But after years of being a faithful Spotify subscriber, it might be time to take my ears elsewhere - and Apple Music seems to be hitting all the right notes for me. For a music junkie like me, the first time I saw it was as close to a magical experience as I think I’ve ever had with tech. It presented something truly revolutionary when it made (nearly) all the world’s music instantly accessible at the press of a button. I’ve been a Spotify user since its earliest beta days.

But the search for never-ending user numbers and profits means that, unless it spins off its new ideas into untried-and-untested new apps, away from its current subscriber base, it must water down its core music streaming proposition.Īnd that makes me sad. I appreciate Spotify has nowhere near the scale to do this, and so the focus must remain on its core app.

And so it has its own independent Podcasts, its own Books app, and is rumored soon to even have its own classical music app (a necessary spin-off, given the complexity of classical music meta data).

It can spread development out across multiple platforms, and trust in them to be independently profitable. And Apple Music has got some extras that Spotify itself can’t match at the moment, including lossless audio support for more detailed hi-res playback, and spatial audio support - essentially surround sound for your tunes, making it sound as if the production was coming at you from all sides, especially through headphones like the AirPods Max or Apple's best true wireless earbuds, the AirPods Pro 2.Īpple is able to keep Music pure as it already has a diverse catalog of services and products, right through its App Store and hardware. It remains and retains a relatively clean interface, dedicated to music and basically little else, at a price competitive to Spotify - arguably more competitive if you pick up one of the Apple One subscription bundles that throws in Apple Arcade, Apple TV Plus, and other Apple subscription services at a reduced fee.

Spotify macbook pro app