Apple Music vs Spotify: Which Has the Advantage Now That Taylor Swift is on Both Streaming Services?
Now that Taylor Swift is on Apple Music and Spotify, the question of which is the better option between the two music streaming services is being reignited.
With both music streaming service boasting a wide array of titles in their respective libraries — with Apple having around 40 million and Spotify with more than 30 million songs — sometimes, the question on which one is better boils down to the matter of exclusivity.
Apple Music used to have that kind of advantage, with Swift declaring some beef against Spotify and its policy on free music streaming. Among the other digital music services, Spotify was one platform that still allowed free access to songs included in its library. And that did not sit well with Swift.
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The "Bad Blood" singer pulled out her songs and albums from Spotify in 2014 because for her, streaming music the way Spotify does "could hurt music sales."
But just this month (and also in time for Katy Perry's new album "Witness'" release), Swift had a sudden change of heart and brought her hits back to Spotify without any changes being made on Spotify's policies that Swift previously criticized. On the other hand, Apple Music lost a notable advantage.
Apart from their free three months of trial for new accounts, Spotify Free services will still let people browse and listen to music - only with advertisements in-between and without the option to skip songs in a playlist.
Meanwhile, Apple Music always had the interesting feature of learning what type of music a user preferred, depending on the artists they chose as favorites upon creating an Apple Music account. On the other hand, Spotify recently added a feature that also gives hints on what a user might want to hear but not as complex as the way Apple Music does it.
Spotify does the said feature with the "Autoplay similar songs when your music ends" toggle on the settings. For example, when someone listens to a Kendrick Lamar album, after all the songs have been played and the user opts not to choose a new playlist or simply did not notice, Spotify will automatically play songs that are closely similar to the genre or artists that were previously featured, which in this case are likely going to be hip-hop songs.
While it can be hard to tell who wins between Apple Music and Spotify, considering there are several features and services involved and these factors are always debatable, people can at least base their judgment on the latest records of subscribers.
In their latest count, Spotify claimed that they are now serving up to 140 million subscribers - a number that has a commanding lead over Apple Music's 27 million listerners, as BGR noted.
Spotify and Apple Music both offer a monthly individual subscription of $9.99.
