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Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

wsj.com

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Re: Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

#161

Post by joecool1029 »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #130
rxhernandez wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google music has been the best for me: - IT doesn't block it at work(it blocks spotify) - I don't have to install anything - I don't see ads on youtube - it has all of my music that came from CDs backed up to it - I regularly discover new music through their Radio feature so long as the artist/song isn't super popular

Google Play Music also allows you to upload your own music: >You can add up to 50,000 songs to Google Play Music from your personal music collection using Google Play Music for Chrome or Music Manager (up to 300MB per song). Once you've added your music, you can listen to it through the Google Play Music app and on your computer.

I've used this for years but moving away to use Plex as Google never seems to have figured out reliable caching.

Syncing to device offline is fine but Google music often seems to crap out streaming between songs on Android and iOS and I'm stuck skipping tracks or having to restart playing.

Never had issues with Spotify, plex, tidal, or Pandora in this regard.

Re: Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

#162

Post by adamrt »

tjr225 wrote: post #105
sanjeetsuhag wrote: post #10

Honestly, I can't imagine switching to Apple Music. Speaking as a guy who owns an iPhone and a Mac. I love being able to smoothly control playback from any device. I love how seamless the experience is, I've only tried the Apple Music Trial when it first came out and I can't see any possible reason to switch to it now. Spotify is excellent for music discovery, and I love the top songs and everything. It's perfect. It…

I feel like the only person on the planet who finds spotify annoying and its library shallow. I really am not trying to sound pretentious. Full disclosure I say this as someone who doesn't pay for their service, so I don't know how it is if you do, but if you shuffle play an artist- it will automatically play suggested songs. This makes 0 sense to me. I specifically wanted to listen to that artist and if I wanted sug…

It makes sense. You don’t pay and it acts like a radio station (suggesting songs). You do pay and it’s like a music library (play what you want).

Re: Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

#163

Post by ashraymalhotra »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #62

Spotify (after years) still doesn't exist in the country I live in. Google Play (after years) still doesn't exist in the country I live in. Apple Music has been available from day one. They also have country-specific pricing, instead of expecting the right price for Americans to be the right price for a developing country.

This. This is the only reason I continue to tolerate Apple Music. My job requires me to travel extensively across countries. With Apple Music, I can be assured that music in my playlists works across countries.

When am in the US, I honestly find YouTube Music to be the best (probably since it has a lot of my listening data already hence gets the prediction accurate). But Apple Music still remains the only music subscription I pay for.

Re: Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

#164

Post by cyxxon »

n1000 wrote: post #110
rxhernandez wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google music has been the best for me: - IT doesn't block it at work(it blocks spotify) - I don't have to install anything - I don't see ads on youtube - it has all of my music that came from CDs backed up to it - I regularly discover new music through their Radio feature so long as the artist/song isn't super popular

On T-mobile in the US, spotify streaming doesn’t count against mobile data quota ;)

In Germany, It's the other way around - I'd love to continue using Google Play Music, but Spotify is included in the T-Mobile zero-rating, and GPM is not... :/

Re: Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

#165

Post by ethiclub »

putlake wrote: post #107

I rarely read the full thread on HN but read this one to see if anyone had mentioned Echo or Alexa-enabled devices. Surprising that no one did, esp given how many they have sold. We are an Apple household primarily but also have a Google Home and recently bought an Alexa-enabled car charger (Anker/Roav Viva). The only service that will work across the board is Spotify. In that regard Spotify is like Netflix -- availa…

Not to sanction further consolidation or oligopoly issues, but Spotify has long seemed like a logical acquisition for Amazon.

- Fix Prime's song catalogue size issue (still an issue?)

- Grab massive market share and upsell/bundle other services

- Provide bargaining power to Spotify - Get access to very advanced IP

- Integrate with voice ui further (i.e. smarter voice commands including play list creations, complex requests and vague requests)

- Clock / alarm integration for music upon wake from echo/dot

- Fix profitability concerns of Spotify's revenue stream

- Provide high quality music, podcast services etc. alongside their soon-to-be-formidable film offering

- Use Spotify's algorithms and data to potentially improve film/tv recommendations and discovery

- Provide the gateway to becoming a record label, thereby cutting out the middle men à la netflix/Amazon film strategy of content creation

Would anyone more knowledgeable be able to comment further or point out flaws with this theory?

Re: Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

#167

Post by TheArcane »

rxhernandez wrote: post #19
sanjeetsuhag wrote: post #10

Honestly, I can't imagine switching to Apple Music. Speaking as a guy who owns an iPhone and a Mac. I love being able to smoothly control playback from any device. I love how seamless the experience is, I've only tried the Apple Music Trial when it first came out and I can't see any possible reason to switch to it now. Spotify is excellent for music discovery, and I love the top songs and everything. It's perfect. It…

Google music has been the best for me: - IT doesn't block it at work(it blocks spotify) - I don't have to install anything - I don't see ads on youtube - it has all of my music that came from CDs backed up to it - I regularly discover new music through their Radio feature so long as the artist/song isn't super popular

> it blocks spotify

I can't think of a reason justifying this.

Re: Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

#168

Post by TheArcane »

remir wrote: post #114
heavymark wrote: post #26

I like I'm sure many predicted this would be inevitable regardless how better one product is over another. At the end of the day Spotify can't compete with Apple's budget, and music streaming isn't a long term profitable business on it's own. I love Apple and deep into their ecosystem. However, certainly not a fan of Apple Music. When using on the Mac iTunes is rather horrific since everytime I search it searches loc…

I'm personally getting tired of ecosystem lock-ins, so Spotify is a great alternative because they're available everywhere. Also, the UX of Spotify Connect is great.

> Also, the UX of Spotify Connect is great.

The color scheme and layouts are beautiful.

Re: Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

#169

Post by Angostura »

hellweaver666 wrote: post #159
sgustard wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a fully Mac/iOS household, and I had no idea until I saw this article that Apple Music was a thing that competes with Spotify. That's probably due to iTunes and iCloud being such a confusing mess that I just don't use Apple services and I haven't launched those apps in years.

It is indeed a mess. After sharing an iCloud account for years my wife and I decided to upgrade our Apple Music to a family account so we could have separate music (and listen to music on different devices at the same time). Apple decided this must mean we also want separate iCloud accounts and upon logging into her own Apple Music account, also proceeded to remove our 15 years of family photos and a couple of years…

If you share an iCloud account, you're going to find things painful, its really not the way that things are designed to work.

Here's how to get back to where you were, if you want to use separate iCloud accounts.

1. On your device create create a Shared photo album. 2. Share it with your wife using her new iCloud ID 3. Select the photos that you wan to share (basically all of them initially) 4. Tap Share > iCloud Photo Sharing 5. Select the shared album.

From then on, you and your wife share all photos you want to share to to that Album.

Same thing works with shared Calendars, Notes, To-do list etc.

If you share an iCloud account across multiple people you will find yourself fighting the system all the time

Re: Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers

#170

Post by KozmoNau7 »

Spotify has a desktop application for Linux. Apple Music doesn't. So Spotify wins, right out of the gate.

Add to this that Spotify's auto playlists are a hell of a lot better than Apple's, and I really don't understand why people bother with Apple Music.

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