4 Spotify options Apple Music wants to repeat ASAP

Like loads of you, I’ve issues with Spotify as a enterprise. It nonetheless would not pay artists properly sufficient; it is not doing sufficient to fight AI slop; and till lately, it was internet hosting ICE recruitment adverts within the US. Beneath sustained strain, the corporate does finally appear to budge on points, however you’d assume it would not be that onerous to get issues proper from the outset.

I proceed to make use of Spotify for one overarching purpose: practicality. I might love to have the ability to change to an alternate like Apple Music, however since I stream music just about all day — at work, on my EUC, and at the gym — with the ability to hear how I would like issues nearly as a lot as what I am listening to. Under are just some of the issues which might be conserving me hooked, not less than for now.

Spotify Join

No system is an island

There is a stunning variety of Apple gadgets in my home. My son, spouse, and I all have iPhones and iPads, even when none of them are new. We even have a number of Macs, Apple TVs, and HomePod minis, plus the Apple Watch I take advantage of to trace all that gymnasium time.

You’d assume that will make me an excellent candidate for Apple Music, however that is the place you would be unsuitable. My work machine is a Home windows laptop computer, and more often than not, I am listening to music on an Amazon Echo Studio paired with an Echo Sub. There’s simply no simple solution to change between all of my output gadgets with Apple Music, since more often than not, Apple forces AirPlay for casting. You do get Google Forged in case you’re utilizing the Android app, however that does not assist a lot in my state of affairs.

Spotify Join allows you to change output to any system the service is operating on. If my Echo Studio is performing up, as an illustration, I can all the time fall again to listening on my iPad with a number of clicks. I might additionally push music to my TV’s soundbar, or play it on each Echo in my residence concurrently. Are you able to inform I’ve reviewed loads of smart home gear?

The tech does have issues often, most notably the limitation on one stream per account, no matter the place it is taking part in. For some time there, my son had a foul behavior of hijacking my gymnasium soundtrack throughout his bathtime. Nonetheless — Spotify Join is genuinely multi-platform, so I haven’t got to lock myself into an ecosystem to get the complete advantages.

Tailoring playlists to your tastes

That je ne sais quoi

To Apple’s credit score, it has been regularly getting higher at personalised playlists. Other than artist, style, and new launch picks, you get your personal station, and even a Discovery Weekly equal known as the Discovery Station. However if you need a gradual dose of selection and new-to-you content material, Spotify wins, and the competitors is not even shut.

Maybe my favourite playlist on Spotify in the mean time is the Daylist. This analyzes your hourly habits, and generates an ever-shifting playlist meant to final a whole day. As I write this, as an illustration, it is promising me a “dungeon synth martial industrial tuesday morning.” If I tuned in later, the style mashup would look fully totally different. I’ll placed on Launch Radar, an album, a customized playlist, or a Each day Combine if I am within the temper for one thing particular, however the Daylist has me coated the remainder of the time.

Spotify can also be making some good use of AI on this enviornment. There is a DJ mode if you need a radio-like expertise, and relying in your nation, you could already be capable to spawn unique playlists primarily based on textual content prompts and emoji. So whereas the corporate might be doing a greater job at curbing low-effort AI “artists,” it is not less than it is introducing you and I to people who might use the publicity.

Apple Music retains a heavy deal with curated playlists. That might change now that Google Gemini is being built-in into Siri and Apple Intelligence — however I must see higher parallels with Spotify earlier than I contemplate switching.

A free fallback

No must panic when cash is tight

Credit score: Alexander Gray / Unsplash

One of many causes Apple Music can afford to pay musicians higher — other than belonging to a $3 trillion megacorporation — is that each long-term buyer is a paid one. You may doubtlessly hear for a number of months free throughout your trial, however after that, it is strictly pay-to-play. Lots of Spotify’s listeners are solely producing advert income.

There’s a strategic benefit to that, nevertheless: capturing prospects who in any other case could not afford something. Opposite to what many tech CEOs assume, not everybody has an infinite price range for subscriptions, and one of many first sacrifices anybody goes to make is leisure.

From a listener’s perspective, there are many causes to improve to Spotify Premium when you’ll be able to afford it, resembling ad-free listening, audiobooks, and offline caching. However figuring out Spotify Free exists is reassuring. It means you’ll be able to’t all of a sudden be locked out of your music assortment as a result of paying the lease and grocery payments briefly took precedence. If you’re again in your toes, then you’ll be able to fear about catching up on Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy, or eliminating that O’Reilly advert jingle.

Offline Backup

One thing is healthier than nothing

Credit score: Spotify

It is taken as a right that any streaming service will allow you to cache materials for offline listening, since even in 2026, there are nonetheless loads of instances when web entry is interrupted or impractical. After I was dwelling in Texas, for instance, saving offline playlists was nearly obligatory, since there have been surprisingly lengthy stretches of freeway with little to no mobile sign.

The distinction with Spotify’s Offline Backup is that you simply needn’t choose playlists forward of time. You may in case you like, however Offline Backup is all the time out there in your cellphone or pill, utilizing some kind of sorcerous algorithm to serve up tracks with out consuming a ton of additional cupboard space. My very own backup is 2 hours lengthy, which will surely be sufficient to get me by the worst elements of a drive from Austin to Houston.

It is not good, in fact. It gravitates in direction of lately or heavily-played tracks, and as I discussed, it is mobile-only. You are out of luck if you wish to apply it to your laptop computer or desktop — which appears ridiculous given the better storage most computer systems have. Nonetheless, Apple might stand to implement one thing related, acknowledging that not everybody lives in an space fully blanketed by 5G and Wi-Fi. Even in case you do, some suppliers proceed to impose information caps, and I might slightly hear to a couple outdated tunes than threat apps like Google Maps being throttled.