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Comment by bearcobra | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how many of these 40M users are like me and are searching for other options. I'm using Spotify because of an intro offer, and my Google Play account exists almost solely for the discount on other content. Both have enough annoying design quirks that I've also tried Tidal and Apple Music, but their recommendation engines left me wanting more. Based on my love of Rdio, I'm really hoping Pandora's rumored new streaming service becomes a viable alternative.

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I know it's easy for me to be an armchair quarterback but I have to say it. Although I am currently and somewhat reluctantly paying for it (for now), Spotify's UI makes me want to strangle someone every time I use it. I can never remember exactly what ridiculous combination of screens I need to cycle through in order to get where I want to go. It feels like I'm trying to enter a fucking launch code for a nuclear submarine just to play a damn song. God forbid I'm running and hit the wrong screen, then I have to stop, fiddle for 3 minutes, and start again.

Also the stations are incredibly shallow. If you pick a station on Pandora, you will have 100+ songs that are generally well selected in my experience. If you pick one on Spotify, you get maybe 20-30 songs.

The one major benefit to Spotify is that you can pick any song you want, you're not forced into stations. However, if you pick a genre, you're likely to be inundated with shitty cover bands that you have to painfully sift through in order to find the actual playlist your looking for, because '70's hits' could be anything from Led Zepplin to your next door neighbours cover band.

TLDR - incredibly over complicated UI, shallow stations, too much spam music.

Google Play Music has the most frustrating UI as well. It takes 4 taps to start playing the playlist I want to every time (most recently added).

I'll take Spotify's UI over Tidal's and Apple Music's any day.

Not sure if it's just melancholia, but I do think rdio is still totally unbeaten in terms of personalised playlists. It was absolutely amazing! Also, the audio quality seemed far superior compared to Spotify or Apple Music.

Take a look at Apple Music again. They just started doing two personal weekly playlists (like Spotify's Discover Weekly). One is full of tracks you haven't listened to before (it seems pretty good so far) and the other is a weekly 'favourites' mix which seems to be 90% stuff in your library and 10% stuff not in your library but by artists you like (e.g. new releases). It's really good. I was using a mix of Spotify and Apple Music but with iOS 10 I've dropped Spotify as recommendations will improve if I'm using one service and the new weekly playlist seem to be as good as Discover Weekly which was all the was holding me back.

I'll take another look. One of the things I miss most about Rdio was an option to pick how "adventurous" I wanted my personalized playlists to be, so that favorites option would be a nice switch from the Discover Weekly model

Slacker Radio has this. It is pretty good.

Also, Beats 1 is really nice. There's nothing like Josh Homme or Mike D playing their favorite (sometimes obscure) tracks. I've definitely discovered more music per month since subscribing to Apple Music than anytime before.

Beats 1 is fantastic. I listen to Zane Lowe's show everyday. It's a pretty diverse mix of music so even if I don't like everything I always discover some new stuff I never would have otherwise. I listen to Josh Homme, Elton John, and deadmau5 on demand. Matt Wilkinson is also quite good. The key feature for me is that I can easily add the tracks to my library while listening. That makes it a great discovery tool as paired with the 'recently added' view in iTunes I end up listening to the tracks a lot for a week or two and dig into the artists more in my own time.

I've checked out Apple Music but the only draw would be Taylor Swift and immediate access to exclusive releases, like The 1975's new album which was released on Apple Music first then released on Spotify two weeks later.

I really like two things about Spotify:

* Curated Playlists: Their mood/genre playlists have a human touch (and very good taste) and I can also follow playlists created by some of my favorite artists

* Social/Sharing: I like seeing what my friends are listening to in the sidebar and I know enough people on Spotify that I can reliably send Spotify links to my friends and know they'll be able to listen to a song/album. I would reconsider if that network effect shifted and more people were on Apple.

I could not agree more. I was a big Rdio fan and went to the ways of Apple Music because the family plan is so cheap. Wish they would integrate Last.fm and a web interface though. The 12.5.1 version is a step in the right direction though. Along with iOS 10. Excited to see what Pandora will offer as well.

I know it's easy for me to be an armchair quarterback but I have to say it. Although I am currently and somewhat reluctantly paying for it (for now), Spotify's UI makes me want to strangle someone every time I use it. I can never remember exactly what ridiculous combinatoric puzzle of screens I need to cycle through in order to get where I want to go. It feels like I'm trying to enter a fucking launch code for a nuclear submarine just to play a damn song. God forbid I'm running and hit the wrong screen, then I have to stop, fiddle for 3 minutes, and start again.

Also the stations are incredibly shallow. If you pick a station on Pandora, you will have hundreds of songs that are generally well selected in my experience. If you pick one on Spotify, you get maybe 20-30 songs.

The one major benefit to Spotify is that you can pick any song you want. However, if you pick a genre, you're likely to be inundated with shitty cover bands that you have to painfully sift through in order to find the actual playlist your looking for, because '70's hits' could be anything from Led Zepplin to your next door neighbours cover band.

TLDR - incredibly over complicated UI, shallow stations, too much spam music.

Absolutely 100% agree. Its why I went with Apple Music after the death of Rdio. I had a horrible experience when i had a 90-day trial. I stopped using it after a week and even canceled my subscription early. It was awful. That was a few years ago and I'm sure a few things improved, but still the free desktop version annoys me. During my trial, this was back when you had to create a playlist in order to listen to the whole album. Who had that idea?! Ever since then Spotify has always left a bad taste in my mouth.

Spotify is the only subscription I've held for (almost) 5 years and going. Worth every penny!

Same here. Spotify finally pissed me off enough yesterday that I just went and cancelled and I'll see how Play works out. It's just far too buggy and I don't remember a day I haven't had problems with it lately.

My experience of Google Play Music is that it works well when it works. But something it really likes doing is not playing. Our running joke is that every time a butterfly flaps its wings anywhere in the world, Play stops playing. While hyperbole it does happen a lot, especially if there is less than perfect networking (eg while driving). But it will also stop playing with perfect networking, usually at the end of a song for no good reason.

Spotify is far better at actually playing under the same conditions. If anything it is too eager (there was that time I had to tell it to stop 4 times). However it is a huge pain if you want it to just play music without having to babysit what it plays.

Ya I uninstalled spotify and my idle battery charge time went from 1/2 day to 2 days. (s4 on lolipop) Did not seem to be a "don't fucking turn on or do anything when I'm not using you" setting in the app anywhere. Oh well I did like the service.

Any spotify peeps reading this wtf?

I think one of Apple Music's main strategic points is to sign a lot more upcoming and big-name artists like Drake, DJ Khaled, etc. and push toward more exclusive content to draw subscribers

Are there any API-first services out there?

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