay, and HomePod. Apple Music also has better Siri support with more specific voice commands. It makes a lot of sense to go with Apple Music if you own a lot of Apple products or have a huge iTunes library, but that’s not necessarily always the case. I own mostly Apple products but I think Spotify’s Connect feature is a huge advantage over Apple Music. Spotify Connect lets you use your phone as a remote to play Spotify on any device that you’ve signed on to. For example, I can play Spotify on my phone and by tapping the Connect icon I can immediately send the audio of whatever is playing to any other device on the same Wifi network such as my iMac or my Bose sound bar or my kitchen speaker. The audio seamlessly switches to the new speaker, but I can still control the playback functions from my phone and I can change the playback device at any time if I want to switch it back to my phone for example. It’s seriously one of the best features of Spotify, and currently Apple Music doesn’t have a feature like this. It only has AirPlay which isn’t as advanced as Spotify Connect.
Lyrics
One big advantage of Apple Music is the option to view lyrics in real time which I love because there are many times when I just want to read some of the lyrics of a song as I listen. You can also tap on any line of the lyrics and it starts playing that exact part of the song which is awesome. Spotify doesn’t have this kind of lyrics integration. Instead they partnered with Genius to show portions of lyrics for only certain songs so it’s pretty half baked compared to Apple Music. Spotify also has a feature called Canvas which is only available on certain songs, and it just plays a few seconds of the music video in the background or some other random video on a loop. I hate this feature. It’s pretty much useless and causes faster battery drain and uses more data so I leave the canvas feature off. Another really cool feature about Apple Music lyrics is you can search actual phrases from song lyrics and it will usually find the correct song based on the lyrics which is really awesome. It also works with Siri too. Spotify doesn’t index lyrics so it’s not possible to search for a song by searching the lyrics like you can with Apple Music.
Exclusive Content
Apple Music used to be infamous for having popular albums that were only available on Apple Music like ones from Taylor Swift and Drake, but that’s mostly a thing of the past which is great for us listeners. I’m just going to admit it – I can’t stop listening to Lover. Anyone else have that problem? Just me? Ok. And this may be karma, but there are some songs I’ve come across that are on Spotify but not on Apple Music which is strange. For example, I love the Big Little Lies soundtrack and the complete soundtrack is available on Spotify, but for some reason on Apple Music it says some of the songs aren’t “available in my country” which is weird. So it seems for me Spotify has the advantage for song availability which is something to think about. Spotify also has more than just music, more specifically it has spoken word content such as audiobooks and podcasts. And now Spotify is starting to get exclusive podcast deals. The biggest one recently is Joe Rogan’s podcast will only be available on Spotify starting in 2021. So you may be able to use Spotify as your main music streaming app AND your main podcast app which makes it easier than using multiple different apps. This is what Spotify is really trying to be – your main one stop shop for all things audio: music, podcasts, audiobooks, and more. Apple Music doesn’t have podcasts or much spoken word. Instead it chooses to offer radio stations as their other type of exclusive content. Apple Music radio stations includes things like their popular Beats 1 radio and live broadcast stations like NPR and ESPN which is definitely an advantage over Spotify. Apple Music also has music videos which is cool. Spotify says they offer music video, and other video content, but I have yet to find any music videos for popular songs on Spotify. So this just comes down to personal preference – other than music do you prefer live radio and music videos or do you prefer pre-recorded audio like podcasts.
Sound Quality
Sound quality is an important feature of music streaming so let’s see how each app stacks up. For mobile devices Spotify streams in the OGG format with a few different options ranging from Low to Very High and even an option called Automatic which will base your streaming quality on your network connection. This is actually really convenient because it will automatically save data when you’re on a weak connection but also stream in high quality when you’re on a strong connection, and even the highest of quality for songs you download. Apple Music streams all of their songs in 256kbps AAC which is a slightly better format but is a lower bitrate compared to Spotify’s highest of 320. Apple Music will also lower the quality over cellular if you don’t have high quality streaming enabled in the settings. Unless you are an audio expert with a strong ear, you probably won’t be able to hear a noticeable difference streaming over cellular on both of these apps. I do think Spotify wins in sound quality just because of the higher bitrate and because it gives you more options to choose from along with the Automatic option. And if you want to stream music in the highest quality over cellular without worrying about going over data limits, you’ll want a cell phone plan that has unlimited data, and today’s sponsor Visible is perfect for that. Visible is a new affordable wireless carrier that runs on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. I’ve always been a fan of prepaid cell phone service, and that’s what Visible offers. No contracts. No hidden fees. For just $40 a month you get unlimited talk, unlimited text, and unlimited data – yes music streamers rejoice. And not only that you can also use your phone as a mobile hotspot. Plus, in order to save you even more money, Visible offers a unique take on the family plan, which they call Party Pay. With Party Pay, your bill goes down $5 a month for each member you add to your party, up to parties of 4. So for example, parties of 2 pay just $35 each per month, parties of 3 pay $30 each, and parties of 4 pay just $25 each per month for the same unlimited plan. If you’re looking for an affordable cell phone plan that has unlimited data on Verizon’s LTE network with no annual contract that you can cancel at anytime, check out Visible by clicking the link in the description below. Having an affordable unlimited plan is one of the best things for streaming music on the go. Check out the link below to learn more.
Now let’s talk about one of the most important aspects of Apple Music and Spotify – the mobile app experience. Most likely you’ll be using the mobile app on a daily basis so you need to know the subtle differences between both to figure out which one you like the best.
When it comes to design, Spotify is always a dark background with a green and white color scheme. Apple Music on the other hand can be switched from light or dark mode with a white and pink color scheme. I personally prefer Spotify’s design, but for some people Apple Music may have the advantage because it does have the option of light or dark mode which Spotify is basically dark mode all the time. To get to Spotify’s preferences you can do it directly from Spotify’s home screen by tapping the gear icon to access all your settings and preferences. Apple Music doesn’t offer a quick way to get to your settings from the app itself. You have to go into your phone settings then scroll down and choose Music which is a bit more inconvenient.
Both apps have similar layouts. They both have the main sections laid out across the bottom, but Apple Music lists 5 sections while Spotify only lists 3 sections. Apple Music has Library which shows you all the music you’ve saved to your library, then the For You section which offers music it thinks you’ll like, then Browse which shows featured playlists and albums, then the Radio section for stations and broadcasts, and lastly the Search section. On Spotify it lists the Home section first where it shows you music you recently played along with playlists and radio stations it thinks you’ll like. The Search section is next where you can search any text or browse through all the featured playlists and genres. The final section is Your Library which has all the music you’ve saved to your library. In my opinion Spotify’s app is just easier to use. The interface is more intuitive and less cluttered than Apple Music.
Both apps offer offline listening, but I think Apple Music handles it better. Apple Music automatically has a Downloaded Music section in the Library so if you’re offline you just go there to play your offline music. With Spotify you have to actually go into Settings first and enable Offline mode then it’s still hard to see which songs are downloaded because it just grays out things that aren’t downloaded or it shows a green arrow for things that have been downloaded. It’s not laid out very well. Apple Music’s way of handling downloaded music is just more intuitive and easier to understand because it’s all in one place. One weird thing about Spotify is downloading individual songs for offline listening. With Apple Music it makes it easy to download single songs for offline listening by tapping the download icon and it automatically adds it to your Downloaded Music section of your library. With Spotify, there’s no quick option to download a saved song for offline listening. For albums or playlists it’s easy, just tap the Download button, but for individual songs you have to first create a Playlist, then add the song to that playlist and then Download the playlist. So what I did was just create a playlist called Downloaded Songs and now if I want to save an individual song for offline listening I just add it to that playlist and it will automatically download it to my device. It’s not a huge pain, but the fact you have to manually create and download the playlist yourself is kind of annoying. But once it’s set up it’s easy to add songs to that playlist. Another weird thing about Spotify is its haptic touch (or long press) feature to show quick shortcuts which is pretty much useless. If I tap on Search it doesn’t bring up the Search bar. If I tap any of the playlists it doesn’t take me to that playlist. Apple Music’s haptic touch for quick shortcuts works perfectly as it should. Hopefully this is just a bug that Spotify will fix soon with an update.
Both apps offer curated playlists and the ability to create custom radio stations based on a certain song or artist. Apple Music has gotten a lot better since their beginning, and they offer a lot more curated playlists based on genre, mood, and various other things. However, the layout is still a bit clunky and confusing. The artwork is big and it’s cumbersome to browse through all the playlists. Spotify’s layout is much more simple and easier to navigate, and I think the selection of curated playlists is just flat out better on Spotify. They are extremely well done with a large variety of different playlists based on many different factors like Comedy, TV & Movies and many other unique interests. Also Spotify’s algorithm is so much better for discovering new music based on your listening habits. This is mostly done by its customized playlists like Discover Weekly and Release Radar that are made specifically for you and updated every week. They also create other custom playlists like Daily Drive which is a curated mix of songs you listen to the most intertwined with short news stories or podcast clips which is awesome. And then it has a Uniquely Yours section that has various playlists based on your most listened to songs along with your top songs of each year. Apple Music just can’t compete with the accuracy of Spotify’s uniquely tailored playlists. Another one of Spotify’s biggest advantages is any user can create a public playlist that will show up in anyone’s search results and anyone can save a publicly shared playlist to their library. You can even let friends collaborate on playlists. This idea of custom and shared playlists from anyone is a great feature of Spotify. I also think Spotify does a better job at creating and managing custom radio stations. On Apple Music you can create a station from an artist or song but when you do that it doesn’t take you to the created station. It just automatically creates the station and starts playing it. And you can only see the next song that will play on the station. And there’s no easy way to see all the radio stations you’ve created. If you go to the Radio section it just shows the featured stations and your recently played. On Spotify you can tap Go to station for any song or artist, and it will take you directly to the custom radio station and shows you all the songs that are on that radio station. This gives you way more information than Apple Music and allows you to see what the radio is like and gives you the option to start playing it or quickly save it to your library. And it doesn’t automatically start playing the station so it doesn’t interrupt the current album or playlist you’re listening to.
Apple Music and Spotify have different ways of how you can add and manage your artists in your library. On Apple Music you can’t “follow” or “add” artists. You can only add albums, songs, and playlists to your library. However, once you add an album or song to your library then it automatically adds that artist to your Artists list. On Spotify you can “follow” an artist without adding any of their albums or songs to your library. When you follow an artist, they show up in your Artists list in your library. However, if you add songs or albums to your library without following the artist, that artist will not show up in your Artists list in your library. It’s a little weird and confusing. I think I prefer the way Apple Music does it because if I add a song or album to my library I would like that artist to be added to my Artists list too.
They also handle search a little differently. Spotify’s search is better because Apple Music’s search requires an extra step. If I search “Vince” in Apple Music it shows quick shortcuts, but if I tap a result from the quick shortcut it shows the search result and then I have to tap one more time to go to that artist. In Spotify you can just tap the search result form the quick shortcut and it goes directly to that page, saving a step. Spotify search results are also smarter and more customized based on your own library. If I search “Wonder” on Spotify it knows I have saved albums from the wonder years so it shows that artist first. On Apple Music I have the same wonder years albums saved to my library but if I search wonder it shows generic search results not taking into consideration my own library.
When it comes to details about artists and tracks they both have their pros and cons. For example, Spotify Artist pages give more detailed info such as the amount of monthly listeners and their artist rank if they’re in the top 200 or so in the world. I love this because it’s nice to gauge an artist’s popularity. I like to keep tabs on certain artists like my boy Jack Harlow who is a young rapper from my city who I’ve been following for years and I like to see how popular he’s getting. Check him out if you haven’t already. Spotify also shows the exact amount of plays for the artist’s top songs which is nice to know the most popular songs and by how much. Apple Music doesn’t show the amount of monthly listeners or the artist rank, and it doesn’t show the number of plays for songs. However, it does have some advantages over Spotify. For example, you can see a longer list of an artist’s top songs which is great compared to Spotify which only shows the top 5 songs from an artist. Another difference is that on the Apple Music mobile app you can actually see star icons next to songs which indicate the most popular songs on an album. On the Spotify mobile app you cannot see the most popular songs from albums. You can only see an album’s top songs on the desktop app.
I do like the way Spotify utilizes swipe gestures for quick ways to like a song or add it to the queue, and you can tap the ellipsis to get a list of all actions. Apple Music doesn’t offer swipe gestures, but instead only offers a list of actions by long pressing on a song. They both offer the same typical options, it’s just a slightly different way of accessing them. On Spotify you can swipe left or right on the artwork of the current song to skip to the next or previous track which is nice. Apple Music doesn’t offer this swipe feature to go to the next or previous song. However, Apple Music lets you hold down on the forward or back button to scrub through the song and you can hear the scrubbing which is helpful if you want to fast forward to a certain part of a song. On Spotify you can only scrub through a song by moving the playback cursor and you cannot hear a live scrubbing of the song which is sort of a letdown.
When playing a song on Spotify you can tap the Artist name and it takes you directly to the artist page which is more convenient and saves a step compared to how Apple Music does it. With Apple Music if you tap the artist name it pops up another box to choose the artist or album. I can see how some people might prefer this, but I prefer the way Spotify does it because if I want to see the artist it saves a tap and if I want the album I just tap the ellipsis and I canget to it in the same number of taps as Apple Music.
Spotify has tried to simplify how you add songs, playlists, and albums to your library by giving you one option: the heart icon. If you heart something it basically saves it to your library. However, if you heart an album it only adds that album to your Albums section of your library. It doesn’t add that album’s songs to your Liked Songs. If you want to do that you have to tap the options button and choose Like All Songs which is a weird way of handling that. Apple Music gives you a few different options: you can click “Add” to save an album, artist, or playlist to your library, and once you do that you can tap the “Download” icon to download it to your device for offline listening, and you can also “Love” it which will help Apple Music suggest music in the For You section of the app. Spotify also has a weird way of managing your saved songs. When you heart a song it adds it to a playlist called “Liked Songs” which is basically a list of all your saved songs. So instead of having a Songs section in your Library like Apple Music has, instead Spotify makes you go to your Playlists section then choose “Liked Songs” to view your saved songs. On Apple Music, they manage it better by actually having individual options for your Songs, Playlists, Artists, and Albums in the Library section of the app. There’s room in the Spotify app to lay it out similar to Apple Music and add a Songs section at the top so I’m not sure why they chose to manage saved songs by putting them into a playlist.
One big advantage of Apple Music is you can filter your Library by genre which lets you play all the songs of a certain genre that you’ve saved to your library. This is great for when I want to listen to all hip hop songs in my library. Spotify doesn’t allow you to filter your library by genre which is crazy. I just want to be able to go to my saved songs and shuffle play a certain genre which I can do with Apple Music but not with Spotify. The closest thing to doing this on Spotify is the Daily Mixes which I do really like. These are playlists based on your most listened to genres and it includes songs that you listen to a lot but it also includes new songs that you may have never heard of.
So as you can see, Apple Music and Spotify are similar in many ways but very different in some of the details. They both have their pros and cons. After using both of them for the past month I’m going to continue to use Spotify as my music streaming app. I’ve been a Spotify premium user for many years, and I’ve built an extensive library which has allowed Spotify to do a really good job at introducing me to new music that I usually always like. Even though it’s not perfect and there are some things Apple Music does do better, I still prefer the experience of using Spotify rather than Apple Music. What do you think? Are you choosing Spotify or Apple Music? Let me know in the comments below.
