Anyone who used Spotify daily for years.. How do you like Apple Music? Are there things it does better and worse?
I've been on Spotify since 2011 or so but not an active daily user, mostly on and off (never subscribed to premium). I've been using it more lately to compare between them before I make a final decision on which one to go with. I like Apple Music's approach more so far, the three main things for me:
- The recommendations on Apple Music have been a lot more interesting to me. On Spotify it feels like simple algorithms going "you like Nirvana so here's some Foo Fighters" or whatever. Apple Music does that too but it also goes one step further with human curation. On my "For You" tab it's recommended me a playlist of Kurt Cobain's favorite songs, a playlist of artists/songs that Nirvana was inspired by, and even a playlist of tribute songs that bands wrote for Cobain after his death. That's the kind of stuff you won't really get from an algorithim. I find the recommendations a lot better looking visually as well - Apple Music usually shows at least four album arts which catch your eye and more importantly give you a good idea of what you're going to get before having to click through/listen (the text descriptions are a lot better too).
- Beats 1 radio is killer for discovery and they've played some amazing sets. If you miss the live airing as I often do, they make daily playlists of the songs played which is helpful. I do wish they put the entire shows on-demand in addition to the playlists, hopefully that'll come at some point.
- Siri integration is amazing. I can be driving and hear a new song and just say "Hey Siri, add this song to my music" all hands-free. (Or "I love this song" and it'll get hearted). While testing different commands with Siri I asked it to "Play that one song from Top Gun" and to my surprise it correctly started playing Danger Zone. It's really smart and works great in my usage so far. And Music has OS integration, you can wake up (or go to sleep) with Apple Music playlists in the Clock app for example. The upcoming iOS 9 "Proactive" features sound neat too: for example if you're at the gym and plug in headphones it'll start up your workout mix. This deep OS integration is the type of stuff Spotify and other competitors won't be able to match.
Other than those things they're mostly the same. Mostly the same library of songs, mostly the same features. Spotify has lyrics (which Apple said they're working on), Apple has ad-free music videos (which I'm sure Spotify will match too). Spotify has the social aspect but it's only a matter of time before Apple adds that as well. They're all going to match each others bullet points, it's going to mostly come down to which UI you prefer (and even that's something that is constantly being refined). There's some things I like better about Spotify UI and some things I like better about Apple's UI. I prefer Apple Music's standard bottom toolbar interface to Spotify's hamburger menu/sidebar design, it's easier to get to your recommendations and the search field is always accessible at all times.
Don't really think you can go wrong with either service, but so far I'm leaning towards Apple Music.