WSJ: Apple Music on pace to overtake Spotify in US subscribers

I genuinely don't know anyone who uses Apple Music in London, when I walk around the office at work all I ever see are people with Spotify on their screens, and all my friends use Spotify too. Mind, Spotify had years head start here, I was using it back in like 2011 whereas I think it only launched properly in the US quite recently.

I did try Apple Music back when it first launched but the desktop app was absolute garbage at the time. Given how often I use it at work, that was a complete deal breaker for me. I have no idea if they've improved it since then but, honestly, Spotify works just fine for me on both mobile and desktop and I'm too entrenched to bother leaving now unless Apple Music offered something truly different.

ViciousDS said:

Family plan/Sharing is insanely easy to do on Spotify......INSANELY EASY

Apple I think wanted one single card holder to be the head of a family and stuff. I just could t trust anyone to not accidentally charge something to my card

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you can turn off the shared app payment feature so all you share is the music

GMM said:

Even tough iPhones and other Apple hardware is super popular in Denmark, I don't know anyone who uses Apple Music, it's all about that Spotify over here.

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same here in Norway but I am loving Apple Music.

Spotify has way better features but Apple Music has better sound quality, and since the purpose of these services is for music, sound quality gets a higher priority for me. What good is all those features when I'm paying to listen to VEVO quality music

Norwegian_Imposter said:

you can turn off the shared app payment feature so all you share is the music

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I will have to look into this.....although at this point we have a mixture of android users and way to many playlists setup at this point.

I switched to Apple Music because I can use the Japanese version of that, but I wish I could do that with Spotify instead, as I find the apps infinitely more usable.

This is shocking to me, my experience with the month of apple music my wife had was dreadful.

Transistor said:

Woah, I meant no offense. I'm legit surprised Apple Music even had an Android app.

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Sorry I didn't mean that to come out like I was annoyed with you. I was as well but to be honest I'm not sure if I would have been able to move to Android if it wasn't. Just disappointed by it.

GrooveCommand said:

I'm convinced that app is designed solely to make Android users switch to iOS

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Wouldn't bloody surprise me.

I have been trialing Apple Music, and the apple library is a lot more aligned with my tastes (they have almost the entire LiSA discography and spotify is missing a lot), but I can't get over how annoying it is that Apple Music has brief pauses between tracks in the app (at least it does on my android phone) even with downloaded songs.
It makes listening to live albums on the go really annoying.

Yeah I can't give money to a company as big as Apple that makes an inferior product on a competing platform.


Either don't release it there or make sure it's as good as the iOS version.

I prefer the suggestions Spotify gives me, but until they integrate some sort of music cloud I'm staying with Apple Music. I was a Spotify user until I found out that Apple and Google both have this option.
I have a bunch of stuff that I bought from Bandcamp that I was able to just drop into iTunes and it automatically synced across all my devices.
I know Spotify allows you to manually upload stuff from your computer to your other devices, but you need to do that for EVERY device you own EVERY TIME you want to add some local music. Forgot to upload something to your phone and you're away from your computer where the files live? Too bad.
No excuse for that when both big competitors (Apple and Google) have that option, imo.

ive flip flopped back and forth for playlist reasons a few times but stick with apple music now because it sounds better on my expensive ass headphones

otherwise i prefer spotify and all its discovery features/playlists vastly over apple musics

Transistor said:

It's all good. If switching services isn't a huge deal, you might check out Google Play Music. Integrates better with Android and the premium service comes with YouTube Red (ad free YouTube). Also let's you store your own library in their cloud like Apple Music does

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For some reason the YouTube Red piece is not available in Canada and this killed any thoughts I had about google Play

RobNBanks said:

Spotify has way better features but Apple Music has better sound quality, and since the purpose of these services is for music, sound quality gets a higher priority for me. What good is all those features when I'm paying to listen to VEVO quality music

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The sound quality for spotify premium is about equal to apple music, with most publications (that I've seen) giving a slight edge to Spotify

No scrobble to last.fm, no sub

Transistor said:

I'm just amazed there are Android users using Apple music.

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I used Apple Music when I had an android phone because I really dislike Spotify's interface and how it handles albums and your private collection. If since changed to an iPhone.

It sucks they haven't improved the Android experience.

EDIT: And yes, there's Google Music but I had a Mac at the time and an iPad so I went with the Apple stuff.

bye said:

Huh? iTunes is nonexistent now really. I actually wouldn't be surprised if they remove it soon and just rebrand everything as Apple Music, the 'iTunes Store' is just a wasted square on my phone.

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iTunes Store is still where you can rent or buy movies so it can't be "replaced" by Apple Music. Unless they do a separate app for movies.

sox said:

No scrobble to last.fm, no sub

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It syncs your iPhone plays if you open iTunes on your computer

I guess I shouldn't be surprised? Either way, I'm sticking with Spotify.

I use Spotify Premium, and have for a couple years. I just don't know how Apple Music can woo me, even though I do use an iPhone currently. I just love the Spotify desktop app and hate iTunes, so I honestly have no desire to switch. Unless the music selection were dramatically better on Apple Music, I wouldn't switch.

iTunes needs a ground-up rewrite, it performs horribly on my laptop, but Spotify and every other app I use is very smooth. But try to play a HD or heaven forbid a 4K video in iTunes? lots of video stuttering. you can't force iTunes to run on your dGPU either, the setting is greyed out on the driver level (thanks, nVidia)

Had Spotify for years, before Apple Music came out. I prefer Apple Music since I'm in the ecosystem. I do hate that Apple Music is walled off from my echo though.

Not too surprising considering Spotify has a free option.

nazgul_hunter said:

I've used iTunes since version 1.0 so I'm pretty deep in that ecosystem. I'm probably one of like 3 people who uses the 3 column browser.

Apple music has been great for me

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3 column browser is the only way to use itunes.

peppermints said:

I'm happy with Google Play Music. But being all iOS makes me consider switching to Apple Music.

Does Apple have a family plan like GPM?

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yeah my wife and i have one

Once Apple folds their upcoming, very pricey, TV content into their Music streaming service the membership rates are going to sore past Spotify.

I'd say a big part of this is apple not doing any kind of checks if you're actually a student using an edu email address.

I always do free trials (Google play currently has a 4 month trial) and then switch to $5 edu Apple music whenever I can't get a trial.

I honestly don't know why anyone really pays for music services though as probably 20 out of the last 24 months I've had some kind of trial going.

Spotify works with Echo, therefore Spotify.

ZOONAMI said:

I'd say a big part of this is apple not doing any kind of checks if you're actually a student using an edu email address.

I always do free trials (Google play currently has a 4 month trial) and then switch to $5 edu Apple music whenever I can't get a trial.

I honestly don't know why anyone really pays for music services though as probably 20 out of the last 24 months I've had some kind of trial going.

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Because that's a pain in the ass and $10 a month for unlimited music is cheap as shit.

I subscribe to both and have always preferred Apple Music's app. Spotify is so clunky for me in comparison. Both have great music recommendations, but I feel like Spotify does a much better job with electronic music.

Also, the PS4 integration for Spotify really is great. I wish Apple Music supported that natively, or at least streaming from a Mac/PC via media server in the background on PS4. That is entirely Sony's fault though, since it works fine that way on my Xbox (streaming in background via media server).

PS4 integration aside, I probably prefer Apple Music overall. I have a massive music collection and a large chunk of it isn't available on streaming services, so I really value having the integration of my personal music collection and the streaming service's music collection all in one place.

Apple Music is worth it alone for the Eric Prydz Beats 1 show.

zychi said:

I use spotify free.

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That's pretty much their problem in a nutshell. I teach middle school and all the kids use spotify free mode. They don't give a shit if it has ads or songs are played randomly.

GrooveCommand said:

I'm convinced that app is designed solely to make Android users switch to iOS

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Apple Music is more or less Beats re-branded. They couldn't alienate all those users on Android.

I love apple music. Used it since day one.

I use Apple Music and sometimes I wish it had better algorithms than Spotify but then I realized Apple Music was tracking what songs I listened to and not really what I "liked" so it was basically creating my For You section from what I tried listening to. I turned that off, I'd rather tht section be based off what I have in my playlists and what I actually liked.

my spotify annual subscription runs out in april and i would like to go to apple music to try it out but as long as they require me to download itunes on my PC then it's a hard pass.

Cbrun44 said:

I really appreciate the Beats 1 artist shows and their respective playlists. These have kept me with Apple Music since day 1. The curation from artists such as RTJ, Frank Ocean, Ezra Koenig, Vince Staples (list keeps going on and on) is simply awesome.

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That's the one thing that I prefer on Apple over Spotify, some of those artist's shows are great.

I ended up using Google Play Music because I have two Google Homes and I like YouTube Red. No idea how it compares to Apple Music or Spotify though.

BLLYjoe25 said:

my spotify annual subscription runs out in april and i would like to go to apple music to try it out but as long as they require me to download itunes on my PC then it's a hard pass.

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They don't though.

I am a subscriber. I like how they archive my music, I am deep in the Apple ecosystem and I use Siri.

Occasionally, I think about Spotify and wondering if the grass is greener, but overall I'm happy with what I'm paying for.

Apple Music stands out to me because of their excellent radio stations and curated playlists. However, I wish Apple did a better job suggesting playlists or stations for you. The "For You" section, as some have mentioned, has some major flaws. I'm a bit Dylan-obsessed and am constantly getting suggestions for Essential Bob Dylan playlists or playlists in the vein of Because You Listened to Bob Dylan (which are always super basic classic rock playlists). IMO, the platform should be able to know that I've heard most of this music, like a lot. The weird thing is Apple has several uniquely themed and varied playlists that they aren't pushing; some examples I found include Folksy Freakout (freak folk, new weird America), Home Brew and Mountain Dew (Appalachia-based bluegrass), Lost in the Dream (reverbed out dadrock), and Modern Music, Vintage Sounds (lofi).

Besides this issue, I do not understand why Apple can't make a playlist of all the songs you "like". This was one of my favorite features on Spotify.

Reinhard said:

I ended up using Google Play Music because I have two Google Homes and I like YouTube Red. No idea how it compares to Apple Music or Spotify though.

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They're all pretty much the same, although I think the included YouTube Red sub is the best value add out of any of the services.

BLLYjoe25 said:

my spotify annual subscription runs out in april and i would like to go to apple music to try it out but as long as they require me to download itunes on my PC then it's a hard pass.

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The only way to listen to AM is to use iTunes on the PC. There is no web browser of some sort.

I've gone back and forth between Apple Music and Spotify since launch, I enjoy AM's integration with the Apple Ecosystem, but Spotify's playlists and social features are pretty sweet. There isn't a huge amount in it, but exclusives are an area where Apple's money can make a difference.

Three reasons why I can't stand Apple Music:

1 - iTunes is shit
2 - AM's Android app is shit
3 - AM doesn't work on PS4

Not surprising since artist-run radio shows have been so great and successful since the start.

It's such an incredibly good idea, Apple is smart as hell for approaching their streaming service with that kind of value-adding content.

I've used both and don't care for Spotify so I now use Apple Music. Better integrated too.

Apple Music has a killer feature that most don't talk about: Smart Playlists.

I fucking LOVE setting up rules and having music automatically go into specific playlists as soon as I add it to my library. For example, I set it up so that if I simply add an EDM song, it goes into one playlist. If I press Love, it also goes into an EDM Favorites playlist. The options are endless. As far as I know Spotify doesn't do that

Ashhong said:

Apple Music has a killer feature that most don't talk about: Smart Playlists.

I fucking LOVE setting up rules and having music automatically go into specific playlists as soon as I add it to my library. For example, I set it up so that if I simply add an EDM song, it goes into one playlist. If I press Love, it also goes into an EDM Favorites playlist. The options are endless. As far as I know Spotify doesn't do that

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Smart Playlists are definitely killer. I do the same with "Loved" playlists that have various other filters.

I use Pandora.. Thumbprint Radio plays all the songs I've thumbed up but also picks songs based on thumbed up songs and mixes them in and it does this very well.. I haven't found anything close to this on any other service I have tried including Spotify, Apple Music, Prime Music and Google Play Music. Of course it has been a couple years since I have shopped around for other music apps since Pandora has been serving me well so maybe these other services do a better job now?

I really dislike Spotify's interface, I liked Apple better when I used the free trial. Now I'm on Tidal because I can use it on 2 phones at once without having to pay for a family plan and I actually like it better than either.

I use Apple Music, mainly because it's native in the iTunes app and because it has better selection than Spotify. I don't sync it with my local library since that's just asking for disaster.