Apple Music vs Spotify: Better Music Streaming service?
How do you decide which platform is right for you? This is the right place for you. Don’t worry. I explained the details of Apple Music vs Spotify. Audio streaming is the main feature of Apple Music versus Spotify.
Apple Music vs Spotify, two music streaming giants, have undergone significant changes. This article provides a fresh comparison, considering their current features and offerings.
Apple Music vs Spotify
Apple Music was founded in 2015. Apple Music was redesigned in 2016. I’m one of those people who’s all-in on Apple. My iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch work seamlessly together. I am making Apple Music the obvious choice for my soundtrack. But the thing is, Spotify keeps reeling me back in! And there are a few reasons for that. Their unbeatable device compatibility allows me to cast music to my Google Home speaker—something Apple Music can’t do. Plus, Spotify has this knack for helping me discover weirdly perfect song recommendations that aren’t even on my radar.
However, Apple Music has some great features and arguably the best sound quality. Not only that, but this comparison also comes down to more than just music now. Spotify is no longer just a music streaming service. They offer podcasts and even audiobooks. Of course, Apple has those, too, but they offer them all as separate apps.
Apple Music vs Spotify Price Table
Apple Music’s revenue in 2024 is $97 billion. There are more recommendations, such as Podcasts You Might Like, Popular Shows, What We’re Loving, More to Discover, etc. The browse tab is more similar, with tons of recommendations, featured channels, and access to the category lists. Apple Podcasts has an exciting feature called paid subscriptions.
Of course, podcasts are free, but paid subscriptions are an option on many podcast channels. These subscriptions allow you to eliminate ads for a small monthly fee; some even offer exclusive episodes. Then there’s the Books app. Unlike Spotify, Apple offers both e-books and audiobooks. There are two tabs to find a great read. One is the bookstore, which is dedicated to e-books. The other is audiobooks.
Apple Music Price Table
Yes
$ 5.99 per month
$ 10.99 per month
$ 14.99 per month
Spotify Price Table
Yes
$ 5.99 per month
$ 10.99 per month
$ 16.99 per month
You can find plenty of recommendations for great audiobooks and purchase them right in the app at competitive prices. Let’s shift gears, though, and talk about pricing. Features and user interface are important, but sometimes it comes to dollars and cents! Spotify wins for the lowest price because it has the free tier.
The free tier has severe limitations, but it’s entirely free again. Indeed, ads are interspersed in your listening, and you can only shuffle playlists. You can only skip six songs per hour, with slightly lower audio quality. But the point is that it’s an entry point. It gets people using the service, hoping they enjoy it enough to upgrade.
The premium subscriptions start with individual plans. Apple and Spotify both charge $10.99 per month for one premium user. Plus, Spotify has a Duo plan, which is perfect for couples. For just $14.99 per month, you get two premium memberships. Both services also have family plans, which offer all plan benefits for up to six accounts under the same household address. Whether you use Apple Music or Spotify, it costs $16.99 monthly. If you’re a student, Spotify and Apple have you covered with their student plans, which are $5.99 on both Apple Music and Spotify.
Spotify vs Apple Music Rich Content
So the question becomes. Who does all of this audio entertainment better? Well, let’s dig in! We will cover several comparison areas today, but let’s start with the size of the respective music catalogs. Naturally, you may wonder about the number of songs available on Spotify and Apple Music. The answer is that both streaming services have a vast library.
However, Apple Music has over 100 million songs, while Spotify has slightly fewer at 100 million songs and 6 million podcasts. That said, with tens of millions of tracks on both services, most of us wouldn’t even notice it in our daily listening. Unless you live and breathe some incredibly niche music genre, both services have what you need.
Spotify classical music
Some genres may be better represented on one platform than the other: some people, especially classical music fans, favor Apple Music for its slightly deeper back catalog. Sometimes, Spotify has an edge in finding more underground or independent artists. You’ll unlikely see major” holes” in either platform’s music catalogue.
Apple Music vs Spotify Audio Quality
The catalogue size debate is settled, but how good does the music sound? Let’s break it down. Spotify has different quality levels depending on if you’re on the free or paid tier. The free tier has a bitrate of 160kbps, while the premium tier is 320kbps. This is generally more than acceptable for most people, especially if you’re streaming on your phone or even through most headphones.
Spotify announced a while back that they were working on releasing a high-fidelity subscription level. However, they have yet to announce when that will be available, and there have been no recent updates about it. Apple, on the other hand, has a standard bitrate of 256kbps. However, in recent years, it has switched most of its catalogue over to a better quality level called lossless. It is a 24-bit 48kHz stream, meaning no detail is lost in the file.
Apple Music vs Spotify User Interface
Let’s shift over to the user interface of each app. Apple Music vs Spotify below.
Spotify User Interface
Spotify has a simple three-tab design. You get Home, Search, and Your Library. On the Home tab, you have quick links to serve as recommended items, including your AI DJ, your Discovery Weekly, and so on. Below that, you have your daily mixes and release radar, and then you have recently played. Even more recommendations are below.
Things like your top mixes, new recommendations based on your recent listening, and even podcast episodes. Further down, you can see these card-style recommendations for different artists, songs, and playlists, which look like Instagram stories. You can tap over to the next story, for example. And then click play to play the playlist. The search tab provides your standard searching and browsing experience and the TikTok-style videos I mentioned earlier.
Your library is self-explanatory, though one neat feature is this great scroll-down experience that shows you different songs, artists, and playlists you’ve added over the years. You’ll notice that you can see music, podcasts, and audiobooks within each tab. They all have these card-style previews of the various podcasts and audiobooks. And it’s all algorithmically recommended to you, just like the music.
Spotify Podcasts or Books
This interface is great for getting you into things. You can quickly sample the content, and soon you’re you’re sucked in, wanting to hear more. It’s great for discovery because you’re getting a mix of podcasts or books you might have seen before, but there are many new ones. When it comes to audiobooks, there is a selection of free ones, which I assume are public license content. It’s primarily classics. But of course, you can purchase books as well.
They have all the latest books you might want. But just be careful about prices. It would help if you shopped around from other sources, as I’ve noticed many of their books are priced higher than those on Audible. Yet, some are cheaper. So it’s worth doing a quick comparison before you click to purchase.
You can’t purchase it using the mobile app. You must go to the website or desktop app because Spotify doesn’t want to pay Apple 30% of the purchase price.
Apple Music User Interface
I’ll need to show you three different things about Apple. That’s because Music, Podcasts, and audiobooks are other apps. So, let’s take a look.
The Music app has five tabs: Home, Browse, Radio, Library, and Search. The Home tab is where you’ll find your top picks, such as recommended playlists, your station, recently played music, your ” made for you” playlists, and many other recommendations. The Browse tab is more of the same. For example, you get Now In Spatial Audio, Best New Songs, Daily Charts, and then further down Music By Moods, Browse By Genere, Decades, and Music Videos.
Apple Music has one thing over Spotify a dedicated Music Videos section. You can find music videos for the latest hot tracks and Apple’s own Apple Music Live concert series videos. I’ve got videos on here today from Usher, Justin Timberlake, Dua Lipa, and more, so that’s a nice feature for when you’re in the mood to watch some videos.
Apple Music TV
If you crave that MTV experience, you can even turn on Apple Music TV, which is just nonstop videos on a live feed 24/7. There’s the radio tab we mentioned before, and then you have the library and search. One cool feature you’ll find in a search is Apple Music Sing. It’s a karaoke-like feature built directly into the app.
Apple Music Podcasts
It offers real-time lyrics perfectly synced with the music, like real karaoke. Plus, the vocals are adjustable, which means you can lower the volume of a song’s original songs. So now you can have a karaoke party right from your phone! Shifting over to Podcasts, you have to open the Podcasts app on your iPhone and start exploring.
One of the nice things about having a separate app for Podcasts is that you can fully immerse the user in the world of Podcasts rather than having a split focus. Within Apple’s app, you have Up Next, which shows you these cards for episodes you’ve been listening to or newly released in your feed. It’s a great way to scroll through your followed podcasts and jump into any episodes you think look interesting.
Conclusion
Both Apple Music vs Spotify are significant players in music streaming. Apple Music offers lossless audio quality and integrates with Apple devices, while Spotify boasts social features and podcast/ audiobook discovery. A free tier with ads on Spotify, student plans at $5.99, individual plans at $10.99, and family plans at $16.99 for both. Apple Music TV offers a live music video stream. Apple Podcasts provides a dedicated app for podcast listening.
