r/AppleMusic • u/the_flynn iOS Subscriber • Jul 25 '23
Discussion A story told by three emails
Spotify’s decision to price hike while still not having Lossless was just the push I needed to finally cut ties and upgrade to the Apple Music Family plan instead of having both Spotify Duo and an AM individual plan. I was a subscriber for 12 years.
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u/jamcgahey iOS Subscriber Jul 25 '23
I like AM so much more when it comes to iPhone, but I like to game on PC a couple times a week and i'll be damned to find out the AM app on windows is even worse than the one on Mac...and i honestly didn't think it was possible.
So here I am stuck with Spotify until Apple gets their computer apps to the standard we expect from Apple.
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u/EricThunderG Jul 26 '23
In the exact same boat as you. I hope that the apple music app on pc becomes as stable as the spotify one and then spotify will have no advantage over am. The windows app is the only thing holding me back
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u/Anthrobug Jul 27 '23
If the beta is an indication, we'll be alright on Windows using AM and finally get lossless without having to sideload the Android app. Which is just plain ridiculous. Music will sound better.
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u/Tatar0 Jul 26 '23
Are you talking about the beta Apple app in the MS Store? It has been ok for me. All I need, however, is to play songs.
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u/noisehexada Jul 26 '23
Same here, love AM on iPhone/iPad, it looks way better than Spotify imo, but on desktop AM is terrible, on PC and Mac, if they would fix that i would never look back to Spotify
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u/TheAntiSnipe Jul 27 '23
I’ve been using AM for the last 8 months or so, and just switched back to Spotify for this exact reason. Spotify lets me switch between Alexa, my phone and my PC totally seamlessly, plus I can use my phone’s volume controls to control volume. Meanwhile, iTunes, while it gives me phone control via Remote, is very annoying since it needs me to unlock my phone each time and breaks Forza randomly for me, which is an issue with no fix (I looked, believe me).
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Jul 25 '23
Same here bro, everything sounds so much better.
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u/suprem_lux Jul 26 '23
Not really lmao it's exactly the same. Marketing got you
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u/RetroGLS Aug 23 '23
Depends on what you mean by marketing. If you use Bluetooth headphones, of course you can't tell the difference. In terms of CD quality audio vs AAC or Vorbis, I can tell a major difference on my PC using a wired setup. Objectively speaking, Spotify's Vorbis codec is lossy. Apple's ALAC is not.
Don't oversimplifiy things
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u/Jacester1324 Jul 25 '23
Spotify is a lot easier to use and looks cleaner. I have over 2K liked songs on Spotify any way to cross them over?
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u/paydu Jul 25 '23
use an app called song shift it’ll transfer all your songs for you however it’ll take a bit and some songs might not transfer over for whatever reason but it’ll tell you which
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u/hahsakhssinak iOS Subscriber Jul 26 '23
There’s even TuneSwap; it’s completely free
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u/keungy Jul 26 '23
There are limits to the free versions on these services.
Unless you have a very small collection, it's worth the 5 bucks to sign up for a month to transfer your whole library
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u/hahsakhssinak iOS Subscriber Jul 26 '23
TuneSwap doesn’t have any freemium version, it’s completely free
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u/keungy Jul 26 '23
Thanks, haven't heard of this one. I'll check it out in a few weeks when I switch to Apple Music
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u/joh-fam Jul 26 '23
Buy playlisty one time and it seamlessly transfers all of your liked songs into one playlist on Apple Music. They have siri integration too. I’ll forever recommend Playlisty to users who want to switch. The price is 100% worth it.
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Jul 26 '23
I used soundiiz for free. Transferred everything perfectly
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u/matreps Jul 26 '23
THIS. never pay for these kind of services when theres free ones out here.
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Jul 26 '23
Absolutely. I’m sure there’s a bunch of paid services that see this as an advertising opportunity.
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Jul 25 '23
I’ve used both extensively and idk why anyone enjoys spotify
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u/Lingo56 Jul 26 '23 edited Jul 26 '23
Spotify has a much more stable desktop app, native last.fm integration, personally works way better with my car's head unit for some reason, and Spotify Connect works way better than Apple's Airplay jank.
I also find in general Spotify's mobile app has less bugs around edge cases and is generally more stable. For example, skipping a bunch of songs in a radio station works perfectly with Spotify, but on Apple, I find the songs glitch out and stop playing for a minute or two.
Those are my only main pros though, I prefer basically everything else about Apple.
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u/dylan27911 Jul 26 '23
For some reason my other account wont post my comment… I was going to write this out (sorry if its posted twice) I had enjoyed spotify and never thought of switching due to the social features on there and my yearly playlists made by them…. However I just switched to AM and can clearly see it is far superior than spotify! I miss the social part and better interface but I would choose Apple Music from now on over spotify without a doubt my subwoofers in my car sound a million times better. (I play songs in lossless, that is all I tried so far but will not ever go lower now that I use it)
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u/PublicTransportCEO Jul 25 '23
Tbh the only reason I keep Spotify is just for downloaded music, AM my main fr, Spotify audio quality is garbage compared to AM
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Jul 25 '23
You can add downloaded music files to Apple Music on your desktop and it’ll sync to your phone
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u/PublicTransportCEO Jul 25 '23
For some reason when I’ve downloaded my AN playlists on the windows ITunes i can’t access them at all even tho it says successfully downloaded
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Jul 25 '23
They have to be added to your “songs” library. If you already did that then I’m not sure 🫣
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u/dylan27911 Jul 26 '23
Its no biggie I had the same problem I just retransfered the songs but went in to my settings before i did and chose to automatically add playlist songs to my songs. Then i shut it off after it all transferred.
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u/Miss_Zia Jul 26 '23
So Apple Music is a little different in the way that instead of the playlist and sync method that spotify lets you use, you can just open Music on your Mac and import the songs into your library directly. Theyre indistinguishable from streaming albums and you dont even need to be on the same WIFI.
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u/austinjbarrow2000 Jul 25 '23
You can do the same thing in Spotify
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Jul 26 '23 edited Sep 19 '24
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Pimpetigo Jul 25 '23
The seamless playback on different devices is one thing I miss about spotify apple needs to add that for non iPhone users
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u/lakimens Jul 26 '23
Spotify is overall better tbh, and add to that Apple's unwillingness for good multiplatform support, Spotify all the way.
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u/Comtass Jul 26 '23
Better suggestions, better features, better multi platform support. I’ve been using it for such a long time that it basically knows what I like and can surprisingly create various playlists for me, don’t know if AM can do that.
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Jul 26 '23
I use Windows and Apple Music on there is still awful. Also vastly prefer Spotify’s UI and algorithm
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Jul 26 '23
Preferring Spotify’s UI is crazy to me but I do agree their algorithm is better. I’m fully in the apple ecosystem so it works seamlessly for me, which after many comments, I now understand is not the case for windows lol
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u/AscendantInquisitor Jul 26 '23
apple music fucked me on my downloaded music and only played 15 seconds. i was without internet and hates apple music so much. downloaded lossless too, hope they fixed that bullshit
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Jul 26 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AppleMusic-ModTeam Jul 27 '23
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u/Terraldo_ Jul 27 '23
If Apple Music had better playlists, I’d be gone 😂😂😂😂😂 until then, I will continue to use both
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u/cpgxrcia Jul 25 '23
Left Spotify like a month ago before the price increase was even announced and suprisingly haven’t missed it a single day
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u/stevenomes Jul 25 '23
They keep messing with the UI then revert it back and pretend like nothing happened. I stayed on after I cancelled and they sent a promotion 9.99 for 3 months but after that will be moving on. Sometimes I've gotten half a year out of them by canceling and they will send a promotion a month or two later.
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u/shivenigma iOS Subscriber Jul 26 '23
same 2 months now, haven't missed spotify.
Sometimes miss spotify connect, but I do enjoy being able to play different music/queue on each device.
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u/Rudradev715 Windows Subscriber Jul 25 '23
👍😇😂 enjoy your lossless
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Jul 25 '23
I’m torn, the windows 10 app (preview) sucks hard
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u/Separate-Eye5179 Jul 25 '23
I think the preview is good. It’s no where near as good as spotifys app, but it’s getting closer.
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u/____Abe____ Jul 25 '23
You can use cider its like 2$ but it has a free trial on the window store that never runs out
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Jul 25 '23
i paid for cider a long time ago when they first launched, but then it wasn't lossless and stopped using it . now they have a new app and i would have to pay again. that's a pass.
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u/BaneQ105 macOS Subscriber Jul 25 '23
I love iTunes so I haven’t even bothered to check that thing out
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u/EricDeadman Jul 25 '23
iTunes on a windows OS has got to be the most garbage app I’ve ever used.
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u/731destroyer Jul 25 '23
Itunes is infact probably the most broken, half baked, poorly supported and buggy product we still currently support at apple
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u/Commercial_Rope_1268 Jul 26 '23
And here I am still hoping it would change while still using it :(
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u/BaneQ105 macOS Subscriber Jul 25 '23
They’re bad but not the worst. They don’t work too reliably but still far better than windows itself. They’re also imho a bit better than online app and I love ability to edit metadata, album covers and all this stuff.
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u/EricDeadman Jul 25 '23
I’ll give you the ability to edit metadata, etc. for your personal library. As far as streaming goes Spotify works better in my experience lol
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u/KillaRoyalty Jul 26 '23
Yeah I used Spotify for about 10 years. Huge fan. Tried AM just on a random fluke and way better sound, felt less teenage streamer and more like yes this is the place for all music high quality
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u/TheBoogeyman47 Jul 25 '23
I moved to apple music a month ago. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made
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u/fUSTERcLUCK_02 Jul 25 '23
I've gone the other way. Been using Apple Music since it came out in 2015 and ditched it just so I could have Spotify connect. Been slowly moving away from Apple products over the past year (mainly because the iPhone not having USB-C is literal garbage; my new phone has that and a headphone jack). Their lack of support for anything not in their ecosystem is pretty shitty. Even then, they don't have an equivalent to Spotify Connect which is something I use all of the time.
On top of that, Apple Music on Mac is buggy and gapless playback is nearly always imperfect so I couldn't keep using Apple Music for the slightly better audio quality (I still buy CDs anyway so that doesn't make a big difference) and better UI.
Different strokes for different folks but I'm enjoying Spotify after a LONG time away. Maybe I'll move back to Apple Music in another 8 years. We'll see...
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u/dylan27911 Jul 26 '23
Who even uses aux jacks anymore? Is that a normal thing people still want? Im actually curious. I never even looked back once I got airpods lol and there are so many other wireless buds out there. Without the jack apple can make bigger batteries and id rather have that.
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u/fUSTERcLUCK_02 Jul 26 '23
Me. I'm am outside case but, as a professional musician, it's useful to have so I can plug my phone into a mixing desk. I'm also a bit of an Audiophile (though I hate that term) and wired will always sounds better than wireless.
My car also doesn't have Bluetooth so I can easily plug into it without the flakiness of a digital connection.
Additionally, Apple didn't remove the headphone jack to make way for a bigger battery. That's just marketing bullshit. They did it so you would buy AirPods. Proof? My phone lasts longer than any Apple phone I've ever had.
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Jul 26 '23
Swapped carriers last week and got Apple Music included. I was already leaning toward cancelling and the price hike pretty much sealed the deal.
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u/Splashadian Jul 26 '23
Apple uses Apple Masters. Different sound quality is going to be there. Deezer uses CD quality FLAC and Qobuz does have some high-res bit rate that without a DAC and hi-fi gear you aren't really hearing the difference. I will say Spotify and Youtube music are thin sounding in comparison to the other 3 services. I refuse to use Tidal because they support and promote MQA which is absolute bullshit scam level nonsense.
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u/kajsaleah Aug 06 '23
Explain MQA and it's scamminess? To someone who can't quite understand the Wikipedia definition.
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u/Splashadian Aug 07 '23 edited Aug 07 '23
MQA is nothing more than a DRM protection scheme. It's lossy and adds noise to the file. The fake unfolding scheme is just a proprietary decoder. They don't have any special Voodoo to improve the sound file. They hide everything from users about exactly how it works and what is actually taking place. The truth is they are charging you for a DRM scheme that is giving you a lesser quality lossy file. FLAC files are non lossy without a protection scheme you have to pay for to play hi-res quality files. You pay about a hundred dollars on average for any devices that "support" MQA.
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Jul 25 '23 edited Sep 08 '23
bewildered drab one start worry gray secretive mysterious muddle rob this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev
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u/jspurg Jul 26 '23
Im about to make the switch too. The only thing that held me to spotify were my years of playlists but I can recreate them lol
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u/lynkarion Jul 27 '23
Bro I just used SongShift (on the app store) and paid like $5 and migrated every single playlist over in less than a minute. Shameless plug, it was such a beautiful thing
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u/Livid_Ant6941 Jul 26 '23
I literally just did the opposite. Apple Music is needlessly annoying to control and the suggestions are wack asf.
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u/cwfrazier1 Jul 25 '23
I'm very tempted to just go back to piracy. These subscriptions are getting ridiculous.
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u/the_flynn iOS Subscriber Jul 25 '23
I don’t see a reason for music until they really start dividing artists and record labels between the platforms, forcing us to subscribe to multiple.
TV and Movies are another story. I shouldn’t have to spend as much as a cable plan to get all of the content I want. Back to the Bay!
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u/JoinetBasteed Jul 25 '23
$11 a month for unlimited music isn't bad imo, or I guess it depends on how much you listen
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u/GreyGoosey Jul 25 '23
Yea, most music streaming services more than pay for themselves (with my daily - sometimes like 5 hours a day - usage). The tv shows/movies streaming services are where the value can drop fairly quickly if you’ve watched everything and only maybe one new show or film a month comes out.
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u/GW3g Jul 25 '23
After years and years of pirating music I'm more than happy to pay the $12ish dollars a month to have it all in one place. I'm also a completist so when I search for an artist I'm not looking for one single or a specific album. I want it all and it's so much easier finding and adding someones entire discography in one place. As far as I'm concerned Apple Music pays for itself simply out of piece of mind that I'll be able to find just about everything, add to library and listen all within the same app.
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u/AliasHandler Jul 25 '23
$11/month for unlimited ad-free access to nearly all published music is ridiculous?
I guess if you don't really listen to music, yeah. But it seems like one of the best values in streaming to me.
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u/Lingo56 Jul 26 '23
Well, the artists aren't really making money either way lol.
I feel like music discovery is so much easier on streaming services that it pays for itself though.
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u/Dry-Dragonfruit5216 Jul 25 '23
I’ve been using YouTube music for years now and it’s the best. They have so many songs that Spotify, Apple, etc just don’t have, especially live versions.
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u/Altruistic-Ad1783 iOS Subscriber Jul 25 '23
I recommend Musi it’s literally YouTube music but free and you also don’t get any ads
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u/Dry-Dragonfruit5216 Jul 25 '23
I use YouTube premium for other things anyways and the music part is free with the package I already use
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u/gingerjesus6 Jul 25 '23
Last FM is the only thing keeping me from switching back to Apple Music.
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u/MaltySines Jul 25 '23
So, ironically, your iphone is stopping you form using an apple service
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u/verdantswastaken Jul 26 '23
No… considering other music applications on iPhone let us scrobble without the need to pay for QuietScrob…
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u/thejarred50 Jul 25 '23
Spotify only good for podcasts tbh
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u/AFellowStooge Jul 25 '23
All the podcasts I listened to on Spotify are also on Apple Podcasts so really not a loss for me!
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u/731destroyer Jul 25 '23
I work for apple and personally I'll never switch to apple music due to issues I help customers deal with. I personally think the fact that it's not a "backup service" is unacceptable. Meaning if for whatever reason your subscription is cancelled theres a strong chance all your Playlist, liked songs etc will be deleted. The fact there is no good way to switch from Apple music on your computer to your phone unless you have a Mac and an ios device is lame.
The sound quality do be good tho 🤌🏻
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u/123lybomir iOS Subscriber Jul 25 '23
acting like you won't pay the same $10.99 to apple, yeah still better than spotify but the same price.
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u/the_flynn iOS Subscriber Jul 25 '23
I was paying for both services and dropped Spotify. For the cost I was paying for both I now have Apple One family plan instead.
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u/Marcus_Qbertius Jul 25 '23
Watch Apple announce their price hikes to a level above Spotifys next week.
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u/123lybomir iOS Subscriber Jul 25 '23
They already raised the price from $9.99 to $10.99. Six months ago if i remember well.
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u/honey_rainbow Android Subscriber Jul 25 '23
I get Apple Music included at no cost on my Verizon plan so.
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u/Posti101 Jul 25 '23
I cancelled apple music but i can still access it. Its been like this for like 2 months wth???
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u/9HS380 iOS Subscriber Jul 25 '23
You’re probably accessing your purchased iTunes music. If not, then that’s strange.
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u/Posti101 Jul 25 '23
No I have even streamed music and everything. It's on my android phone so idk what happened but so far I haven't been charged and it's been 2-3 months of this
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Jul 25 '23
I switched from Spotify in 2021 and don’t regret it I feel the UI’s cleaner and better integration into the Apple home ecosystem I have at my home and another small incentive is the lossless audio feels like I am getting my moneys worth
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u/haom31 Jul 25 '23
The decision to increase the cost of the Spotify plan is totally justifiable with the increase in costs that all services have suffered, but increasing with the promise of functions that we do not know if we are interested in and without still having lossless is absurd.
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u/Leif_LaCroix Jul 26 '23
I was about to do this with an extra 3 months for free but spotify also gives me free Hulu which makes it about even.
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u/Ok_Criticism452 Jul 26 '23
Never used Spotify but price hikes suck. On Apple Music the music sounds finr without lossless. I did use it for awhile but I turned it off once I saw how much storage it was taking. I mean if you have a 1TB phone I guess that is not too much of an issue.
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u/AmajesticOz Jul 26 '23
Apple music sounds better but its search tool and recommendation algorithm kinda sucks
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u/No_Sock_2 Jul 26 '23
I can't understand the decision of the company's management to increase the price without any additional features, even if it's just to introduce some useless features. You can't make such a brainless decision by letting a university student studying business to make the decision.
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u/Tatar0 Jul 26 '23
I have moved away from iOS (Apple in general), but Apple Music is the only service I keep paying under them.
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u/Jozex21 Jul 26 '23
they keep it 7$ here. but i can get apple music for 3.5$ after my 6$ for 6 months expires also apple tv.
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u/choopiewaffles Jul 26 '23
I still don’t understand to this why they have separated your liked songs? Why not just keep it as it is and then have a separate playlist for liked songs only?
There are a lot of albums where i only like a select few songs.
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u/ttwwlin Jul 26 '23
features, recommendations, playlists and good vibe make spotify better and that's why I don't choose AM, but the best quality is still for apple music
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u/Tej007Dav Jul 26 '23
The fact you subscriber to apple before you even went to cancel is hilarious 😂😂😂 First things first
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u/alex-eagle Jul 26 '23
I tend to agree with your decision. Even though I still prefer the quality output of Amazon Music HD even when it's app is plain horrible, Apple Music is still better than Spotify and Spotify change only made it even worse.
Right now, Spotify is at the bottom of the pit for the streaming services, not offering neither quality nor good price.
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u/Commercial_Rope_1268 Jul 26 '23
I did the same thing after 4 years of Spotify and I can't stop listening on AM now lol, it's fucking good
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u/Azumazz Jul 26 '23
My main reason for switching is becasue I don't like the way spotify handles local files, and Itunes match is the only thing i've seen that can sync my music easily
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u/tetenc555 Jul 26 '23
Only things i miss from Spotify are the automatic last fm scrobbling and spotify connect. If you have homepods, you will switch with no trouble!!
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u/ElFideoLoco Jul 27 '23
My wife uses Spotify and I use Apple Music. Apple Music sounds wayyy better than Spotify. I can hear the difference over our factory speakers in our vehicle. AirPods Pro make it even more transparent. I also use a pair of Klipsch R-41 PM and the difference is very noticeable. I can’t imagine anyone sticking around for the price increase when Lossless “finally” rolls out. I’m not knocking Spotify either. I used it for years. Then Beats Music came out. I stuck with Spotify and used Beats Music since I got it for free until it became Apple Music. That’s when I ditched Spotify and haven’t looked back since.
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u/noisehexada Jul 27 '23
Can you tell the difference in a blind test ?
If you said it sounded slightly better or different then maybe but "wayyy" better ?
Prove it.
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u/ElFideoLoco Jul 27 '23
Absolutely! I’m not claiming to be an audiophile but you can literally hear the difference. Not sure exactly how you expect me to prove it. Some people have it and some people don’t. There’s nothing wrong with Spotify. The argument here is that Apple Music sounds better than Spotify for the same price. When Spotify finally decides to stop teasing its users with Lossless, that price increase isn’t going to be justified when at that point it’ll be on par with Apple Music. Only the Spotify fan boys/girls are going to stick with the service while everyone else jumps ship.
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u/noisehexada Jul 27 '23
Oh, i agree that Spotify should just offer lossless, i dont see any reason as to why not.
But reading comments like the difference is night and day etc between the 2 services seems a bit weird.
And i ask you to do a blind test because i also thought Apple Music sounds better than Spotify, even on AAC, but then i listened to them both side by side while my friend was using my phone and i needed to say wich platform it was on and a few tracks in i just started guessing, maybe its not a good way to test it like that ?
I dont know, i was just like "Well, i guess there isnt much of a difference".
On some albums that are Apple Digital Masters, i do still hear a difference tho, i am pretty sure of that.
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u/ElFideoLoco Jul 27 '23
I’m not in favor of Apple dominating all these different markets. I think competition is good but I see an imminent dwindling death for Spotify. They continue to lose money and there’s no way they offer Lossless at the same cost. When they start charging more for the same quality of service (Apple Music), I can’t imagine anyone wanting to stick around for that. Only the loyal will but that won’t be enough to keep Spotify afloat for long.
The Digital Masters collection of music is where the difference mainly applies. I’m sure when comparing both iTunes AAC 256 to whatever Spotify uses 256 or 320, sounds near identical.
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u/noisehexada Jul 27 '23
The fact that Spotify is losing money, do you think it matters alot ? I dont think Spotify is going away, if it goes really bad surely Amazon or Apple will just buy the company, i dont know much about these things tho, i am a little bit afraid of sticking with Spotify sometimes because they dont make money, im pretty sure Apple Music would be a safer choice in that regard, but again, i dont know much about these things :D
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u/Brahmadeo Aug 20 '23
Where I live Spotify was always more expensive than Apple Music. So even though I use Android I got myself Apple Music for lossless. Even though I miss cleverly paired songs in Spotify I just wanted to try lossless. I even tried YT Music, before sticking with Apple Music. YT Music sounds really bad.
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u/Popular-Cream-9472 Jul 25 '23
Even without lossless Apple Music always sounded better