Spotify vs Apple Music: The intersection of digital music and social features.

My stint with Apple Music has come to an unfortunate end. I’m not trying to make it sound like a huge breakup note reveal. I’m actually writing this to reflect on my time with both services.

It was an impromptu decision. I was watching Juxtaposed’s video about “redesigning Apple Music’s UI” and that got me wondering about how much Apple Music lacks that Spotify already has.

The reason I initially switched was due to two things: The tight integration of Apple Music and the Apple ecosystem in general. Like the fullscreen background on the lockscreen – those used to look beautiful! and it’s the sound quality. Apple Music just provides lossless. Even though I still use bluetooth to this day. And also other features such as the karaoke feature and beautiful lyrics screen.

However, the novelty died off. The ‘tight’ integration just doesn’t impress me anymore. Every single new feature added to Apple Music was just considered nice to have. Not revolutionary.

I kept reading online about how one service is better than the other due to some codecs and streaming compression and Apple’s chokehold of the whole audio pipeline in Apple Music but that could just be confirmation bias (even though it might be factual)

So... For the first few hours of switching back, I had to make sure to squash my confirmation bias by A/B testing between the two services. I’m not so much worried about the low ends because these DO come through on the AirPods Max. I’m more worried about the high end, especially in a busy track. I’ve determined that both of them is indistinguishable to my ears. So yup, audio quality is about the same (on a bluetooth connection anyways)

So what did I miss from Apple Music? The karaoke feature, aptly named ‘Sing’, the iCloud syncing feature which allowed me to sync and listen to my bought albums on my other devices (i.e. Breach: Digital Remains by Twenty One Pilots) and most probably the official sets playlist and videos.

But the bigger question is: what did I miss from Spotify when I was on Apple Music? Music recommendation. I don’t mean it like playlist recommendations from the home page. I mean the autoplay music that comes after a song. Apple Music SUCKED at it. It kept playing music that I would only name ‘safe choices.’ All the artists that play after are your top 100 charts artists. I don’t even think genre was even considered in Apple Music’s autoplay. Secondly is Spotify Connect/Jam – this one’s huge. Being able to control music playing on my computer through my phone must be magical. And Spotify Jam? Makes it easier for me and my friends to hang around and listen to music together. I finally don’t feel like the lone-Apple-Music guy.

Spotify has always been playlist and social-centric while Apple Music is put out there to do one thing: For you to listen to music. Recommendations are not their priority (and screw you people who keep saying to give Apple Music some time to learn about your taste. I have done EXACTLY that – 4 months to be precise). And that’s fine. Maybe that works for some people. I, am however, a gen z, with gen z friends who’s backbone is Spotify and I shall be with my kind.

And that is my take on Spotify vs Apple Music. The intersection of digital music and social features.