Musiconnoisseur

While Spotify’s ubiquity and social media integration made it the established leader in streaming music, Apple Music’s cloud locker, live radio and deeper Apple device integration make it a worthy competitor.

Music Library

Apple’s service touts around 40 million songs, however, which is superior to Spotify’s “30 million-plus” figure.Moreover, Apple has taken steps to secure many more exclusives than the competition, largely because it doesn’t offer a free tier.

Winner: Apple Music

Music Discovery

Spotify provides a lot of useful tools for finding new songs to suit your individual taste. Playlists like Release Radar, New Music Friday, and Monday’s personalized Discover Weekly provide fantastic opportunities for subscribers to latch on to new music from artists they never stumbled across on their own. The program’s deep well of dozens of base genres to choose from makes new music ripe for the picking, and other personalized playlists like Daily Mixes are constantly being added to the mix.

Discover Weekly, in particular, deserves high praise in the streaming world (it’s so smart that Google copied the feature). Added to your feed every Monday morning, the feature delivers a two-hour playlist of personalized music recommendations based on your listening habits, as well as the habits of those who listen to similar artists. Playlists are often chock-full of music you haven’t heard before, as well as deep cuts from some of your favorite artists, thus broadening your listening repertoire with a collection of songs right up your alley.

Spotify’s hands-off playlists, especially its fantastic Discover Weekly, give it the edge here. Until Apple Music can compete with this algorithm-based approach, we will give Spotify the win.

Winner: Spotify

User Interface and Mobile Experience

Despite Apple’s penchant for minimalist design, Apple Music’s mobile interface was less than intuitive out of the gate. Tapping on the For You tab now brings up several different personalized options. The My New Music Mix and the daily themed playlists provide even more ways to discover new tunes, while the Browse tab gives you an avenue to explore popular music, videos, and Apple exclusives.Those looking for something specific can use the Search tab, which allows you to quickly search through either your personal library or the Apple Music library. Though Apple Music is available for iOS and Android, Apple Music works best on iOS, especially with the added Siri functionality.

Spotify, on the other hand, is more device agnostic. Spotify has long been the industry leader in terms of sheer usability. The mobile and desktop applications provide users an easy way to browse music, access playlists, listen to internet radio, and discover new music. Running on the left side of both the desktop client and mobile app is the program’s navigation bar, which is broken into three separate sections: Main, Your Music, and Playlists.Each section features its own set of straightforward subcategories, which gives users easy access to the service’s many features. The search window actively populates the results field, much like Google’s search engine, often providing exactly what you’re looking for after simply typing just a few characters.

Winner : Spotify

Social Integration

One of Spotify’s clearest wins, comes out ahead on social sharing, with its Facebook account integration that allows friends to track each other’s listening habits and send links to songs. Apple Music gained some social integration, in iOS 11, allowing you to add friends and have their icons appear next to albums they’re listening to, but Spotify’s running ticker of your friends’ activity can’t be beat. Admittedly, this might be too friendly for some, and give them a reason to go to Apple Music.

Winner: Spotify

Final Verdict : Spotify -3 | Apple Music -1

Thank you!!