I have been looking to move away from Spotify for a while now due to their lacklustre support for iOS devices. Is there a good comparison between Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Prime Music somewhere, especially in terms of their coverage?
> especially in terms of their coverage?
If you are a typical user with typical tastes, they are all more or less the same. If there's something in particular you want - like lossless compression or being able to upload your own music or Grateful Dead concerts - mention it and people may be able to guide you better.
You've mentioned the big three services, but you might want to also consider Google/YouTube Music, Pandora, Deezer, and Tidal and I'm sure there are more.
So although Spotify could technically implement a standalone Apple Watch App since at least WatchOS 6 (released over a year ago now), they haven’t, which means you always need to carry your Phone with you. Their support Forum is full of complaints about this, with no proper reaction or explanation from their side.
The Apple TV app also does not work properly, requiring to re-login often and can‘t be controlled properly by iPhone.
I did it yesterday, works great! Offline downloading and playback of Spotify playlists on the Apple Watch, without being tethered to an iPhone.
[1] https://github.com/rafaelmaeuer/open-apollo
[2] https://github.com/lgruen/open-apollo-server
Spotify is BTW developing a proper watch app, it's in beta now:
https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/17/spotify-finally-testing-apple...
My workaround for this is to go out of my way to make sure the iOS app is closed before I resume playback on my desktop.
AirPlay 2 has been out for years.
And, a year ago, when I was subscribed to 1300 artists on Youtube Music, it killed my Youtube subscriptions feed graph -- meaning, it took more than 60 seconds for it to refresh when first starting up or switching back to Subscriptions to see if any new content was available.
Soundiiz is an interesting way to evaluate music services, in terms of which services allow/support "transfers" of artists, albums, playlists.
Apple Music doesn't really allow for it.
I was able to transfer my Spotify albums to Youtube Music, which lets me "follow" artists via [albums in library] without subscribing.
I did like Spotify because it was supported on Roku & Alexa, but I can also live with streaming stations there if I needed.
Pandora might be interesting, have to try it and may have to try transferring music to it.
Slacker LiveXLive seems to have a lot of apps on platforms...
With iOS 12.0, you can only install WatchOS 5.0 on your Apple Watch. You have to upgrade iOS to install a newer WatchOS.
Spotify iOS app requires iOS 12.0, but the Watch Complication requires WatchOS 5.2. I have no choice to install an older version of the Complication, and I cannot install an older version of the Spotify app, so I simply no longer have the Spotify Complication on my watch.
The only way for me to resolve this problem is to update to a newer version of iOS. And because Apple only "signs" certain versions of iOS, I'm forced to "upgrade" all the way to iOS 14. This will mean losing access to iOS apps that are no longer supported by the developer, including ones I enjoy and don't want to lose access to.
I mean, all Spotify had to do was align their app requirements and it wouldn't be a problem. I've never had this issue with any other iOS app thus far.
I believe for a year or so the Watch OS has supported the APIs Spotify would need to do offline playback, but they have not yet used them for whatever reason.
Spotifys accusation: https://timetoplayfair.com/the-case/
Response from Apple: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/addressing-spotifys-c...
HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19377322
I'm surprised to hear about the lack of usage though - Apple Watch support is the only reason I'm using Overcast.
Since, watchOS 6 - that's pretty much not true
https://9to5mac.com/2020/04/29/pandora-shows-spotify-how-to-...