Apple Music on Track to Overtake Spotify in U.S. Subscribers • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by fortythirteen » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

vr46 wrote: post #216

fortythirteen wrote: post #198

I have grown increasingly disgusted with Spotify pushing a political agenda inside their app. The last place I want to have politics shoved in my face is my music streaming service, whether I agree with the stance or not. Yet it seems, at least once a month, the banner of the desktop app is decidedly pushing a playlist promoting one side of the political agenda du jour. With them recently banning the personal playlis…

It looks like the senator breached terms and conditions by trying to use songs to promote HIS agenda and the artists objected, and Spotify doesn't allow that anyway, so canned his playlist.

So if I make a playlist and then Tweet about it, and some content curator at Spotify doesn't like me, they're going to delete my playlist? Notice I didn't say that don't have the right to do what they want with their business, it's just a crappy move.

I wonder if Christian or Muslim artists asked that their music not be on a LGBT figure's playlist, if Spotify would ban the whole playlist, like they did here.

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

#222

Post by fortythirteen » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

chrisgd wrote: post #212

fortythirteen wrote: post #198

I have grown increasingly disgusted with Spotify pushing a political agenda inside their app. The last place I want to have politics shoved in my face is my music streaming service, whether I agree with the stance or not. Yet it seems, at least once a month, the banner of the desktop app is decidedly pushing a playlist promoting one side of the political agenda du jour. With them recently banning the personal playlis…

This article says that several musicians did not want to be included. Seems spotify catered to them, rather than banning based on political viewpoint.

Because several artists didn't want to be included, instead of removing those artists, they banned his whole playlist?

Edit: Based on the litany of left-wing politics that Spotify brazenly pushes in their app, I'd be surprised if they would take the same side if the sides were reversed between artist and politician. This only bolsters my original statement of why I'm getting tired of Spotify's politics.

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

#223

Post by nailer » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 2:30 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #219

rahoulb wrote: post #139

I tried Apple Music for 6 months, and spent that time diligently training it to my tastes. My latest "favourites mix" had 12 songs that I had to mark as "dislike" after all that training. Likewise the "for you"playlists are garbage - just because I like a couple of songs by guitar bands doesn't mean I want to listen to hours and hours of them. Apple Music on Apple Watch 3 is amazing - leaving a phone at home is stran…

Google Play has really misogynistic algos, it seems to get really hung up on the gender of an artist. Want to listen to artists like a female? Then obviously you only want to listen to female artists! I once tried it on a few different female artists, Tori Amos, Laura Marling, etc. It really just focuses in on the gender, which is annoying as I just want to listen to the genre.

I understand and agree with your point, but being overly focused on an artists sex (which is annoying) is not the same thing as hating women.

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

#224

Post by saturdaysaint » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

MarkMc wrote: post #147

Can someone explain why? Does Apple music have significantly more songs? Is it significantly cheaper? Or is it simply because it's the default music app on iPhone?

I used to use Spotify. I mostly switched to be able to launch songs/albums using Siri, and Apple TV integration is a nice plus. There were some things I preferred about Spotify, but since their libraries are identical and 99% of my interaction is either voice command, search, or a small rotation of recent albums, TBH it's just not a domain that I'm especially obsessed with optimizing further.

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

#225

Post by mattmanser » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #223

mattmanser wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Play has really misogynistic algos, it seems to get really hung up on the gender of an artist. Want to listen to artists like a female? Then obviously you only want to listen to female artists! I once tried it on a few different female artists, Tori Amos, Laura Marling, etc. It really just focuses in on the gender, which is annoying as I just want to listen to the genre.

I understand and agree with your point, but being overly focused on an artists sex (which is annoying) is not the same thing as hating women.

Yeah, I ummed over using that word but left it in as it feels as if the original categorisation by Google was done by a misogynist which the algo learned from. The malice is learned.

If you look at Hole, for example, a classic grunge band you can love or hate, most "related artists" are female artists. The Pumpkins and Nirvana are mixed in as token includes, one because it was her husband, the other because Billy Corgan produced one of their albums. Look at Nirvana, almost all male artists, with Hole being the only female artist. Veruca Salt or Garbage are exactly the same. Juliana Hatfield has more males than most, but they're mainly her ex-band mates. (I bet you can tell roughly how old I am from that list ;)

And that holds true for modern artists too. Look at related artists for Courtney Barnett, The Joy Formidable or Laura Marling and again it's predominately females, while if you look at one of the only male bands on Courtney Barnett's related artist lists, Twin Peaks, it's all male artists.

There is deliberate, systematic, segregation by sex of the artist happening at Google Play.

Laura Marling, for example, is a strong part of Modern British Folk, and that she's being side-lined by google algos is pretty malicious in my book (Short Movie (Director's Cut) is an excellent album if you want a go).

EDIT: researching and writing this makes me realize I can't keep paying for Google Play, I hadn't realized how deeply rooted the problem was in the platform.

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

#226

Post by always_good » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 2:52 PM UTC

jeffhuys wrote: post #205

gurkendoktor wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the big advantage of Spotify is I don't always need to think about what I want to listen to This is huge when I'm trying to stay in the flow while programming. Spotify is like a personal DJ that really groks how I work, especially now that it silently continues playing matching tracks when a playlist ends. With Apple Music, I ended up switching back to iTunes at least once an hour. I really hope they won't be able…

They (Spotify) also have some kind of awesome new playlist feature that mixes the songs together automatically. The "Trap Vibes" (don't judge) playlist uses that feature, I'd say try it! Play at least 2-3 songs and notice how gapless they transition into eachother. It really works great. I hope it's automated and not based on cuepoints (it probably is, though).

That sounds good because the Spotify playlists I listen to have a surprisingly small pool of songs.

For example, I've heard almost all the tracks of the Mexico -> "La + Chingona" playlist on the first sitting. It says they are regenerated each week yet it's the same songs reshuffled. All of the Mexican playlists are like this, but I've never tried other playlists so I don't know if it's Spotify-wide. Maybe they just have a bad Mexican music team.

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

#227

Post by pwinnski » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #30

hprotagonist wrote: post #5

I have very few complaints about apple music, and most of them are because I regard the Atomic Unit Of Music to be the studio album. 1. No Tool. :( 2. No easy way to reorder search results to be album first. 3. Date of original album release is buried. 4. Hard to filter by "studio album" vs "live album" vs "compilation album" vs "greatest hits album". 5. Siri can't help; "play me the third album by the rolling stones…

I have just one complaint, and it's the Siri integration. I was having a frustrating day and I like a playlist called something like "chill" or "just chill" or "relax" or something like that... so I ask Siri to play relaxing music. Can't find it. Siri, play chill music. Can't find it. Siri, play chill playlist. You don't have a playlist called chill. Siri play calming music. Now playing Daft Punk "I Feel It Coming".…

I just said: "Hey Siri, play my Chill Mix playlist" and it played just that.

But I also tried a few variations, and you're right: it is not fuzzy AT ALL. If I use literally any other word in that sentence, it doesn't work.

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

#228

Post by dep_b » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

thirtyseven wrote: post #100

IBM wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Android app has 3.5 stars. It must not be buggy for most people. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...

3.5 is a bad rating for an Android app. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Netflix and even the IRS app all have > 4.0 scores.

It used to be rated much higher, but after Apple bought it some of the more rabid users of Android felt the necessity to post negative reviews because they're so offended by iPhones every day of their lives.

I think >99% of Android users don't fall into that camp if they're even interested in iOS vs Android in the first place, don't get me wrong. But that <1% should seek professional help IMHO.

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

#229

Post by pwinnski » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 3:00 PM UTC

fnordsensei wrote: post #120

Does Apple Music offer something comparable to Spotify's Discover Weekly playlists?

Yes, there are three playlists that are tuned to my tastes. Most weeks they're pretty great, although every few months I wonder what I ever did to make Apple's ML model think I like those songs.

My daughter also thinks her weekly playlists are good, while my son says they're trash for him. I'm not sure why the results seems to vary so widely.

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

#230

Post by snowwolf » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 3:01 PM UTC

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.

A slight loophole - If you can find a way to pay your Spotify subscription through a supported country (e.g. US card/billing address), then there are no restrictions on where you use it[1], unlike Netflix for example who do geo blocking.

[1] https://support.spotify.com/is/using_spotify/system_settings...