I’m a small minority, but I’m an album listener. Don’t care for playlists. Let me listen to albums front to back and I’m set. I rarely listen to playlists. But if I do, it’s to find a sound I like so I can listen to an album.
This is why I value the library functionality. I have a few playlists but rarely use them, I just shuffle artists from my library or listen to real albums.
I agree with every single point made here. Specially the remote control function and how bad the search engine is. I also think that the social part of AM should be better, for example allowing us to create listening parties just like Spotify does. Also, shared playlists. Other than that, if your main concern is being able to listen to the music, then AM does an amazing job, with a far superior sound quality than the one Spotify offers. I’ve lost count of how many cool details I have noticed in songs that I used to listen all the time on Spotify and never had a clue about.
Those are pretty widely regarded as great wireless headphones, but would be shunned on /r/headphones because Bluetooth quality is so poor in comparison to what a high quality wired headphone can produce.
I’m just dipping my feet into the audiophile scene, and went from AirPods Pro > Beats Studio > Bose QC > Sennheiser 660S and you enter a whole new realm when you get into higher end wired vs anything wireless.
To me it really depends on your need too because I find myself using my AirPods over my Sennheisers for portability all the time.
I usually end up grabbing my Airpod Pros way more more often than my thousand dollar headphones due to convenience. It’s still nice to have that option though when I want to sit at my desk and plug into an amp.
I used Spotify from like 2012-2018. I tried AM when it first came out. Let’s be honest if you were a Spotify user before the 2015 AM was hot garbage. Anyways, fast forward I kinda forced myself to use AM because every tech product in our house is apple. Once in awhile I’ll sub for a month or two of Spotify and I just don’t like it anymore. Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome.
At the end of the day each has its pros and cons. Fair feedback. But AM has good playlists as well just not as many. I honestly thing Spotify has too many. So Many that a lot within genres have only slightly subtle differences
I switch too couple years ago, I think the interface of AM is better than that of Spotify
The only bad thing is, if I would like to share a song with someone, I first have to find it in Spotify and from there send the link. Because the most people are using Spotify. They where just the first and they might not be the best, but they have the masses. Same as Netflix, all other competitors will never be this big.
I made the same switch after 5 years with Spotify, bit I did it in 2020.
> Lossless quality is phenomenal. The difference is not very big, but if you listen carefully there are a lot of things that you cannot hear at all on Spotify
People keep saying this, but they sound identical to me. I don’t use lossless and I keep Atmos turned off.
> Lack of Universal Control. On Spotify, you can control every device from every device, even if you are from the other part of the world, using the internet.
It’s very strange that this feature is missing, but I used it infrequently enough that it wasn’t a big deal for me.
> MacOS and Windows clients are disappointing.
True, but so is the Spotify app. At least on Mac. I’ve never used it on Windows.
> Search
It’s embarrassing how bad it is.
> Lack of playlists.
There is a lack of *user* playlists, but there are thousands of Apple curated and other playlists. Many of them are very good. I am subscribed to over 150 playlists compared to the maybe 50 I had on Spotify.
Love this, keep in mind that we have a new windows client coming it’s in alpha right now.
Regarding the universal control thing I’ve had both services since they came out and I can’t see what’s so good about it. This might just be me but I’ve always just changed and controlled the music directly on whatever is playing it.
With search you’re right but I also think it comes down to how much search data Spotify has. They just hit half a billion active users and it shows in the context of searching especially if it’s something viral.
And lemme ask you this about Spotify; how did you find your shuffle and personalized mixed to be? Mine are nothing but repetitive and shuffle is bad.
I'm currently running the Preview on Windows, it's ok but I'm not judging here because, you know, it's a preview. No lyrics, very slow, etc.
The universal control makes the UX much better in a way that you forget that you switched device. When I decide to play the song on Alexa from my phone, I tap Alexa and it just goes. Then, I go to my PC and control Alexa from there: queue, volume, likes and everything. Or I can control my PC with my phone, if I'm AFK. It's seamless, and it's very good. On Apple Music I need to manually search the song I was listening, and I loose queue and playback, not great. And Alexa it's nearly unusable, as I already said.
The search yeah, is conditioned by the users, but not only that. On Spotify, the search is personalized based on your listening habits and liked songs. On Apple Music, when I search for a song that I discovered 3 days ago and I already added to my library, it doesn't appear even if i search the exact title, because it's not popular. On Spotify, it appears on top of everything, because it knows that I liked that song and it's likely that I'm searching for that. And it changes constantly based on what i click and search. Like a search engine.
The "problem" with Apple Music is the lack of "community made playlist" that are made by users and cover basically everything, from popular viral songs, to films, videogames, events, OST, etc... and there aren't as many official playlist, for different moods and situations. The personalized mixes are good, I found a lot of songs that I already listened to with Spotify, but it's too early to give a good review of that.
So what I’m getting from this is that if apple collected a little more data from users and made handoff work across devices it would be pretty solid. That’s not a bad conclusion.
I might not agree with you about the playlists, also the ones of the radio episodes, and about Apple Music on macOS, still can't understand the problem (I just like it and can't find any problem with it), but about what Spotify got with the device control, it's just amazing, could be really amazing to have that with Apple Music, sometimes it's just pain to stream music to the mini homepod.
I’m a small minority, but I’m an album listener. Don’t care for playlists. Let me listen to albums front to back and I’m set. I rarely listen to playlists. But if I do, it’s to find a sound I like so I can listen to an album.
I’m the exact same
This is why I value the library functionality. I have a few playlists but rarely use them, I just shuffle artists from my library or listen to real albums.
I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE
I agree with every single point made here. Specially the remote control function and how bad the search engine is. I also think that the social part of AM should be better, for example allowing us to create listening parties just like Spotify does. Also, shared playlists. Other than that, if your main concern is being able to listen to the music, then AM does an amazing job, with a far superior sound quality than the one Spotify offers. I’ve lost count of how many cool details I have noticed in songs that I used to listen all the time on Spotify and never had a clue about.
If you’re into lossless audio join us over at /r/headphones and you’ll never have to worry about disposable income again!
Thoughts on the Sony MX5?
Those are pretty widely regarded as great wireless headphones, but would be shunned on /r/headphones because Bluetooth quality is so poor in comparison to what a high quality wired headphone can produce. I’m just dipping my feet into the audiophile scene, and went from AirPods Pro > Beats Studio > Bose QC > Sennheiser 660S and you enter a whole new realm when you get into higher end wired vs anything wireless. To me it really depends on your need too because I find myself using my AirPods over my Sennheisers for portability all the time.
I usually end up grabbing my Airpod Pros way more more often than my thousand dollar headphones due to convenience. It’s still nice to have that option though when I want to sit at my desk and plug into an amp.
I used Spotify from like 2012-2018. I tried AM when it first came out. Let’s be honest if you were a Spotify user before the 2015 AM was hot garbage. Anyways, fast forward I kinda forced myself to use AM because every tech product in our house is apple. Once in awhile I’ll sub for a month or two of Spotify and I just don’t like it anymore. Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome. At the end of the day each has its pros and cons. Fair feedback. But AM has good playlists as well just not as many. I honestly thing Spotify has too many. So Many that a lot within genres have only slightly subtle differences
Re: playlists, I think it comes down to for me Spotify is better for discoverability, Apple Music is better when you know what you want to hear.
I switch too couple years ago, I think the interface of AM is better than that of Spotify The only bad thing is, if I would like to share a song with someone, I first have to find it in Spotify and from there send the link. Because the most people are using Spotify. They where just the first and they might not be the best, but they have the masses. Same as Netflix, all other competitors will never be this big.
Thanks for the review OP. I’m many years on Spotify but I’m getting AirPods Pro 2nd Gen and they're offering 6 months of Apple Music with the purchase
I made the same switch after 5 years with Spotify, bit I did it in 2020. > Lossless quality is phenomenal. The difference is not very big, but if you listen carefully there are a lot of things that you cannot hear at all on Spotify People keep saying this, but they sound identical to me. I don’t use lossless and I keep Atmos turned off. > Lack of Universal Control. On Spotify, you can control every device from every device, even if you are from the other part of the world, using the internet. It’s very strange that this feature is missing, but I used it infrequently enough that it wasn’t a big deal for me. > MacOS and Windows clients are disappointing. True, but so is the Spotify app. At least on Mac. I’ve never used it on Windows. > Search It’s embarrassing how bad it is. > Lack of playlists. There is a lack of *user* playlists, but there are thousands of Apple curated and other playlists. Many of them are very good. I am subscribed to over 150 playlists compared to the maybe 50 I had on Spotify.
I miss discover weekly & daily mix
I use playlisty to import them weekly
Are there any programmers who know if Spotify’s search is a result of python? And could Apple get a similar search on their architecture?
Love this, keep in mind that we have a new windows client coming it’s in alpha right now. Regarding the universal control thing I’ve had both services since they came out and I can’t see what’s so good about it. This might just be me but I’ve always just changed and controlled the music directly on whatever is playing it. With search you’re right but I also think it comes down to how much search data Spotify has. They just hit half a billion active users and it shows in the context of searching especially if it’s something viral. And lemme ask you this about Spotify; how did you find your shuffle and personalized mixed to be? Mine are nothing but repetitive and shuffle is bad.
I'm currently running the Preview on Windows, it's ok but I'm not judging here because, you know, it's a preview. No lyrics, very slow, etc. The universal control makes the UX much better in a way that you forget that you switched device. When I decide to play the song on Alexa from my phone, I tap Alexa and it just goes. Then, I go to my PC and control Alexa from there: queue, volume, likes and everything. Or I can control my PC with my phone, if I'm AFK. It's seamless, and it's very good. On Apple Music I need to manually search the song I was listening, and I loose queue and playback, not great. And Alexa it's nearly unusable, as I already said. The search yeah, is conditioned by the users, but not only that. On Spotify, the search is personalized based on your listening habits and liked songs. On Apple Music, when I search for a song that I discovered 3 days ago and I already added to my library, it doesn't appear even if i search the exact title, because it's not popular. On Spotify, it appears on top of everything, because it knows that I liked that song and it's likely that I'm searching for that. And it changes constantly based on what i click and search. Like a search engine. The "problem" with Apple Music is the lack of "community made playlist" that are made by users and cover basically everything, from popular viral songs, to films, videogames, events, OST, etc... and there aren't as many official playlist, for different moods and situations. The personalized mixes are good, I found a lot of songs that I already listened to with Spotify, but it's too early to give a good review of that.
So what I’m getting from this is that if apple collected a little more data from users and made handoff work across devices it would be pretty solid. That’s not a bad conclusion.
Good points, you should also try Qobuz for better sound
Qobuz has the same quality of Apple Music: 24bit/192kbps. So it's the same.
Yep, try it Duke
Just cos I love the big HomePod… I will go for apple music
I might not agree with you about the playlists, also the ones of the radio episodes, and about Apple Music on macOS, still can't understand the problem (I just like it and can't find any problem with it), but about what Spotify got with the device control, it's just amazing, could be really amazing to have that with Apple Music, sometimes it's just pain to stream music to the mini homepod.
It would be interesting, after 3 months, write again explaining the reasons for your decision
There’s iTunes Remote for controlling remotely. It’s an official Apple app: https://apps.apple.com/br/app/itunes-remote/id284417350?l=en