When listening to music, you might use either Apple Music or Spotify. You could have chosen one of the apps years ago and never looked back, or maybe you chose one and then switched a couple of years later. Each app has a variety of perks, some similar and some different. The two apps have sparked debates over the years about which one is superior or if they are equally good. As a Spotify user for many years, I’ve always wondered what Apple Music has to offer and if it could be better than Spotify. This article will go over the pros and cons of each app to unveil which platform is really better.
An aspect that may be a big deciding factor for which app someone uses is the different subscription plans. Spotify offers 4 main subscription plans, Individual, Student, Duo, and Family, with prices ranging from $5.99 to $19.99 a month. You can still use Spotify without a subscription, but you will have to deal with Ads, not being able to queue up songs, and not being able to download music.
Instead of 4 subscriptions like Spotify, Apple offers 3 main subscription plans, Student, Individual, and Family, with prices ranging from $5.99 to $16.99. Apple offers a different subscription plan called Apple One, where you can bundle multiple subscriptions (Apple Music, TV+, Arcade, Fitness+, News+, and iCloud+) for one monthly bill that ranges from $19.95 to $37.95, depending on which plan you choose. Without an Apple Music subscription, the listener would need to pay for songs to listen to, but does have access to Apple Music live stations. But what if you did decide you wanted to pay for a subscription? What are the different features provided?
As mentioned previously, without a Spotify subscription, you are limited in many ways. But what if you did decide to get a Spotify subscription? With a Spotify subscription, you can listen to a variety of music without ads, skip songs as many times as you like, listen to songs offline, and arrange the queue. A feature that unites friends and family is the Spotify Jam, which lets multiple devices join a single Jam. You can either listen on one device or on your own device. Anyone in the jam can add songs to the queue, and everyone gets to listen all together. Djx is a feature that plays music in a specific genre and introduces you to music you may like. 15 hours of audiobook listening and a wide range of different books from different genres are also included in a subscription. In total, there are a lot of different features Spotify offers to immerse the listener in the music.
Apple Music also offers a variety of features that immerse listeners in the music. With a subscription to Apple Music, you can expect to listen to a variety of music without having to pay for songs or listen to ads, Apple Music live performances, and much more. Music settings such as Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos mixed with Automix create amazing transitions between songs and also create dimensional audio. Apple Music Sing is another feature that lets you sing to songs with your friends. A setting within it called Adjustable vocals lets you either sing in the back or as the lead vocal. Apple Music offers a wide range of features available to subscription users to make their listening experience unique.
After going through subscription plans and features with and without a subscription, both streaming services have a lot to offer. There are some features that both apps share, including collaborative playlists and personalized playlists, which weren’t mentioned before. Both apps have a lot to offer, and you can’t really go wrong with either, so it’s up to personal opinion which app is better and which one you want to choose.
