alt Hacker NewsI stopped my Spotify subscription and gave Apple Music and Youtube Music a try for a few months. I'm now again a Spotify user, despite that Youtube Music is still included in my Youtube Premium.
The apps are terrible in terms of usability, performance, and reliability. I couldn't believe Apple dropped the ball on so hard on this, but then I remembered iTunes and started believing again.
Most of my problem is basic necessities. For instance, it's impossible to remove a playing song from its current playlist on competing apps. That's such a common, basic scenario that Spotify can perform easily.
Youtube Music has horrible sound quality, no need to say it doesn't provide a lossless option. Apple Music is on par with Spotify in sound quality but that's pretty much where Apple's competitiveness ends. I had to struggle with Apple Music even with the simplest things.
My Apple Music summary: https://bsky.app/profile/ssg.dev/post/3m2mvmybjr225
My Youtube Music summary: https://bsky.app/profile/ssg.dev/post/3m5ms6fxsrs27
Replies
Apple Music on i(pad)OS can be used with third party apps. There's plenty of better players out there than the built-in one
A few of my favorite artists have dropped from Spotify (for great reasons that I agree with) and I want to switch to something else. I gave Apple Music a try but the interface is just unbelievably bad. Also I am a Linux user and the lack of a native app is brutal (and Cider, a 3rd party app, is a no-go for me). Tidal seems decent though and I'll probably give it another shot eventually.
The other thing is I actually do get a lot out of the suggestions and daylist of Spotify. I guess there are some 3rd party recommendation systems out there now (pulling in data from last.fm scrobbles) but I'm not aware of something that would be as easy and have such an integrated result.