A couple of years ago when it was hard to find streaming music service in Latvia, I’ve had to learn what is proxy server and how to mask that you are in another country (Sweden if I remember correctly), to try Spotify. It wasn’t a great experience, I’ve had data cap on my phone, so I’ve stopped using it, but I’ve realised – for better or for worse, it is the future of music. Then Rdio and Spotify came to Latvia, almost at the same time. I’ve used Rdio for a long time until switching to Spotify and sticking with it for years.
Enter Apple Music. I’ve tried the service when it first got announced and didn’t care for it. Spotify was a superior product in my opinion, so after the 3-month trial ended, I’ve cancelled my subscription.
Lately, though, I’ve realised there are a couple of things that drove me away from using Spotify and couple of months ago, I’ve become Apple Music subscriber.
I still like the Spotify design, app icon and interface better, it works closer to how I imagine the streaming music service should work, but there are two biggest things Spotify lacks, which Apple Music has.
First, Apple Music has Russian hand-picked playlists. Russian is my native language, so this is a big feature for me. There are playlists for different genres and general Top for songs in Russian. Spotify lacks it, there is Russian music, but Apple Music just has more of it.
Second, also very big issue, for Spotify Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian are the same, or so it seems. If I listen to one song in Latvian it will recommend me songs in Lithuanian and Estonian (languages I don’t speak and I’m not interested in music in those languages). And I don’t know if I press «Don’t like» button on songs in Lithuanian, will it also show me fewer songs in Latvian? Apple Music doesn’t have this problem. It recommends me a couple of Latvian artists or songs every now and then and mostly I’m glad it does.
Oh, and I didn’t mention Siri, with one of the greatest features – «Hey Siri, play something». It’s amazing how well it works.
It could change in the nearest future, there is a big competition between Spotify and Apple Music, which is good for the consumers, but for now, I’ll stick with Apple Music and see how it goes.