spotify to apple music
Let’s go back to July 1st when I had a desire to test out Apple Music to see if there was a benefit of it over Spotify. I’ve been using Spotify for a few years prior. I didn’t like Apple Music due to the fact that they will delete your entire library if your subscription has been closed for 3 months. Spotify will save your library no matter how long you don’t use it. So I’ve been using Spotify for a few years.
However, Spotify suddenly discontinued the option to allow you to shuffle your library. That’s the only way I listen to music, so I literally did not know how to listen to Spotify anymore. It won’t work. So I gave Apple Music another chance. Fast forward to now, December of 2019. I’m going to a simple pros/cons list.
Pros
more songs - last year, Apple Music had 45 million songs compared to Spotify’s 35 million.
better algorithms - with Spotify, I often found myself skipping tracks because their artificial intelligence assumes that you want to listen to music similar to the song that’s currently playing, and their algorithm gets stuck down this rabbit hole where it only plays one type of music. With Apple Music, I find shuffling songs to be much truer to a shuffled order.
curated playlists - apple uses artificial intelligence to create custom playlists: New Music Mix, Favorite Mix, and Chill Mix. Apple also gives Replay, a playlist of your top songs for every year, including information about how much you’ve listened.
light and dark modes - Spotify has a very dark, almost depressing interface that makes me want to close the app whereas Apple gives both light and dark modes. The dark mode is somehow more upbeat.
interface - the interface is a thousand times better than Spotify’s cluttered dump truck of an interface.
Siri integration - being able to ask Siri to play anything makes a world of a difference. You can’t do that with Spotify on iPhone thanks to Apple’s strict restrictions.
Automations - I really love automations In Apple’s shortcuts app.. I have it set up so a notification appears when I put my AirPods in. Give that a tap and my music starts shuffling. I also have CarPlay automation set up so whenever to plug my phone into the car, my music automatically starts playing shuffled.
website - a while back, Apple launched beta.music.apple.com. Now, I have a developer account, so this may be only available to those who have developer accounts. Although this is in beta, I have yet to encounter a single issue with it.
Cons
Apple will delete your library after 3 months of not subscribing. There is no way to listen to your music without subscribing and paying money. Spotify on the other hand will keep your account (I presume forever) and even allow you to listen to your music for free with advertisements.
Apple Music isn’t as social - I don’t have nearly as many friends on Apple as I do on Spotify. This is very likely because you’re not going to use Apple Music unless you have an iPhone and Apple devices.
Despite misconceptions, Apple knows what they’re doing when it comes to music. In fact, they do so much so that they’re doing a hell of a lot better job than the industry’s leader: Spotify.