I agree but wonder if this is a sign of music streaming becoming a utility?
Do most users care about sophisticated discovery and recommendation engines? Or do they just want billboard 100 hits?
I think that is exactly it. For a pretty casual music listener like myself, I don't find a whit of difference between Apple Music and Spotify. Not that I've made a deep study of it, but then I'm a casual user.
Given that I'm pretty much all in on Apple otherwise, Apple Music seems like the natural choice to me.
I've actually found Apple Music and Spotify to have around the same quality recommendations. Both have a Discover Weekly feature, both will let you create "stations" from a song or artist. Neither are great or innovative in any way but they sort of get the job done. The recommendations are miles ahead of YouTube but that's not saying much.
Amazon music has two variants, the kind that comes with prime, and unlimited. The unlimited variety is price competitive with Apple Music I believe.
My experience with the prime version has been poor. Aside from selection, it is just not a well written service. Replay bugs are common, and it regularly decides to change what station I was listening to for no discernible reason. The “stations” are clearly just playlists, because if you listen long enough they end up looping.
That's incorrect. Apple Music have a lot of programmatic recommendations. New Music Mix is programmatic. As is clicking on any song and creation a station from it.
I listen to some relatively obscure music, and Spotify never seems to have what I'm looking for, and if they do it's usually only their latest or most popular album. I switched to Apple Music over a year ago and their catalog seems drastically more complete.
I also like how well it integrates with Homepod. Homepod hasn't been well received but I personally love it. It can hear me from 30 feet away and it sounds incredible!
That is very interesting to hear. I should probably take it for a spin, then. The mobile app doesn't seem too bad but the thought of using iTunes again is dreadful.
Apple Music does have a larger library. I also think both of the services have reached a point of "good enough". If you want to stream and play music, they both work well enough.
For me Spotify is terrible. I don't know if it has been improved now but the UI experiences other than the look were unpolished and confusing. Worst of all, I didn't like the idea of playlist-based organizations over album-based organizations like iTunes/Apple Music. The songs were just so messy for minor music listeners like me.
I still don’t understand how Spotify doesn’t invest more in its iOS experience. Sure, they don’t have access to Siri, but that’s the only thing outside their control: The Spotify app takes far too long to load for a music player, even on an iPhone XS; the UI takes a one-size-fits-all approach to list views that looks slapdash compared to Apple Music’s nice album view; the now-playing screen is cluttered and still inexplicably hides the status bar on modern, large phones.
And don’t get me started on how they threw away their excellent iPad UI in favor of a blown-up version of the phone UI.
If Spotify is losing to Apple Music, the answer is a better core experience, not bundling Hulu.
The things I hate about the Apple app are the fact I can’t swipe from the left to queue a new song, and the fact that if you’re shuffling all songs then you simply can’t use the play next feature at all. That ability did exist at one point, along with play last (it would queue a song at the end of the play next queue, but before the rest of the shuffled songs), but it’s been removed since iOS 9 or 10 now.
I'm not sure when you last checked, but you can add songs either next in the queue or at the end of the queue when shuffling songs.
I've just tested this on iOS 12.2.
While you can't swipe to queue, you can force-touch on a song to bring up the quick menu, and then release over 'play-next'. A different gesture, but still a single gesture/tap.
I'd say Apple's iOS apps are mostly the best, and sadly also because of access to private APIs.
Never really digged the über dark theme of Spotify, used to be less dark —and nicer to my taste— when I started using it back in 2008 on macOS –when they _did_ have a native app.
I am one of the people contributing to this trend. I tried Spotify first and switched to Apple Music. The family plan and my Sonos speakers just didn’t work on Spotify. Maybe they fixed, but I have no reason to check.
Just works is such a huge selling point for most consumers.
Yes, but “just works” is because Apple allows itself preferential Siri integration, which would be an antitrust case if the Justice Department was worth a shit.
Wow, very interesting. Never actually thought Apple would win the US music subscription market.
I am though a user myself of Apple Music, and the app I must say, on iOS, is way better, and the no. 1 reason I switched from Spotify when Apple Music launched.
I switched from GPM when AM launched. GPM was fine, but like many things google it had little direction. Is it even going to stay around or will youtube music be the new thing? Dunno.
AM works fine and gives recommendations that I like. I also rarely run into music that's not on AM like I used to do on Spotify.
AM can also be purchased for the year for $99. Combine that with a $100 iTunes gift card that can often be found for $85 or even $80 (often around Christmas time), and unlimited music for the year becomes rather inexpensive.
Apple abuses its position as platform gatekeeper to get its own products in front of its customers.
Anyone who has used both products knows Spotify is objectively better in terms of music discovery and the social aspects of music. Not to mention, spotify works everywhere. Apple music only works on iOS and MacOS.
I found that Spotify was worse at music discovery, and I use Apple Music across Windows, iOS, and macOS, with little to no trouble.
The discovery features in Apple Music are seemingly more tuned into my varied tastes. When I tried Spotify last year, no matter what I listened to or added to my library, it kept recommending a small selection of Rap albums, even though I was listening to far more than just rap. Spotify latched onto one thing and just ran with it. I haven't seen Apple Music do that to my recommendations.
saying it works on android is a bit generous. haha. i was paying for it and using it, but it was a terrible experience. apple music on android often couldn't even play music downloaded unless it had a screaming internet connection. i have no idea what the download feature was even for. and there were countless bugs and usability issues. maybe it's better now, but it was terrible around a year or two ago.
I used to pay for Spotify, it was lame, didn't have all the music I wanted, then I got Google Play All Music Access, I have not needed anything else since. I assume Apple Music is similar enough. I've not had to pirate music in half a decade because it just works, and I can cache songs to my device too.
I can see why Apple would dominate for iPhone / Apple users though.
I can't honestly, apple music like many apple services is impossible to use outside their ecosystem, while play music (which I use) I can use in my iPad and my Google pixel for instance. Apple is able to dominate the US market in ways very hard for me to understand, another example is iMessage.
The iMessage domination is automatic -- if you message from an Apple device to a phone number that happens to be an Apple device (which the sender might be oblivious to), it's an iMessage. People aren't subscribing to iMessage, or intentionally choosing it, the thing is just the default in that case.
Apple Music heavily pushed, on the device, a 3 month free trial, and it's about time that most of those 3 month trials expire. I imagine the number will drop substantially after.
I was surprised when a young girl I know was asking for an iPhone over an Android specifically because of iMessage. I gather the main piece of functionality here is that other iPhone users she texts know that she’s using an iPhone. Gotta get that vanity blue text.
It makes a big difference in group messages. Group messages just outright suck on android. And if you're in a group chat with both iphone and android people it doesn't always send messages to the android people
> it's about time that most of those 3 month trials expire. I imagine the number will drop substantially after.
Apple's been heavily pushing the service with the same 3 month trial for several years and has seen huge growth over the whole period. There's no big correction that's waiting to hit.
Despite numerous Apple devices I'd never gotten so forceful a push for Apple Music as I did early this year, and indeed Apple has started using tactics that were verboten before, such as push notifications. Of course there is "huge growth", there is a billion devices and they push it with the platform. I do think there are going to be enough people that just don't find it good enough.
I remember using Apple Music on an android phone and windows pc when the service launched. As far as I know there are no official options for using Apple Music on linux.
I use a MBP, iMac, and my phone is an iPhone XR (which I steadfastly and wrongly call the "ex-ar"). I'm a very happy user of Spotify and after doing the trial of Apple Music cancelled the latter and still continue with the former. I tried Google Play Music a while back and honestly thought it was just terrible, though maybe it got better since.
Spotify has all the music I've ever searched for. It has great curated playlists, and great algorithmic playlists. It has great "related music". They've gotten that all down brilliantly. Of course it has the ability to download playlists if you will be offline.
The app is available on everything, and the integration between devices is brilliant. It's on my LG TV, my Windows desktop, the xbox...every device. Spotify has no platform bias -- their entire business is modeled around streaming music, and not pushing some secondary goal which inevitably is what Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc have in mind.
Guess I will cancel my service if YouTube Music is nowhere near as good as All Music Access. I am starting to want to get an iPhone more as time passes.
For me Spotify is about a good/decent app no matter the platform, great/good recommendations - at least for me, and as far as I can tell, they are trying to innovate without completely forgetting their existing customers.
I agree with Elizabeth Warren that Apple should not be allowed to do this. They create the marketplace and then compete in it giving themselves advantages that they deny other companies.
Not so sure I can buy in on the idea that Apple created the music streaming market. They own the iTunes platform, but the whole marketplace? That feels a bit hyperbolic to me.
Maybe it would help if I read the entirety of Sen. Warren's statements, if you have a link at the ready I'd be happy to read it for myself. Otherwise I'll try to hunt it down and share for others who may be curious/interested to do the same.
Apple arguably created (or at least played a huge role in taking mainstream) a la carte digital music downloads. They certainly didn't create streaming. Arguably, Rhapsody did although I haven't really researched the history of paid/ad supported music streaming.
They certainly didn't create streaming. Arguably, Rhapsody did
That's the name that eluded me; my initial comment was going to mention Grooveshark but was sure there was another player who was in on the game very early on so thanks for jogging the memory there.
If you add new tires to your Tesla when you sell them you can sell the new tires with it. Try selling your apps when you sell your old iPhone. Your car is also repairable. Your iPhone is meant to be thrown away. (Not an issue exclusive iPhones)
It is nonsense to say that iPhone is not repairable.
You can goto any city on this planet and find hundreds of small third party stores who will repair it. Everything from cracked screen, new case, battery replacement etc.
The private brand doesn't have a magical ability to appear in your shopping cart when you pull out it out of the coral, or better integrate itself with the shelves in your home because the retailer also built that house.
Not really. You can usually choose another retail chain if you think the one you currently use is pricing competing products unfairly towardd with their own brand.
In the case of Apples App Store, you can't change store without a significant cost in both time and money. You literally have to buy a non-Apple phone to be able to change retailer. Potentially also having to leave behind significant already paid for products, both hardware and software.
Eh, while I’m staunchly against Apple's integrations, the App Store isn’t a relevant factor imo.
These are things inside one store, as in Spotify and Apple Music are both for sale in the one store, and while Apple takes a cut, which could force Spotify to increase their price, they do have full pricing autonomy.
I’m not entirely against the fact that Apple has a walled garden in the form of the App Store, just because they do seem to invest in keeping a certain standard of quality unlike Google, but I’d say that’s a separate issue.
And Spotify probably doesn’t want to be in the store business anyways even if Apple allowed it, Epic Games is probably the first major case I heard of a company doing similar on Android (where it’s allowed) and almost immediately they opened a security vulnerability into everyone’s phones so...
I don't really understand your counter argument.
As I was responding to a comment regarding similarities between the app store and a common retail store, I can't see how the app store could ever be irrelevant in this particular comparison?
> As I was responding to a comment regarding similarities between the app store and a common retail store
I read that comment as regarding similarities between two different apps that stream music, and two different brands of the same product in a store.
The store the two brands are in isn't really relevant past the fact the same company that that owns the store owns one of the brands, and certainly the nature of the store doesn't affect the comparison.
In addition, there's no shortage of competing services readily available. The only thing they might have to do is make it a separate, must-be-downloaded app. Anything else is kinda tyranny.
I've worked selling retail electronics, it was long ago, but I can extrapolate and infer that people generally don't understand much about the app store, and almost nobody choose Apple because of some well though through reasoning behind different app store models.
What most people do understand is based on experience in the physical world, where expectations of fair pricing is reasonable, because when you can select whatever store you want, that is an expected effect.
>almost nobody choose Apple because of some well though through reasoning behind different app store models.
No, but maybe they chose Apple because on Android their lockscreen got taken over by the top result for flashlight which is actually malware (something that happened to a family member and drove me to recommend Apple)
It was a free purchase and there wasn't a built-in flashlight app, just a flash light quick setting, and they weren't familiar with quick settings.
Also what kind of strange victim blaming is this? You want to know why they got a flashlight app instead of knowing why the top Play Store result is malware?
I might buy an argument if full Apple Music were bundled into the purchase price of an iPhone or Apple blocked Spotify but that's not the case here. You still need to buy a subscription and downloading a Spotify app is just a few clicks away.
Apple recently pushed 2 push notifications to my phone related to promotional pricing for Apple Music. Apple disallows Spotify to advertise promotions in-app.
Apple disallows Spotify access to full Watch APIs and Siri APIs they themselves leverage for Apple Music.
Apple also occasionally bullies Spotify by keeping app review in limbo.
Additionally, Spotify eats the 30% Apple tax, and I would imagine the costs for music licensing rights are fairly inelastic.
Apple is not playing fair. They don’t even follow their own App Store rules.
>Additionally, Spotify eats the 30% Apple tax, and I would imagine the costs for music licensing rights are fairly inelastic.
They don't because they disabled it years ago. Also it's not really Apple's problem that Spotify paying for distribution makes their business worse off. They should just eat the cost just like they do when all those wireless carriers that bundle Spotify take their cut.
> Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used for advertising, promotions, or direct marketing purposes or to send sensitive personal or confidential information. Abuse of these services may result in revocation of your privileges.
Not sure if you own an iPhone but many apps ignore that rule.
But that's not what I am talking about. It's this alleged situation where Apple is sending Apple Music notifications not from the app but from the OS itself.
Dominos is the biggest offender of this of any app I have ever seen. Apple does not make any money from the in app purchases since it is physical goods, yet I see no push from Apple to revoke Dominos app.
Again, rules are applied inconsistent based on company.
>> Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used for advertising, promotions, or direct marketing purposes or to send sensitive personal or confidential information.
Serious question: how do I report apps that violate this guideline?
Nope. You can use AirPlay to stream music from other services (like Spotify) through your iOS/macOS device to the HomePod (while using voice commands, if you wish, to that device), but Apple Music can be natively played by the HomePod by issuing voice commands directly to it.
So far, HomePod is looking like a Version 0 product from Apple. Given that it’s not even sold in many countries yet (compared to iPhone/iPad/Macs), it will be a while until it becomes a little more open. Looks like Apple hasn’t yet completely figured out the market and utility for it.
People dismiss the cost of maintaining the platform. I believe Apple’s cut is too much, but Spotify has to pay for the platform, the same way artists pay Spotify for a platform to share their music.
It's a cost for the distribution channel i.e. a cost for Spotify to easily access the hundreds of millions of iPhone users with just a few clicks on an app submission form.
A few clicks is practically Mt. Everest for end users. Look at the search engine in Safari. It's a "few clicks" to change it but Google still pays Apple 8 billion dollars a year to be the default.
I’d agree with you if it weren’t for the fact that Apple blocks Spotify from offering its own subscription link in the app. By forcing businesses on the App Store to choose between Apple’s in-app purchase system for a 30% cut and using an external payment processor that they are forbidden from linking to (or even referencing!) in the app, Apple retains a substantial, anti-competitive advantage over anyone operating on its platform.
I find this to be pretty elucidating on the situation of Apple/Spotify. I'll admit Warren's suggestion had me raising a bit of an eyebrow but taking the time to understand Spotify's position a bit definitely gave me some clarity and I'm certainly less incredulous than I was before.
Given the debate at hand, this link is definitely worth a read.
The top grossing iOS app (Tinder.app) somehow is not really complaining about this though, but that's because most their revenue comes from the iOS in app purchases.
apple doesn’t have a competing tinder app. apple forced the 30% upon spotify, causing a price increase for spotify, but then apple released apple music at spotify’s old price, undercutting them.
this article implies that no, it is indeed 30% for any new user, at least for netflix, but then that matches up with what spotify claims. spotify also claims that apple changes what policy applies to each company. it does mention the second year reduction, but that seems to be for other apps?
i think it's at least clear that apple makes it a little unclear what they exactly do. i have heard from more than one app developer (from big companies) complain about apple's arbitrary app store processes.
Apple has premium only streaming service. No surprise it's better than freemium Spotify. Reportedly from what I googled Spotify has about third of active users paying any subscription fee, while it's 100% for Apple.
I love how they're comparing Spotify's 10$ vs Apple Music 10$ subscription.
Completely forgetting that Apple Music is premium only service, while Spotify' minority of paying customers carry majority of freeloaders. Very "fair" comparison.
(I know that Spotify have ads, but ad revenue is significantly less than 10$/m)
It's a 30% cut for using Apple's distribution channel. And no Apple doesn't let app developers use the channel whilst telling their users how to bypass the 30% cut.
Just like I can't go to any retail store today and on any of the clothes or boxes find a giant sticker that says "buy this product on our website for 20% cheaper". No retailer would tolerate that.
No-one, not Spotify or the end user, has ever chosen to use the app store. Apple's vertical integration has banned all competition for iOS distribution and forced people to pay a 30% tariff top run code on their own machine.
I think this is similar to grocery store brands. Do you think that grocery stores should not be allowed to charge name brands for shelf space because they are competing against store owned private label brands?
I regularly shop at three different grocery chain stores. It's way easier for customers to switch between them compared to being locked into the Apple app store.
100% of iPhone users use iOS doesn't matter what the total smartphone use percentage is. It was the same when railway Barron's started capturing the other markets when they owned the railways each railway barron owned their own track and people had alternate routes
The sale of apps basically died years ago. Most of the revenue from apps is either coming from in app purchases of consumables or subscription service that are cross platform.
Music that you bought from iTunes has been DRM free for ages.
Most movies purchased from iTunes are transferable to Google Play, Amazon Video and Vudu vis the Movies Anywhere app.
You’re right about the ease of switching. I think buying a wholesale club membership card is more analogous. You could buy a Costco card and a sam’s club card if you wanted, but there’s likely not many people who do. People actually prefer the shopping process at Costco for example, and they pay a yearly fee for it, just as people like the shopping/app purchasing experience on an iPhone, and they paid a substantial amount of money for the phone.
That's a good argument, and I've actually discussed that issue in the past wrt grocery stores. Those grocery store brands seem to be good for consumers, but bad for a world where people can start successful companies and work for themselves. Maybe its just more efficient to have one giant megacorp make and sell every single thing, but I'd be willing to spend a bit extra so all my self employed friends wouldn't ever be forced to get 'real' jobs
If there were only two grocery store chains in the entire world, and no other way for CPG companies to sell to consumers, I think it would be quite similar indeed.
Isn’t this more soft handed than exclusivity deals (which is really a kind of non-compete)? And people seem quite okay with those, even though such deals smells like the product of extremely lopsided power.
I see Apple as a plaza owner who opens up a few of their own shops in that plaza. Or Safeway selling some store “generics” branded by them.
Spotify doesn’t allow in app subscriptions - so it’s not paying the 30% cut.
Should we also stop Google from surfacing reviews, hotel reservations, etc before competitors since it doesn’t have to pay itself for top placement?
Should we stop console makers from also being publishers since they don’t have to pay themselves a licensing fee - yes physicsl media from third parties have to pay a licensing fee.
Should we stop physicsl distributors from having store brands?
And so does Google on Android.
Sure you could argue about side loading apps using other Android app stores, but do they provide timely updates and security as Google Play Store?
No matter the app store, I imagine the developers would want their users to have recent versions installed, at least the ones who would update them on Google Play.
It's similar to all cloud companies. They provide infrastructure services first. Then they observe what services built on top sell best. Then they provide software as a service that competes with similar services on the their platform.
For what it's worth, I only switched from Spotify to Apple music because it integrates better with the rest of the Apple ecosystem, despite the core experience being worse.
The fact that this is true not for lack of willingness on Spotify's part, but because Apple restricts integration for third-party developers is the reason Apple should be absolutely nailed to the wall with an antitrust charge.
For someone already invested in the Apple ecosystem, Apple Music makes the most sense because of the seamless integration. I don’t see the appeal of competitors given the similar pricing and features.
I was on Spotify and when apple music came did a quick check with 10 regional language songs from one state in India. Apple music had all 10 and Spotify missed 6-7 of those. Pretty unscientific but good enough for me to move to Apple Music.
I switched between Apple Music and Spotify. I transferred my playlists using SongShift. After some time, I personally enjoy Spotify more primarily due to social aspect + music discovery and ended up cancelling my Apple Music subscription after several months.
I was happily on Spotify for years and then we had kids. With no explicit filtering and repeated requests from many users (look up forums) to filter falling on deaf ears I had no choice but to move to iTunes. I just can’t have explicit language and lyrics blaring around the house with toddlers. It makes me sad because I loved the UX and selection in Spotify, as well as controlling playback from any device. Why Apple won’t allow you to control playback from anywhere is beyond me.
This is an honest question. I'm from Sweden, have kids, but I have such a hard time understanding the issue with explicit language filters in this context.
Why are the filters so important?
What is the 'use case'?
I'm also not surprised it's hard to get a Swedish founded company to introduce explicit filters. At least to me and my peers, the explicit words thing - beeps and all - is one of the most mystifying parts of US culture, especially since the same words also are so prominent in a lot of popular culture. So whatever culture you're from, getting a "Swedish" company to understand, and implement explicit filters is going to be an uphill battle because of this.
Locally, they would probably also be considered old and stodgy if they did it, not unlikely it cost them quite a few of the younger users.
I was with you until the last bit. I'm a young(ish) Spotify user and it wouldn't make a difference to me whether they implemented this or not. If someone people want a filter, let them use it. Doesn't affect me.
A good reverse analogy here would be TV advertisements targeted at children.
In the US, nobody really thinks twice about toy commercials run during cartoons, but in Sweden, these have been made illegal.
I'm not advocating for or against either, just pointing out that it is usually significant to the culture for some historical reason or another. As long as it's not causing harm, it's usually up to the service provider to decide to or ensure if they are going to cater to the cultural norms of that market.
I have a similar grief with how they include videos in their curated playlists with no way to disable them. I find the videos distracting and happen to work in a location that has just enough reception that music streams fine, but the videos hiccup and stutter or fail to play completely. Failing would be great, but it essentially stops the playlist until I go in and skip the video manually. It's maddening and there's no plans to enable this feature:
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Music-Option-to-...
I'm not an Apple guy, so my built in bias means I haven't used Apple Music, but maybe I should give it a chance.
For me the big reason I went with Apple Music is CarPlay. It it so nice to just push a button on the steering wheel and say “Hey Siri play <Song|Album> by <Artist>“
Apple's branding power can really provide solid leverage as they bolster services. I'm a Spotify subscriber but when Apple Music came out I considered getting an iPhone for the first time that year, ultimately I did not get an iPhone but I'm sure millions of users converted to be more integrated with the Apple environment.
I used to have a spotify subscription, but it felt weird to have nothing at the end of 6 months. I cancelled it and just started buying music regularly. I spend a lot less and I actually 'own' (ish) a decent sized library now.
I can relate to that. Given that the music industry as a whole just wants to maximise average spending per person, a package deal of a streaming subscription with a trickle of permanent licences added as the cherry on top could surely entice many to increase their spending to subscription level. Eligibility to once a month promote one favorite track to "keeper" or something like that.
I doubt that it would cannibalize much, because I really think that pretty much everyone who currently buys some of the content they already pay for in a subscription is doing so for a physical copy (which would not be part of the cherry-on-top trickle). It also would not threaten the subscription, because the library one could build from that would not reach "cord cutting" volume even after a lifetime of trickle licences.
As usual, it won't exist because content owners can never understand that they would not lose anything.
If they created the market, why is this a problem? In my head, it’s their market, so they can decide what to allow and provide, the same way Kirkland does at Costco. They’re not even a majority, let alone a monopoly. It’s anti competitive, but I don’t understand the need for outside intervention.
It's interesting to consider how commodified music streaming has become. I'd be interested to see how many people actually have any kind of loyalty to one platform over the other, or if their choice is more reflective of which one fulfills one or two preferential details better in this relative moment.
Thinking about my personal choice, I choose Spotify over apple music because I like the library interface better. I also used Apple Music exclusively from launch until two years ago because I previously had a large local library of my own through iTunes. Both are great services, but once I transitioned into a fully streamed library, Spotfiy became more appealing to me for smaller and smaller reasons. My impression is that with the ubiquity of streaming and general consistency of quality, preference largely becomes a product of what platform is the most readily available.
While I am fairly staunch in my preference for Spotify at the moment, but I am not sympathetic to their position against Apple's terms. I fully acknowledge that not all apps that operate in Apple's ecosystem are treated totally equally, but remember, equality and fairness are not the same thing. It is their ecosystem after all and it is in their best interest to be selective in how they maintain it. So while it Spotify may not be treated equally, it is my opinion that they are treated fairly within Apple's walled garden.
It is sad to see how Apple has turned form being better but not getting the MarketShares in the old days ( Mac ), to Now getting MarketShare but not having the better product ( Apple Music vs Spotify )
And in the new evidence of DHH's tweets and finding about MacBook Keyboard being much much worst than we thought. I am losing faith in Tim Cook's Apple.
Streaming music services will get dominated by the companies that have ancillary product revenues not directly related to music. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon will be the survivors in this race to the bottom as it makes little difference whether their music services are highly profitable or not. Before arguing with me about this, think about how little actual profit exists in Pandora and Spotify and how hard it would be to change that equation. It isn't that the big guys are predatory (maybe they are) it is that they make money selling something other than music, but music is a necessary part of making their other products complete.
Making a profit from selling music in a service is a very tough business.
I still very much like Spotify. They have a superior product. I think Apple with it’s billions could probably fund a bigger library but I subscribed to Apple Music for 90 days and I didn’t have a great experience.
If I was Spotify, I would continue investing to make the best music subscription product hands down.
193 comments
[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 231 ms ] threadGiven that I'm pretty much all in on Apple otherwise, Apple Music seems like the natural choice to me.
My experience with the prime version has been poor. Aside from selection, it is just not a well written service. Replay bugs are common, and it regularly decides to change what station I was listening to for no discernible reason. The “stations” are clearly just playlists, because if you listen long enough they end up looping.
If it wasn’t free, I wouldn’t use it.
And don’t get me started on how they threw away their excellent iPad UI in favor of a blown-up version of the phone UI.
If Spotify is losing to Apple Music, the answer is a better core experience, not bundling Hulu.
I've just tested this on iOS 12.2.
While you can't swipe to queue, you can force-touch on a song to bring up the quick menu, and then release over 'play-next'. A different gesture, but still a single gesture/tap.
Never really digged the über dark theme of Spotify, used to be less dark —and nicer to my taste— when I started using it back in 2008 on macOS –when they _did_ have a native app.
Just works is such a huge selling point for most consumers.
You just have a tenuous grasp on when/where antitrust can be applied.
I have a pair of Sonos Play 1 speakers in the house and have not had any issues with Spotify for the past few months.
I am though a user myself of Apple Music, and the app I must say, on iOS, is way better, and the no. 1 reason I switched from Spotify when Apple Music launched.
AM works fine and gives recommendations that I like. I also rarely run into music that's not on AM like I used to do on Spotify.
AM can also be purchased for the year for $99. Combine that with a $100 iTunes gift card that can often be found for $85 or even $80 (often around Christmas time), and unlimited music for the year becomes rather inexpensive.
Anyone who has used both products knows Spotify is objectively better in terms of music discovery and the social aspects of music. Not to mention, spotify works everywhere. Apple music only works on iOS and MacOS.
False: https://musi.sh
The discovery features in Apple Music are seemingly more tuned into my varied tastes. When I tried Spotify last year, no matter what I listened to or added to my library, it kept recommending a small selection of Rap albums, even though I was listening to far more than just rap. Spotify latched onto one thing and just ran with it. I haven't seen Apple Music do that to my recommendations.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...
Not objectively. In your opinion.
I like to discover new music via the Beats 1 series of radio stations which Spotify is incredibly poor at.
I can see why Apple would dominate for iPhone / Apple users though.
Apple Music heavily pushed, on the device, a 3 month free trial, and it's about time that most of those 3 month trials expire. I imagine the number will drop substantially after.
Apple's been heavily pushing the service with the same 3 month trial for several years and has seen huge growth over the whole period. There's no big correction that's waiting to hit.
Spotify has all the music I've ever searched for. It has great curated playlists, and great algorithmic playlists. It has great "related music". They've gotten that all down brilliantly. Of course it has the ability to download playlists if you will be offline.
The app is available on everything, and the integration between devices is brilliant. It's on my LG TV, my Windows desktop, the xbox...every device. Spotify has no platform bias -- their entire business is modeled around streaming music, and not pushing some secondary goal which inevitably is what Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc have in mind.
https://www.reddit.com/r/googleplaymusic/comments/b94zf6/goo...
That's the name that eluded me; my initial comment was going to mention Grooveshark but was sure there was another player who was in on the game very early on so thanks for jogging the memory there.
Apple just had the market clout to make labels acquiesce to doing it legally.
It's trivial to change retailer, not so changing which app-store you use, especially not on Apple hardware.
I can't buy a Tesla, Tiffanys etc at any other place except their retail store.
You can goto any city on this planet and find hundreds of small third party stores who will repair it. Everything from cracked screen, new case, battery replacement etc.
In the case of Apples App Store, you can't change store without a significant cost in both time and money. You literally have to buy a non-Apple phone to be able to change retailer. Potentially also having to leave behind significant already paid for products, both hardware and software.
These are things inside one store, as in Spotify and Apple Music are both for sale in the one store, and while Apple takes a cut, which could force Spotify to increase their price, they do have full pricing autonomy.
I’m not entirely against the fact that Apple has a walled garden in the form of the App Store, just because they do seem to invest in keeping a certain standard of quality unlike Google, but I’d say that’s a separate issue.
And Spotify probably doesn’t want to be in the store business anyways even if Apple allowed it, Epic Games is probably the first major case I heard of a company doing similar on Android (where it’s allowed) and almost immediately they opened a security vulnerability into everyone’s phones so...
I read that comment as regarding similarities between two different apps that stream music, and two different brands of the same product in a store.
The store the two brands are in isn't really relevant past the fact the same company that that owns the store owns one of the brands, and certainly the nature of the store doesn't affect the comparison.
If they thought that having multiple stores was important to them they would use Android.
Nobody is going into the phone purchasing process blind.
What most people do understand is based on experience in the physical world, where expectations of fair pricing is reasonable, because when you can select whatever store you want, that is an expected effect.
No, but maybe they chose Apple because on Android their lockscreen got taken over by the top result for flashlight which is actually malware (something that happened to a family member and drove me to recommend Apple)
Also what kind of strange victim blaming is this? You want to know why they got a flashlight app instead of knowing why the top Play Store result is malware?
Apple disallows Spotify access to full Watch APIs and Siri APIs they themselves leverage for Apple Music.
Apple also occasionally bullies Spotify by keeping app review in limbo.
Additionally, Spotify eats the 30% Apple tax, and I would imagine the costs for music licensing rights are fairly inelastic.
Apple is not playing fair. They don’t even follow their own App Store rules.
They don't because they disabled it years ago. Also it's not really Apple's problem that Spotify paying for distribution makes their business worse off. They should just eat the cost just like they do when all those wireless carriers that bundle Spotify take their cut.
Seen no evidence that Apple is sending effectively system notifications masquerading as Apple Music.
> Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used for advertising, promotions, or direct marketing purposes or to send sensitive personal or confidential information. Abuse of these services may result in revocation of your privileges.
But that's not what I am talking about. It's this alleged situation where Apple is sending Apple Music notifications not from the app but from the OS itself.
Serious question: how do I report apps that violate this guideline?
So far, HomePod is looking like a Version 0 product from Apple. Given that it’s not even sold in many countries yet (compared to iPhone/iPad/Macs), it will be a while until it becomes a little more open. Looks like Apple hasn’t yet completely figured out the market and utility for it.
Spotify doesn’t “eat” the 30% cut. You haven’t been able to sign up for Spotify through the App Store in years.
It's a cost for the distribution channel i.e. a cost for Spotify to easily access the hundreds of millions of iPhone users with just a few clicks on an app submission form.
A few clicks is practically Mt. Everest for end users. Look at the search engine in Safari. It's a "few clicks" to change it but Google still pays Apple 8 billion dollars a year to be the default.
https://timetoplayfair.com/facts/
Given the debate at hand, this link is definitely worth a read.
The top grossing iOS app (Tinder.app) somehow is not really complaining about this though, but that's because most their revenue comes from the iOS in app purchases.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17764424/netflix-feature-...
this article implies that no, it is indeed 30% for any new user, at least for netflix, but then that matches up with what spotify claims. spotify also claims that apple changes what policy applies to each company. it does mention the second year reduction, but that seems to be for other apps?
i think it's at least clear that apple makes it a little unclear what they exactly do. i have heard from more than one app developer (from big companies) complain about apple's arbitrary app store processes.
Completely forgetting that Apple Music is premium only service, while Spotify' minority of paying customers carry majority of freeloaders. Very "fair" comparison.
(I know that Spotify have ads, but ad revenue is significantly less than 10$/m)
It's a 30% cut for using Apple's distribution channel. And no Apple doesn't let app developers use the channel whilst telling their users how to bypass the 30% cut.
Just like I can't go to any retail store today and on any of the clothes or boxes find a giant sticker that says "buy this product on our website for 20% cheaper". No retailer would tolerate that.
Even the dodgy ones on eBay seem to be 10% off max, and I'm fairly sure those are primarily used for money laundering and/or credit card fraud.
Yes, but like with any other purchase, you have to get it from a reputable retailer.
I usually load up at brick-and-mortar places on Black Friday weekend and then use them the rest of the year.
You'd have to add that it's more like you own a car that will only take you to that one store.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
You can buy/sell it on eBay. Or next upgrade cycle change brands.
Music that you bought from iTunes has been DRM free for ages.
Most movies purchased from iTunes are transferable to Google Play, Amazon Video and Vudu vis the Movies Anywhere app.
edit: typo
I see Apple as a plaza owner who opens up a few of their own shops in that plaza. Or Safeway selling some store “generics” branded by them.
Should we also stop Google from surfacing reviews, hotel reservations, etc before competitors since it doesn’t have to pay itself for top placement?
Should we stop console makers from also being publishers since they don’t have to pay themselves a licensing fee - yes physicsl media from third parties have to pay a licensing fee.
Should we stop physicsl distributors from having store brands?
https://timetoplayfair.com/facts/ https://timetoplayfair.com/timeline/
none of that is hard to believe. it shows clearly that apple uses its position to cause favor for its own apps.
You mean like Siri only offers music from Apple Music and no other service?
No matter the app store, I imagine the developers would want their users to have recent versions installed, at least the ones who would update them on Google Play.
The fact that this is true not for lack of willingness on Spotify's part, but because Apple restricts integration for third-party developers is the reason Apple should be absolutely nailed to the wall with an antitrust charge.
Radio is an area that Spotify falls flat on its face. If I want to listen to random holiday music, for instance, Spotify just sucks.
Why are the filters so important? What is the 'use case'?
I'm also not surprised it's hard to get a Swedish founded company to introduce explicit filters. At least to me and my peers, the explicit words thing - beeps and all - is one of the most mystifying parts of US culture, especially since the same words also are so prominent in a lot of popular culture. So whatever culture you're from, getting a "Swedish" company to understand, and implement explicit filters is going to be an uphill battle because of this.
Locally, they would probably also be considered old and stodgy if they did it, not unlikely it cost them quite a few of the younger users.
In the US, nobody really thinks twice about toy commercials run during cartoons, but in Sweden, these have been made illegal.
I'm not advocating for or against either, just pointing out that it is usually significant to the culture for some historical reason or another. As long as it's not causing harm, it's usually up to the service provider to decide to or ensure if they are going to cater to the cultural norms of that market.
I'm not an Apple guy, so my built in bias means I haven't used Apple Music, but maybe I should give it a chance.
I doubt that it would cannibalize much, because I really think that pretty much everyone who currently buys some of the content they already pay for in a subscription is doing so for a physical copy (which would not be part of the cherry-on-top trickle). It also would not threaten the subscription, because the library one could build from that would not reach "cord cutting" volume even after a lifetime of trickle licences.
As usual, it won't exist because content owners can never understand that they would not lose anything.
Or when i can not find the CD in Amazon i usually get from 7digital.
Thinking about my personal choice, I choose Spotify over apple music because I like the library interface better. I also used Apple Music exclusively from launch until two years ago because I previously had a large local library of my own through iTunes. Both are great services, but once I transitioned into a fully streamed library, Spotfiy became more appealing to me for smaller and smaller reasons. My impression is that with the ubiquity of streaming and general consistency of quality, preference largely becomes a product of what platform is the most readily available.
While I am fairly staunch in my preference for Spotify at the moment, but I am not sympathetic to their position against Apple's terms. I fully acknowledge that not all apps that operate in Apple's ecosystem are treated totally equally, but remember, equality and fairness are not the same thing. It is their ecosystem after all and it is in their best interest to be selective in how they maintain it. So while it Spotify may not be treated equally, it is my opinion that they are treated fairly within Apple's walled garden.
And in the new evidence of DHH's tweets and finding about MacBook Keyboard being much much worst than we thought. I am losing faith in Tim Cook's Apple.
Making a profit from selling music in a service is a very tough business.
If I was Spotify, I would continue investing to make the best music subscription product hands down.