4 Spotify options Apple Music wants to repeat ASAP

Like a variety of you, I’ve issues with Spotify as a enterprise. It nonetheless does not pay artists nicely sufficient; it is not doing sufficient to fight AI slop; and till not too long ago, it was internet hosting ICE recruitment advertisements within the US. Below 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 cause: practicality. I would love to have the ability to swap to an alternate like Apple Music, however since I stream music nearly all day — at work, on my EUC, and at the gym — having the ability to pay attention how I need issues virtually as a lot as what I am listening to. Beneath are just some of the issues which can be holding me hooked, not less than for now.

Spotify Join

No gadget is an island

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

You’d assume that might make me a really perfect 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 approach to swap between all of my output units with Apple Music, since more often than not, Apple forces AirPlay for casting. You do get Google Solid in case you’re utilizing the Android app, however that does not assist a lot in my situation.

Spotify Join enables you to swap output to any gadget the service is working on. If my Echo Studio is appearing up, as an illustration, I can at all times fall again to listening on my iPad with a couple of clicks. I may additionally push music to my TV’s soundbar, or play it on each Echo in my house concurrently. Are you able to inform I’ve reviewed a variety of smart home gear?

The tech does have issues sometimes, most notably the limitation on one stream per account, no matter the place it is enjoying. For some time there, my son had a nasty behavior of hijacking my fitness center 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 total advantages.

Tailoring playlists to your tastes

That je ne sais quoi

To Apple’s credit score, it has been step by step getting higher at personalised playlists. Except for artist, style, and new launch choices, you get your individual station, and even a Discovery Weekly equal referred to as the Discovery Station. However in order for you a gentle 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 utterly totally different. I could placed on Launch Radar, an album, a customized playlist, or a Every day Combine if I am within the temper for one thing particular, however the Daylist has me lined the remainder of the time.

Spotify can be making some good use of AI on this area. There is a DJ mode in order for you a radio-like expertise, and relying in your nation, you might already be capable to spawn authentic playlists primarily based on textual content prompts and emoji. So whereas the corporate could possibly 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 may use the publicity.

Apple Music retains a heavy concentrate on 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 pay attention for a couple of months free throughout your trial, however after that, it is strictly pay-to-play. A lot of Spotify’s listeners are solely producing advert income.

There’s a strategic benefit to that, nevertheless: capturing clients 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 possibly can afford it, similar to ad-free listening, audiobooks, and offline caching. However realizing Spotify Free exists is reassuring. It means you possibly can’t out of the blue be locked out of your music assortment as a result of paying the hire and grocery payments briefly took precedence. Whenever you’re again in your ft, then you possibly can fear about catching up on Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy, or eliminating that O’Reilly advert jingle.

Offline Backup

One thing is best than nothing

Credit score: Spotify

It is taken without any consideration 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 virtually 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 just need not choose playlists forward of time. You may in case you like, however Offline Backup is at all times out there in your cellphone or pill, utilizing some type of sorcerous algorithm to serve up tracks with out consuming a ton of additional space for storing. My very own backup is 2 hours lengthy, which would definitely be sufficient to get me by way of the worst components of a drive from Austin to Houston.

It is not good, after all. It gravitates in direction of not too long ago 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 larger storage most computer systems have. Nonetheless, Apple may stand to implement one thing related, acknowledging that not everybody lives in an space utterly blanketed by 5G and Wi-Fi. Even in case you do, some suppliers proceed to impose information caps, and I would reasonably pay attention to a couple previous tunes than threat apps like Google Maps being throttled.