Apple Music vs. Spotify
TL;DR
Apple Music
- way better audio quality
Spotify
- better UI
- better at recommendations
- Spotify Connect
A couple months back I switched from Spotify to Apple Music just to try it out. So I have used Spotify for a couple years and Apple Music for three months now. This is the result of my comparison:
Audio quality
Spotify offers a maximum streaming quality of 320 kbit/s which is the bitrate of a MP3-File.
Apple Music on the other hand is capable of 24bit/192kHz.
This is much closer to studio quality than the 320 kbit/s.
In terms of audio quality is Apple Music clearly better. Not only on paper but you can hear a difference (I at least think I can :) ).
Library & Recommendations
So the libraries are pretty equal. Spotify also lists covered songs but I don’t care much about those. Then there are Spotify exclusive podcasts. That’s indeed an anoyance but it doesn’t really matter since you can listen to them in the free version.
Lastly recommendations. Those are pretty good on Spotify. But on Apple Music they are pretty terrible. The first couple songs are good but after those Apple Music always shifts to one genre it thinks I like. So in my case I end up with rap. Always. Even when I started with classical music.
UI
As I am more used to the Spotify UI I also find it pretty good. Still I tried out Apple Musics UI for the past three months and I honestly don’t like it. It’s a pain to use, not very intuitive and doesn’t seem very efficient. Furthermore everything is just slow.
Local network streaming
Of course there is Airplay. It’s pretty nice. A bit slow but it does the job and it works for both apps.
Spotify also offers Spotify Connect which I find pretty good.
I run a Spotify Connect server in my home and it’s just a charm.
I can control the running instance with my phone, tablet, laptop and even smart watch. Thanks to tho Spotify API. And that’s just pretty pretty good.