My curiosity has once again got the better of me. Today, I am curious, which music streaming service do Mac Power Users use?
0 voters
I also kindly request to those who are not subscribed to a streaming service to share what your alternative is and what your current music listening setup looks like (thank you @andy4222 )
Other: Amazon Music.
I voted “Spotify” but use Apple Music about the same amount of time. The Apple Music apps on macOS and mobile platforms are horrible messes.
From the given options: Spotify.
In addition: Soundcloud.
I have a library of ripped CDs, vinyl, archived mix-sets and some Bandcamp albums stored in Apple Music via iTunes Match. It’s nice to know it’s there, but the reality is that I rarely go to Apple Music these days. Uploading things got complicated, some files never matched/synced, and it became a bit of a headache to maintain, so I ported it to Dropbox. I use Evermusic (and sometimes even Readdle Documents— surprisingly functional music player) to stream my own personal library of music from Dropbox on occasion, but I typically default to the other two above.
I used Spotify a long time ago. On the very day Apple Music launched I subscribed to it and haven’t looked back ever since. The most important feature for me that sets it apart from Spotifyis the ability to upload my own content. Doesn’t mean I’m happy with the state of Music apps on iOS and macOS. Particularly the latter one, it’s still a mess in terms of UI and behaviour, some bugs have taken an embarrassing amount of time to fix. Still, it’s better than having to suffer through the electron app (Spotify).
In addition to that, I don’t like the Spotify’s push towards podcasting. I also don’t really care about the whole social media buzz around Spotify’s yearly summaries. Playlists aren’t my kind of thing either – I sometimes use them but generally I prefer either using personal radio station (as a kind of “I’m feeling lucky” button) or picking items manually from my library or recently added.
Other: (Spotify, Amazon Music) Which ever promotes free or discounted offers for 3 months. Just use it during that time.
Spotify or Apple Music, depending on which one I can get a month for free, or 3 months for €9.99…
Thanks for the Evermusic recommendation. I’ve been looking for something like this for a while!
Looks like exactly what I’m looking for too! Thanks…
I mainly use Spotify because all of my friends and family use it, so it is easy to share music with them. I might switch to Apple Music after they reveal what they are doing with Primephonic, since classical music is important to me and most streaming services do a bad job with it.
Other: Qobuz + Roon for home listening on our hi-fi set up, our macs, and our tablets.
An aside: We moved to a Roon Nucleus based system after we digitized our entire CD collection (to flac, not wav or alac). Since we’ve been working on said collection since 1986 (we’re OLD!) it was huge. Qobuz plays very, very well with Roon. (We did toy with the idea of using a mac mini for our Roon core, but at the time Roon’s own device was a better option.) The very best thing about Roon is that we didn’t have to go nuts manually tagging our digitized collection: Roon is able to tell us what’s what even for the oldest, most obscure recordings in our collection.
Since Apple Music comes free with our Verizon plan, I use it on the go, more out of inertia than anything else. If I were working in an office, I’d probably use Qobuz’ mobile app there too.
PS: even though our own collection is vast, we still stream a lot of music and haven’t really bought anything new since we started using Qobuz. Except for vinyl, which the audiophile in the house ponies up for from time-to-time.
Thinking about switching from many years with Spotify. But I just started my trial with apple music and had several bugs already on macOS. You say macOS and mobile platforms are horrible messes - where does apple music work the best then?
I agree about the horrible mess with the Apple Music apps. Lately things won’t load and I have to force close the app and reopen. Has anyone else noticed this?
Ugh. Apple’s music apps. I find them as frustrating as Apple’s Books and TV apps. The UI feels cluttered, convoluted, and more about “discovery” than giving me clean and straightforward access to the library I’ve curated with care and intention. Also, if I want to know what my friends are listening to, I will ask them myself.
Apple music works the best ONLY when you don’t have access to any other music companies.
I think they are fine. I am curious. How does Spotify compare to Apple specifically?
Spotify has one big plus: because of its ad-supported free tier, you can create a playlist that anyone, including non-subscribers, can listen to. If you need to create a public playlist that’s available to anyone, Apple really isn’t an option.
As an aside: playlists aren’t just about sharing your favorite pop tunes with the world. They’re very useful for all kinds of educational purposes*, and Spotify makes the accessible to anyone with computer, phone, or tablet no matter the make or how old.
*i.e., not just in the classroom. They can enrich museum exhibits, lecture series, documentaries, etc. They can be valuable learning tools for amateur choruses, orchestras, and theater groups.
Other, My own Plex Server.
I pay for Apple Music under the family plan and use it occasionally, but Apple Music is such a mess, I moved everything to Plex over a year ago and I’m much happier.
The iTunes App from 10 years ago was such a good jukebox. Sigh
Why wouldn’t Apple Music be used in classroom? I would use it.