Key factor for me too.
1 Like
One reason:
Karaoke.
Since moving somewhere safe and boring, we built our own dive bar in the basement, which has been a great source of enjoyment for family and friends. A key feature for us ex-urbanites is the karaoke “system” (an iPad with an Apple Music subscription) sitting on a music stand and connected to a TV. Yes, we still use it for listening to music like normal folks, but the karaoke option has made the sub worth it on its own. I have no use for anything else in iCloud+ but if you have guests a lot, are singers/performers yourselves, or happen to have your own private tavern, the music subscription is well worth it, IMO. (Apologies for the lo-res pic.)
4 Likes
Besides the savings of the bundle, my car has a native Apple Music app.
1 Like
I was a MOG customer, then Beats, so I kept going with Apple. There was some free Spotify with an ad muter for awhile, and I harbor some resentment for them interfering with that. But they’re both good services.
1 Like
I left Apple Music a couple of months ago, and I think this time it’s for good—at least as a streaming service.
AM continues to straddle its old functionality as iTunes (for managing your music file collection) and its new functionality as a streaming service. Its UI for those two domains could be improved. Anyway, at some point, and I have no idea when, Apple Music’s iTunes Match service (bundled with Apple Music streaming, or a yearly subscription if you don’t have streaming) must have completely screwed up my music (files) collection. I had initially turned that on, and found it worked quite well. But between then and now, something happened, and now huge chunks of my personal library are now missing, and unfortunately I didn’t have a backup. Must have changed backup solutions between the time it happened and this year. and have let go of a bunch of the cd’s that I initially imported.
The irony is that I had already decided to switch from Apple Music to experiment with Qobuz or Tidal, because I was annoyed with AM’s interface. It was only while starting to make the switch that I discovered the destruction in my personal music collection. So now, Apple Music is relegated to its old iTunes status. It can play my music files, no iTunes Match enabled, and that’s it.
For now I’m happy with Tidal. Qobuz would be my first choice, but it doesn’t yet have a robust algorithm for music stations and discovery, and the UI is clunky.
2 Likes
iTunes match is the main reason I’m not using Apple Music at all. I didn’t have as bad as experience as you did, but Match never did what it claimed it was to do. And the interface between my files and the streaming was poorly done.
I certainly can use Apple Music with Match, but I’m holding a grudge in this case. Though the comments above about Tidal and AM giving more royalties to the artists … that might be enough for me to switch to one of them.
2 Likes
As far as I know, Qobuz pays artists the most by far. I’d switch from Tidal to Qobuz in a heartbeat if they upgrade some of the features and UI of the app. Artist royalties are a big factor for me too, so it was always between Qobuz, AM, and Tidal.
1 Like
I get YouTube Music for free with my YT Premium account. It does everything that Music did for me.
5 Likes
When Apple Music entered the market I tried it, but went back to Spotify.
Then I switched between them for some years, and now I’m all Apple Music. I don’t remember all the reasons, but Airplay and better integration with all my devices are some of them.
Nowadays, when using Spotify, it’s like using Windows 95. It looks like crap! 
1 Like
music had that running lyrics thing first, I think (dunno if Spotify has that now, I think it does). That is really important to me when listening to Death and Black Metal, plus the better sound and the cheaper price (one). It’s really a no brainer for me.
I don’t care for social playlists at all. When my kids will be 12+ that might become a problem. We will see.
1 Like
I’ve mentioned it before on the forum. I am also in the same boat.
YouTube Music is fine for me. It works well with Siri on HomePods and on the Watch, and I cannot see any benefit of paying for Apple Music. It also knew all my music tastes from YouTube use, and it works well offline.
The big plus is that you get ad-free YouTube for no extra, and most of my music comes with the original music videos, which is awesome! Plus, there are lots of live performances and other content that is not on Apple Music.
2 Likes
YT Premium is the only streaming service we pay for at home. We have our favorite streamers and YTers that’s what we watch. Even though I have Netflix and Hulu for free with TMO, and Amazon, they are not watched at all because of ads. AppleTV doesn’t even exist. 
1 Like
I get excellent value from YouTube Premium, too.
Most UK TV shows are on there two weeks after broadcast, and as an expat, this means I never run out of shows. I couldn’t bear viewing all the shows at 360p; having them in HD makes it worth the subscription without all the other benefits. I canceled Disney Plus last month because I own the movies we care about, and I canceled Apple TV ages ago as we never used it.
1 Like
I am the opposite, I pay for YT Premium for the ad-free YT, that is worth it alone for me. I thought maybe I could switch to YT music, but I find Apple Music to be far better than YT Music. Better playlists, better recommendations (granted I probably need to spend more time with it), better UI, and higher quality music. The UI alone was an instant turn off for me. That is par for the course with Google though. I generally find Google products to be rough around the edges (i.e. Android/Google Pixel Tablet).
1 Like
One none trivial feature of Apple Music to me is that Apple was the last time I looked near the top in payment rates to the artists. Far better than Spotify. Not of much significance if you listen primarily to Taylor Swift but it makes some difference to the musicians I listen to. Aside from that lossless audio is a must have. MP3s are trash.
2 Likes
It was just continutity from iTunes for me. I had a fairly hefty personal library and Apple Music was the next step.
Spotify is increasingly becoming a social network and I do NOT want that. I appreciate that Apple Music is just a Music app.
2 Likes
I have been looking into Tidal and the one thing that makes me hesitant to try it is the lack of AirPlay 2. I mainly use a Sonos system for music, but it is nice to be able to AirPlay to it. That way I can use the AM interface instead of the Sonos AM interface, which isn’t as good. But when using AirPods, isn’t Tidal going to be laggy to control them compared to Apple Music on iOS? I might be missing the point though, if sound quality is important, I shouldn’t be using AirPlay I guess?
How are the desktop (Mac/Windows) apps for Tidal?
Why would you switch, what makes you want to use it more than others if it limited and has a clunky UI? Everything I have heard about it is that people like it, but then quickly note all the drawbacks of it.
Just like the OP, I had the opportunity to try Apple Music again.
I cancelled my Spotify subscription for the duration of the trial, so I could give AM an honest go.
I went back to Spotify for 2 main reasons:
- The recommendations, artist discovery and playlists are way better than AM. It’s not even close.
- Spotify Connect is rock solid (It’s Spotify’s equivalent of Airplay). It never failed, not once. The same can’t be said of Airplay.
Airplaying to what though? From my research in the past Spotify’s lack of Airplay 2 makes it worse with things like AirPods and HomePods. Is that no longer true?
For the record, having used AirPlay for years, I don’t know what you mean about it failing. I don’t have any issues with it.
2 Likes
Tidal does indeed support AirPlay to Sonos devices that support it (and of course, other AirPlay devices too). No issue to control playback via the native interface.
If AirPlaying to just one, or a stereo pair of Sonos devices, it’s all fine. However, when playing multi-room audio, I strongly prefer the Sonos app and protocol. It NEVER has any timing issues, like I experience with AirPlay.
Not sure how to determine wheter I am using AirPlay 1 or 2 though.
1 Like