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Comment by laserbeam | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone here work at Tidal?

Hi there. Tidal... The only reason I still use Spotify is that your search is quite bad. I would love it to be more fuzzy and include approximate results so I can actually find music in it. I have to be TOO exact/specific when searching for something to actually find it, especially if it's niche music.

I would also like it to be easier to drag music between playlists/search results.

If you fix those 2 things, I will switch. A good search is the only reason Spotify has me hooked.

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Another thing I like in Spotify is that you can play over any device connected on the same network, so your phone can control the spotify app on your pc, that’s connected to speakers, for example. Tidal only offers this on dedicated hardware (Tidal Connect), like smart amplifiers and streaming boxes, that I have no need for otherwise. I’d love for this to be fixed.

They don’t even have to be on the same network.

The only reason I don't use Tidal is that they actually removed crossfade playback because it "didn't enhance the consumer experience" - https://www.reddit.com/r/TIdaL/comments/10fr2en/can_you_put_... - which is a deal-breaker for using while running.

The tidal iOS app is also very frustrating to use.

I’m not sure leaving Spotify is that easy. Here in Europe, everything is on Spotify - even the podcast my language teacher recommends is Spotify only and it’s not like there are good (as in popular enough) alternatives.

Same with music - you don’t want to be the one in the chat group sharing links others can’t play. Green bubble vibes all the way.

Also, Spotify Connect - absolutely unmatched flexibility and reliability to play on other devices.

Tidal is no better. They closed off access to free users recently, and have never bothered with developing a good API. Spotify has more artist diversity and a much better discovery algorithm. I have used both.

Tidal still has support for DJ software. I know that’s niche, but it matters to me.

Last time I subscribed they also allowed you to easily browse releases by record label, which I've found to be more useful for music discovery than the algorithms of the major services.

This is the exact reason I'm using Spotify instead of the Sonos app to control my Sonos speakers.

God Sonos has legitimately the worst UI I've ever seen in my life. Thankfully you can control it through foobar2000, but still

Yeah I pretty much just use tidal's library features. Find albums you like and add em to the library. The search is really bad sometimes. My friends have banned me from being on aux because nobody can find the music they want on my phone lol

have you tried Deezer?

Unrelated if you’re just listening to music, but Deezer recently shut down their API for new registrations completely.

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