Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers
wsj.com
wsj.com
Spotify is excellent for music discovery, and I love the top songs and everything. It's perfect. It's the kind of software I wish I could make someday.
Google must, Apple is not under the same pressure to reciprocate.
Google is an online services company with incidental hardware, Apple Music is a hardware company with incidental online services. Google's primary concern with it's hardware is driving online services. Apple's primary concern with online services is driving it's hardware ecosystem. So, sure, Google has no problem embracing other hardware platforms for it's online services, but Apple has a lot less interest in that.
- IT doesn't block it at work(it blocks spotify)
- I don't have to install anything
- I don't see ads on youtube
- it has all of my music that came from CDs backed up to it
- I regularly discover new music through their Radio feature so long as the artist/song isn't super popular
The surving players in the market are uninspired in comparison :(
"Playback Paused Because Your Account Is Being Used in Another Location"
I have a Google Music Family Plan ("up to 10 devices each"). But it simply doesn't work, I cannot even play both YouTube and Google Music on the same account, let alone playback on multiple devices.
We have a few Google Home Minis and a Google Home. They were initially all set up using the same Google Account (with the Google Music Family Plan), that meant music could only play on one device throughout the whole house and computers would be blocked if any Google Home started music playback.
The only workaround is to create a new Google Account per device, then hook it into your family group which will receive your family plan. I now have four additional completely useless Google Accounts just so I can play back music in different rooms or use YouTube and Google Music at the same time.
Netflix is the only service which gets multi-device right.
It's pretty ridiculous.
It happened to me with several hundred PDFs of sheet music from IMSLP that I was storing on iBooks. I couldn't work out where they had gone or why they were wiped. I switched to GoodReader and painstakingly had to rebuild the entire collection.
Apple is not just an expensive cloud service provider, they're an untrustworthy one.
These problems have been going of for years. Apple just doesn't invest enough to fix the problem.
I wouldn't call them useless. With Google's propensity for algorithmicaly-determined account suspension it's probably wise to have dedicated accounts for each combination of ( person / device ) * ( Google service ).
Certainly I would encourage anyone with a reliance on G-Mail to create separate accounts for other services.
Not that I give a good goddamn, but, I just realized I'd always assumed it probably was, but have never bothered to check.
I don't use Apple music because I'm not willing to commit to a single-platform service.
Your other concerns aren't made any better though.
What do you mean by "single-platform service"? Apple Music is available for Windows (via iTunes) and Android (via a dedicated app)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
Something similar to: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2015/09/17/move-to-ios-android-...
I think >99% of Android users don't fall into that camp if they're even interested in iOS vs Android in the first place, don't get me wrong. But that <1% should seek professional help IMHO.
[1] https://thomas.vanhoutte.be/miniblog/spotify-data-consumptio...
I use iTunes 10.6.3, and sync using USB to an iPod.
Yes, it uses a lot of disk space. But no network admin can take it away from me. I don't get adverts.
Discovering new music is more challenging, but I've found that talking to friends, or seeing what bands they Like on Facebook is more efficient at finding music I really enjoy instead of trusting some algorithm.
You had us sold here.
How can a future challenger to Spotify compete in such am environment? etc
Note that their new one plans are excluded because one plans are already "unlimited".
https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-24291
Also states this.
>You can add up to 50,000 songs to Google Play Music from your personal music collection using Google Play Music for Chrome or Music Manager (up to 300MB per song). Once you've added your music, you can listen to it through the Google Play Music app and on your computer.
Syncing to device offline is fine but Google music often seems to crap out streaming between songs on Android and iOS and I'm stuck skipping tracks or having to restart playing.
Never had issues with Spotify, plex, tidal, or Pandora in this regard.
I can't think of a reason justifying this.
In comparison, Spotify usually fixes reported content errors within a week or two, and they're started a thing called Line-In, where users can directly submit edits to content information. The edits are obviously still vetted, but it speeds up the process significantly.
And the app plays in the background on your phone. Working out, whatever, you have any video/music production at your disposal.
The background playback feature is the only thing I would like, but I think it is a really shitty decision to have such a fundamental feature as a paid one, therefore, I won't pay for it.
Full disclosure I say this as someone who doesn't pay for their service, so I don't know how it is if you do, but if you shuffle play an artist- it will automatically play suggested songs. This makes 0 sense to me. I specifically wanted to listen to that artist and if I wanted suggestions why wouldn't it simply have an additional button for suggestion songs in addition to shuffling songs by the artist?
I've run into this as well, Apple Music seems to have much wider coverage than Spotify, even when it comes to fairly mainstream 'indie' labels. Both services have big holes in their catalogs, though, and sometimes when deep diving into particular artists or labels, I find YouTube more likely to have rarer albums and such (usually recorded from vinyl by some kind soul).
Since Apple music's family service wasn't compatible with how we use our devices, we cancelled Apple Music and got a family account on Spotify instead. When Apple Music expired it wiped all the playlists we had in iTunes including ones I created years before Apple Music was ever a thing and not even containing any music from Apple Music.
I'm thinking of also dumping iCloud, but I really like the automatic backing up of all our photos to all of our devices. Heck, at this point I would switch to Android as well if it weren't for the years of apps I've purchased for Apple and don't want to buy again.
Here's how to get back to where you were, if you want to use separate iCloud accounts.
1. On your device create create a Shared photo album. 2. Share it with your wife using her new iCloud ID 3. Select the photos that you wan to share (basically all of them initially) 4. Tap Share > iCloud Photo Sharing 5. Select the shared album.
From then on, you and your wife share all photos you want to share to to that Album.
Same thing works with shared Calendars, Notes, To-do list etc.
If you share an iCloud account across multiple people you will find yourself fighting the system all the time
Adding my own experiences with iTunes-wiped devices and music-collections...
The only consistent thing with Apple and music/services is them accidentally wiping or deleting your data from both your devices and their services.
Applied this consistently, it's clearly a design decision.
What kind of company designs things to behave this way? Really?
Perhaps the design decision assumes the separation is due to a divorce? In that case, keeping them separate is a reasonable decision since neither party would want to be forced to endure further shared memories on any device.
The one thing you probably want to avoid is regretting your choice and ripping your collection again because you opted for the lesser format on the first try.
And if you really need the occassional lossy copy it's trivial to quickly create one with XLD or similar tools.
I'm sorry if I sound more upset by this than I should be, but ripping an entire record collection is a time intensive task and you're cutting corners on an issue that doesn't save you any effort, but might actually cause more someday.
It had taken me ages to build up in the first place and fixing it afterwards was a painstaking manual labour which took weeks and weeks and weeks.
Needless to say, I won't allow another Apple music-product near any of my files ever again.
Edit: This thread brings back memories. I can't tell how many times iTunes have formatted or deleted all music on my iPods and iPhones over the years, forcing me to re-copy or re-sync everything. Again
I really, really, really won't let Apple touch my music-files ever. So much wasted time....
However, iTunes Match's file size/length limit (200mb/2 hours) means that I can't upload many of the DJ mixes I'd like to have in the cloud. That and the fact that I love Spotify's recommendations means that I end up using Spotify most of the time, but have all my mp3s uploaded to Google Play. Works OK, but I'd rather have them all in one place!
Many people subscribe to Spotify even if they also subscribe to Prime because Spotify has more music. Apple Music is one step further.
Publishing to a streaming service isn't always a good deal for small acts. It's important for independent musicians that some music listeners are willing to buy directly from them to decrease their margin. In addition, even some larger bands, Tool being a prime example, are absent from streaming services. I'm concerned with how much power streaming services will have as they consume a lager and larger part of the music industry. It creates a new cultural gatekeeper, and the internet is best when is removes cultural gatekeeper.
IMO - Pandora > Apple Music > Spotify for discovery at least.
Then again I like that Apple Music throws me a curveball occasionally, it’s usually something I wouldn’t expect but quite like.
Which, to me, is the point. YMMV ofc.
Apple Music on Apple Watch 3 is amazing - leaving a phone at home is strangely liberating.
But, for me, the big advantage of Spotify is I don't always need to think about what I want to listen to - I can pick an artist and listen or I can be lazy and just hit a Daily Mix which plays stuff I really like. Asking Apple Music to play "some reggae" or whatever invariably ends up with it playing a load of music I really don't like, even after all that training.
This is huge when I'm trying to stay in the flow while programming. Spotify is like a personal DJ that really groks how I work, especially now that it silently continues playing matching tracks when a playlist ends.
With Apple Music, I ended up switching back to iTunes at least once an hour. I really hope they won't be able to crush Spotify.
For example, I've heard almost all the tracks of the Mexico -> "La + Chingona" playlist on the first sitting. It says they are regenerated each week yet it's the same songs reshuffled. All of the Mexican playlists are like this, but I've never tried other playlists so I don't know if it's Spotify-wide. Maybe they just have a bad Mexican music team.
I haven't tried Apple Music but I do listen to Spotify. What is highly dislike is that it's so terrible about suggesting or playing songs. I don't think it's good at all. Further, the shuffle doesn't seem to shuffle well enough (often seems to play in a similar order).
I'm terrible at knowing artists, song names, etc. I've noticed people liking Spotify often know the names or various artists plus create their own playlists. I think it's all terrible.
Same for e.g. listening to songs. I might be in the mood for some salsa songs. Spotify will have me listen to Salsa songs for hours on end. It should be way smarter. Some slow songs, then some quicker.. but not too sudden, etc.
I don't want to pay for Spotify because of this. It's terrible in song selection IMO.
I'm the opposite. I know their song suggestion can leave something to be desired, as it is obviously based on your recent listening instead of suggesting from your entire playlist suggestion. But then again, that also gives me ways to tweak it by simply sampling a variety of music during the week - which I do when I'm searching for new songs. I rarely know band/song names, and can still find music.
Their song selection is generally good for folks that are sometimes listening to odd music. One of my favorite artists has less than 55k plays on the most popular song - and they suggest this sort of thing to me instead of continually suggesting "popular" music.
The most jarring thing (to me) was the ads, which were solved by paying a small fee each month. Bonus points for downloads.
Want to listen to artists like a female? Then obviously you only want to listen to female artists! I once tried it on a few different female artists, Tori Amos, Laura Marling, etc. It really just focuses in on the gender, which is annoying as I just want to listen to the genre.
If you look at Hole, for example, a classic grunge band you can love or hate, most "related artists" are female artists. The Pumpkins and Nirvana are mixed in as token includes, one because it was her husband, the other because Billy Corgan produced one of their albums. Look at Nirvana, almost all male artists, with Hole being the only female artist. Veruca Salt or Garbage are exactly the same. Juliana Hatfield has more males than most, but they're mainly her ex-band mates. (I bet you can tell roughly how old I am from that list ;)
And that holds true for modern artists too. Look at related artists for Courtney Barnett, The Joy Formidable or Laura Marling and again it's predominately females, while if you look at one of the only male bands on Courtney Barnett's related artist lists, Twin Peaks, it's all male artists.
There is deliberate, systematic, segregation by sex of the artist happening at Google Play.
Laura Marling, for example, is a strong part of Modern British Folk, and that she's being side-lined by google algos is pretty malicious in my book (Short Movie (Director's Cut) is an excellent album if you want a go).
EDIT: researching and writing this makes me realize I can't keep paying for Google Play, I hadn't realized how deeply rooted the problem was in the platform.
No, it was left in for people like me that _do_ have a strong preference for the voice of the singer. I love my trance music with smooth female vocals, and having men in that mix would be unenjoyable for me.
I think a nice feature for apps like this would be optional granular control of the aspects of the mix that you want. If votes lead to parts of a mix that you don't like(like certain vocals), it would be nice if I could explicitly remove that from the mix.
Oh dear! All male, not even the single female that Google provided. Spotify must be even more misogynist... or perhaps these bands are just the most commonly listened to by people who listen to Nirvana [1]
"Spotify's related artists and radio are determined by algorithms which look at what people listen to alongside your music."
[1] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Content-Questions/quot-Rela...
Google Play (after years) still doesn't exist in the country I live in.
Apple Music has been available from day one.
They also have country-specific pricing, instead of expecting the right price for Americans to be the right price for a developing country.
Getting to play the "well what about digital rights" seems like a cop-out for the previously mentioned reasons. It would anyways in my accounting department.
When am in the US, I honestly find YouTube Music to be the best (probably since it has a lot of my listening data already hence gets the prediction accurate). But Apple Music still remains the only music subscription I pay for.
Like so many web services they set a price for Americans and then think it will work for other countries with very different income levels.
[1] https://support.spotify.com/is/using_spotify/system_settings...
1. No Tool. :(
2. No easy way to reorder search results to be album first.
3. Date of original album release is buried.
4. Hard to filter by "studio album" vs "live album" vs "compilation album" vs "greatest hits album".
5. Siri can't help; "play me the third album by the rolling stones" doesn't help, and neither do i have a voice-controlled "tell me what the album names by X are and let me pick one" interface.
My impression is that no streaming service does these things.
Tablets had their time, but they're just junk now. Netbooks/ultrabooks have 10+ hours battery life now, and can run an actual full-featured OS, with actual applications.
I use spotify despite its interface.
I do think a lot of these services should do more to prioritise the canonical version of a track. When I search for a popular track I don't want to see an ocean of compilations before the original album it came from.
This is the other problem with streaming services.
"tens of millions" of songs still leaves out some glaring omissions for a lot of people.
Everything else, eh the only good music UX was Zune, and Microsoft being Microsoft couldn't appreciate a good thing. But not having best-in-breed Siri integration is unacceptable and Siri is literally the only reason I use Apple Music. Now I'm re-thinking it.
But I also tried a few variations, and you're right: it is not fuzzy AT ALL. If I use literally any other word in that sentence, it doesn't work.
(That would make verse, chorus, bridge and refrain the "quarks of music", I guess.)
(Am a Tool fan. Have ripped all albums to Apple Music. Everything else is Spotify).
Not in a dedicated app. The integration with iTunes is a bit of a mess and brings all of the iTunes weirdness along for the ride. I really wish Apple would break iTunes apart...
Again, not surprising, but certainly enough for me to prefer apple music. The player is just way, way better for my needs.
Meanwhile apple has the “itunes match” program (...I think?) which solves this.
Yeah, that goes great with my dark desktop. I love not knowing where the Spotify window actually is.
/s
Forgot to add, that personally, I love YouTube Music. The algorithms and search and pool of countless remixes, live performances and old videos/music not on other places is unmatched. It lacks the Apple Ecosystem benefit, but is a hidden gem
What Apple has done here is they've captured their ecosystem users that likely would have never signed up with Spotify in the first place.
The fact is: the music industry is indeed a winner-take-all market now. The industry's horrible response to Napster crippled them, and their inability to outmaneuver Steve Jobs in the aftermath led to a rather diminished industry overall. We see this in both recorded and live music - just look at LiveNation's rise to dominance following Apple's rise to dominance for distribution with iTunes.
Music also suffers from the same problem as other older media - competition for ears and for time. Video games are hurting music just as much as it's hurting film. Music consumption has become cheapened over the years as technology left it in the dust, preferring to adapt video to our current media-heavy lives. Audio mediums have been traditionally not as paid attention to. Our culture is simply moving on from this kind of media, in a sense.
Not quite sure about this. Spotify is still growing and adding more users than ever. If Apple were seriously making a dent in Spotify's user base, we would've seen it affect their growth rate. Not everyone is in the Apple ecosystem--an overwhelming majority aren't. In the end, who makes the better product here? Spotify has way more clients, a better product, completely focused on being a music platform, and still carries the coolness factor between the two. There is a lot of incentive for a consumer who is deep within the Apple ecosystem to sign up for Apple music. On the contrary, in the free market, I'd argue Spotify wins out hands down.
> Music also suffers from the same problem as other older media - competition for ears and for time. Video games are hurting music just as much as it's hurting film. Music consumption has become cheapened over the years as technology left it in the dust, preferring to adapt video to our current media-heavy lives. Audio mediums have been traditionally not as paid attention to. Our culture is simply moving on from this kind of media, in a sense.
Music is typically a passive form of media (often playing in the background while work is done) therefore there are not very many mediums that can compete on that; movies, video games require you to be actively engaged with them. You can listen to music while playing games! Music is here to stay.
That is only true of the past 20 years or so of the music industry's history.
I would sit and listen to music on my own, or with friends in a non-passive setting - every day as a kid. That was only 15 years ago.
Tell a musician in an orchestra that music is only listend to passively. It's so unbelievably offensive to the art, and so remarkably untrue.
> You can listen to music while playing games! Music is here to stay.
If they are able to be listened to while playing video games, maybe. What kind of garbage music would that include, and what beautiful and culturally-essential music would that exclude?
Kids are probably listening to just as much music (I have younger siblings in grade school, n=2) but they're also more pre-occupied nowadays with other activities while consuming it.
> If they are able to be listened to while playing video games, maybe. What kind of garbage music would that include, and what beautiful and culturally-essential music would that exclude?
We don't know and we can't assume the music is garbage just because one isn't giving it the full attention it deserves.
The color scheme and layouts are beautiful.
With them recently banning the personal playlist of a conservative Australian senator, simply because they don't agree with his politics[0], I'm about ready to jump ship.
[0] - https://thewest.com.au/politics/federal-politics/spotify-ban...
Edit: Based on the litany of left-wing politics that Spotify brazenly pushes in their app, I'd be surprised if they would take the same side if the sides were reversed between artist and politician. This only bolsters my original statement of why I'm getting tired of Spotify's politics.
I wonder if Christian or Muslim artists asked that their music not be on a LGBT figure's playlist, if Spotify would ban the whole playlist, like they did here.
FWIW, Spotify have denied deleting the playlist, so this may well be more publicity-seeking behaviour from the politician in question. The truth appears to be buried somewhat, but it doesn't look as bad as you suggest for Spotify...
It's their business and they can do what they want, but they are in no way coming from a politically neutral standpoint.
I was originally quite surprised to see comments suggesting that Spotify was very political, because I've never considered that myself in ten years and I still can't see after trawling all over my Spotify account - there's literally nothing I can see that's overly political, except the politics section of the podcasts. Obviously it's tailored to me, but I really can't find anything. I would probably more offended by Spotify suggesting I like the Spice Girls or Justin Bieber than anything else, TBH.
Not official Spotify playlists accompanied by a statement on why the company is against gun control.
I had to read pop up about the company's stance on DACA just to browse new releases a few weeks ago. I have a feeling that folks on the left are less prone to noticing this, considering most of pop culture is inundated with left wing politics. It's easier to not notice when it's inline with your worldview.
It's always the same boring meme phrases. I know that having a persecution complex is effective politicking but it comes off immature.
I read the article you posted. You should understand that an individual artist is more important to Spotify than an individual user to Spotify. Especially artists like: Men At Work and Savage Garden
The playlist was called Australian Conservatives and was a public playlist. If you're advertising it, then it's not personal. Normally if you want music associated with your brand, a company or political party has to pay. And artists have the right to refuse.
It looks like Darren Hayes posted this:
Hi @CoryBernadi and @AuConservatives. I do not want to be associated with you, your party or your views. Remove my music from this stunt or expect contact from my publisher.
Responding like this doesn't really work in the real world:
“Get over yourself darrenhayes. Music is for everyone.” Bernardi tweeted.
Spotify has company created playlists specifically for the travel ban and DACA, permanently in the Browse section. Yes, they are pushing their agenda in users' faces.
Why not just remove the complaining artists? Why remove the entire playlist?
Do you believe that if the political roles were reversed between politician and artist that Spotify would nuke the whole playlist? I sure don't.
You may agree with Spotify's politics, but that doesn't invalidate my point.
Spotify as a company can push whatever politics they want to. It's a business decision, if it loses them users then it's upto their management to determine whether that was a good option or not.
You should accept that Spotify is a "liberal" company either as a stance of the management or as who they see their most engaged users to be. Everything doesn't need to appeal to you.
Saying they're shoving their politics in your face is hyperbole. If I read a business focussed newspaper, they're likely to have articles that are anti-climate change. I don't agree but I'm in their house.
>Why not just remove the complaining artists? Why remove the entire playlist?
https://press.spotify.com/uk/about/ "Number of playlists: Over 2 billion"
2 billion playlists, why expend the manpower to do that? Paying moderators isn't free.
>Do you believe that if the political roles were reversed between politician and artist that Spotify would nuke the whole playlist? I sure don't.
Why don't you describe an actual hypothetical scenario?
That a politician created a playlist called Liberal Music and some artists complained. Saying that they want nothing to do with the politician and their party. Also at least one artist indicated that they'd contact their publisher to take action.
Why wouldn't Spotify just take the playlist down? It's the easy action. Playlists are just lists of songs, the songs are still there.
If you read my other comments in this thread you'll see I agree.
> You should accept that Spotify is a "liberal" company either as a stance of the management or as who they see their most engaged users to be. Everything doesn't need to appeal to you.
It is a company owned by liberals. Semantics, but important ones. Also you pose a strawman. I never suggested they be obligated to appeal to me, just that their political posturing doesn't and that I'm nearing the point where I will also exercise my free will and leave.
> Saying they're shoving their politics in your face is hyperbole. If I read a business focussed newspaper, they're likely to have articles that are anti-climate change.
Not a proper comparison. I get a newspaper specifically to read about politics. I don't do the same for a music streaming service, as much as you probably don't want a plumber coming to your house and lecturing you on how Trump's America is fantastic.
> Why wouldn't Spotify just take the playlist down? It's the easy action.
Why has the decided soft, yet ham-handed, censorship of conservatives become a systemic issue with online services, be it Facebook, Twitter or even Spotify? Why does the far left need even their music streaming service to be an echo chamber?
A company is a tool of it's owners, everyone else involved is paid agents of the ownership. The distinction you draw isn't important, it's meaningless.
When I go to Spotify's site, they sell me music streaming. Their company tagline isn't "Spotify: unlimited music and social justice activism".
You've confused the company (which is a tool for serving the interests of the owners) with the product the company sells (which is a tool for streaming music.).
What tech company isn't?
After three years it still sucks for me because...
- bloated UX
- try asking Siri to play all your “Recently Added,” songs without creating a new playlist.
- how can I discover new music when driving? I can ask Siri play similar songs to current song playing but what I need is Apple Music to shuffle all my songs and randomly add new/similar songs that compare to my entire and eclectic song playlist.
- there are instances where Apple Music/Siri plays non-copyrighted songs ie. cheesy horrible and lame covers of public domain Xmas songs. Makes me feel ripped off
Spotify is better but totally unsafe to use while driving vs. Crapple Music.
I feel like Apple bullies people into inferior experiences.
Ummm Apple you have so much money and that's because you are so focused on providing the best phone UX. Why aren't you providing the best music streaming svc UX? Boggles my mind!
I mean Spotify has been around a lot longer. Is it weird that new users aren't growing as fast if it already held the majority?
Can't even think of switching back to Apple Music after witnessing Spotify's magic.
I guess the recommendation system will keep on giving an extra edge to Spotify over the years to come.
Add to this that Spotify's auto playlists are a hell of a lot better than Apple's, and I really don't understand why people bother with Apple Music.
It's just so much more convenient you can just use a incognito Chrome session on friend's PC and start streaming, as comparing to install/logout/login/logout (which is referred as "mobile/app first" experience nowadays).
[1] The $ are the same for consumers but not for Spotify. It loses margin because of the App Store’s high take rate. As a result, Apple Music makes more than Spotify on a per consumer basis, even at the same price
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....
We are an Apple household primarily but also have a Google Home and recently bought an Alexa-enabled car charger (Anker/Roav Viva). The only service that will work across the board is Spotify. In that regard Spotify is like Netflix -- available on every device.
- Fix Prime's song catalogue size issue (still an issue?)
- Grab massive market share and upsell/bundle other services
- Provide bargaining power to Spotify - Get access to very advanced IP
- Integrate with voice ui further (i.e. smarter voice commands including play list creations, complex requests and vague requests)
- Clock / alarm integration for music upon wake from echo/dot
- Fix profitability concerns of Spotify's revenue stream
- Provide high quality music, podcast services etc. alongside their soon-to-be-formidable film offering
- Use Spotify's algorithms and data to potentially improve film/tv recommendations and discovery
- Provide the gateway to becoming a record label, thereby cutting out the middle men à la netflix/Amazon film strategy of content creation
Would anyone more knowledgeable be able to comment further or point out flaws with this theory?
At times I’m tempted to give Apple Music a shot because I admire some of the UI differences – but my wife is an Android user and she loves Spotify as well.
It’s really the most well-rounded and accesssible solution right now.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
Anyone have any idea if it is any good?
I have heard Apple Music in UK or US are great. That is when only one languages is being used, and mostly English.
Whenever Apple Music has to deal with two lanagueges, it sucks.
https://atadistance.net/2018/02/04/homepod-and-the-apple-mus...
And it is not only Japanese, but most of South East Asia. if Apple Music already wasn't better then Spotify, this make it worst.
In the old days, Apple was all about being the best to win. Not it has become being good enough to win, and to make the matter worst they stop improving it after they won.
Apple Music was the first music subscription service to work in my country and did so pretty much as soon as it came out.
A few months later it got support for my Sonos.
Done and done.
Spotify may be better but I'll never know now.
You also can't beat their multi-device interoperability. I can use my iPhone to listen, but control playback through the linux desktop app, for example.
Why?......
I immediately shut off apple music and icloud music library once I learned that. Which is a shame, as I'd love to be able to stream from my watch.
But, none of the other music services destroy the functionality of my phone.
Yes, I'm sure I could learn how to use icloud music library. But I don't want to. I just want to be able to take a file from my computer and put it on my phone. I guess that's power user behaviour these days.
Plus Spotify's CarPlay app is essentially useless and dangerous to use when driving.
The main one is if you have lots of music already in iTunes, AM let's you access that alongside streaming stuff which I guess is a big advantage to a lot of people.
I want to go back to Apple Music. I only left because someone showed me some amazing playlists and pretty soon Spotify started recommending great songs to me.
Rubbish - the vast majority of music on both platforms is not released on any of the big 5 record labels.
Apple Music has so many playlists featuring underground artists and labels. Spotify Discover Weekly never gives me any big 5 music.
The only time people get "peddled' the big 5 tracks is when they want to listen to them.
There is no Spotify or Apple Music without the Big 5. You cannot say the same of Bandcamp.
I love Bandcamp for downloading WAV files for DJ purposes but as a streaming service, it just isn't that great simply because of the lack of breadth of the catalogue.
(I realize Play Music has the same advantage on Android but Google has completely failed to even try to promote this service)
I used GPM for a couple of years and recently switched to AM. It’s hidden in the UI, but you can buy a year in AM for $99. If you look around you can find a $100 iTunes gift card for $80 (sometimes cheaper) pushing the cost of AM down a bit more.
The CarPlay and Apple Watch apps and Siri integration are the main advantages AM has over Spotify (Spotify's CarPlay app is so buggy it's dangerous).
I don't see what the technical issue is, if I apply a filter, I get the clean version or it skips the track - if I don't have it on, I get the explicit version.
In my experience the choices that Apple Music make are extremely poor, even after months of training. Spotify seems to know what I like, Apple Music has no idea.
(Also Apple Music has nothing like the Daily Mixes, which also work really well for me; it suggests a daily set of playlists for you, but again, Apple Music doesn't seem to have learnt what I like, so these are pretty useless)
My daughter also thinks her weekly playlists are good, while my son says they're trash for him. I'm not sure why the results seems to vary so widely.
But Apple Music is only usable with an optional subscription payment and can easily be uninstalled (pseudo-uninstalled) from an iPhone. It does integrate with Siri, which other music services cannot do, and it streams music on the Apple Watch, which other music services cannot (or will not) do. But it's not essential to the function of the phone. And the iPhone has a 30-40% market share or less on unit sales (depending on where you are).
MS was punished for including Internet Explorer for free and then tying it into the innards of the OS so it could not be removed. And Windows had an 80-90% market share at the time.
Any idea why? I think they would probably add this if Apple would provide a reasonable way to. Does anybody know if Siri and Apple Watch expose nice APIs that would let you integrate your iPhone app with them?
> And the iPhone has a 30-40% market share or less on unit sales (depending on where you are).
Although the iPhone-vs-Android comparison can seem to be in favour of Android, Android means many independent manufacturers competing and much more free market for the apps. No single phone manufacturer but Apple has such a market share, having 30-40-50% of the market under unconditional control of a single company means a way more of actual power and commercial value per percent for them than if it was about shares of multiple companies running same technologies summed.
Here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16279975 ) is what I have been told in a neighbour thread: "With the iOS market share hovering slightly below 50% in the US, it's iMessage that is the main messenger, at least where I live... I don't use Whatsapp nor was I ever invited by someone to use it, but I heard it's basically the iMessage equivalent in the EU and in other places where the iOS market share is lower."
I don't mean to argue nor am I a proponent of regulations. Just sharing thoughts. Thank you for the answer.
I've heard conflicting reports about the state of the streaming APIs on the Apple Watch. Certainly, it's Apple's standard playbook to test an API with their internal products first before releasing it to others, and as the Apple Watch 3 is only a few months old, I will give them the benefit of the doubt here.
I'm not sure about your point on market-share. Apple may be the biggest single phone manufacturer, but they still can't bully people the way Microsoft did, because 60-70% of people aren't using them - it's platform share that counts here.
(And yes, the majority of my contacts are on iPhones, but when it comes to group messaging I use WhatsApp because that's the only way I can be sure not to leave anyone out).