Wild Card: Streaming Competition

iPHONE MUSIC

Probably one of the most demanded features of a cellular device is some sort of music application (preferably free). I remember graduating from my MP3 player to my iPhone and having to record music from the radio as voice memos just to avoid giving iTunes any money. I craved music so badly that I would stream YouTube until my allotted data was used up. A few years later, iPhones offered third-party options for music downloads, but if you had 8-16GB of storage like I did, this freedom did not last long. iPhone’s “Music” application only recently adapted the affordable music streaming service called Apple Music. Because of its slow maturation, it left a 9-year window open to what is now known as the “undisputed king of on-demand streaming music”: Spotify. Spotify is service originated from Sweden in the April 2006 that helped pioneer the current online market and has tens of millions more paying subscribers than the competition. It recently surpassed 100 million subs! This doesn’t even count the millions of free users. Apple Music, known for its exclusive releases and its full integration into Apple’s iOS ecosystem. Apple’s streaming service has had an impressive growth in listeners, reaching about 40 million monthly subs since it went live in June 2015. It is now the most popular paid streaming service in the US, and the rapid influx for Apple Music leaves the global title up for grabs.

MUSIC POOL
Spotify first took its dominant position with its impressive 30 million-plus song catalog. This is in addition to the fact that it adds more than 20,000 new songs each day! The service definitely offers more music than your ears would even know what to do with. While several gaps do exist in its library, Spotify’s catalog is extremely deep. The proof of value was in the pudding when Taylor Swift eventually conceded her protest on receiving well-deserved pay for her craft. The Swedish streaming service also brings all the latest record releases, exclusive live sessions, and various new singles right to its New Releases tab each Friday, providing a great way to hear the latest from established artists and rising stars. Apple’s service, on the other hand, touts around 45 million songs, which is superior to Spotify’s current 35 million-plus figure, and also outdoes newer contenders like Amazon Prime Music and Jay-Z’s Tidal. Moreover, Apple has taken steps to secure many more exclusives than the competition, largely because it doesn’t offer a free option. The Swedish streaming host isn’t too happy with artists signing exclusive deals with Apple, either; “Spotify reportedly has a history of altering search rankings for artists who release their music through Apple first.” according to an article by Bloomberg. There’s another area where Apple Music has the leg up on its competition: Integration of the iTunes library. Any music you have, whether previously purchased via the iTunes Store, ripped from a physical CD, or uploaded to iTunes Match, will appear in your Apple Music library, giving you the option to freely browse your own music alongside Apple’s standard catalog. Spotify offers a similar function, relegating your local music files to a separate tab, but you can’t access your local music via broad searches as you can with Apple Music.

MUSIC FAUCET

Spotify offers a lot of useful tools for finding new songs to suit your individual taste. Personalized playlists, like Discover Weekly, provide opportunities for subscribers to find new music from artists they would have never heard of on their own. The large array of genres to choose from makes new music ripe for the picking, and other personalized playlists, like Daily Mixes, are constantly being added to the mix. Spotify even has a featured series called Secret Genius, which allows fans of pop music to listen to the songwriters behind some of their favorite hits. As for Apple Music, while making an account, users are prompted to select some of their favorite artists so that the service can identify some of their tastes. The interface for this is a digital ball pit, with each ball representing an artist. Users will tap particular balls to indicate artists that they like or love. You can also always go back with the Account tab — by tapping the icon in the top-right corner of “For You” — to change your favorite genres and artists. While it is a visually pleasant way to dictate music preferences, the style really hurts the ease of access. On mobile devices the balls quickly clog up the screen, and they also bounce off of each other making it a pain to select more artists. Once the process is complete, Apple Music does a great job creating playlists to appeal to your preferences. Playlists might be based on genre, a particular artist, or even a particular activity like driving. Apple claims the playlists are curated by a “team of experts.” Author, Parker Hall from Digital Trends, claims that the playlists are “at once familiar yet fresh, like a mixtape you might get from a friend.” Spotify also offers “expertly curated” playlists, but Apple Music’s playlist selections come from individual DJs chosen by Apple.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
Apple Music costs $10 per month; as does Spotify Premium, Tidal Premium, Pandora’s on-demand service, and just about every other on-demand subscription service. To make an Apple Music or Spotify subscription a bit more appealing, both companies offer special family packs that allow customers to add up to six individual accounts for a grand total of just $15 per month. Up until June 2019, Spotify is offering a free ad-based Hulu subscription at about $6 per month to all premium subscribers, but this deal excludes those with a family plan. If you’re considering Apple Music, new users with an applicable student email can get a discounted monthly subscription of just $5. Spotify also offers a $5 “Student Premium”, in which I partake because of their free Hulu and now SHOWTIME subscription add-ons.

RETROSPECTION

Considering Apple grants every prospective subscriber three months of Apple Music for free, the service may be sweeping away more of Spotify’s user base than CEO Daniel Ek would like to acknowledge. However, Apple does not have a free, ad-based product merge like Spotify. This is a big reason it was able to corral so many users in the first place. The majority of Spotify’s users listen for free, and that’s better than any three-month trial or discounted year-long subscription Apple could offer.