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The music streaming war is at its peak. Every company wants a pie of this growing market trend. So far, Spotify is leading the race with the absolute majority. Biggies like Amazon, Apple, and Google with YouTube Music are catching up to the Swedish company’s lead. Of course, even we wondered which one to pick and that lead to this comparison of YouTube Music vs. Spotify for streaming music in our office.
The Web Player definitely has a much higher sound quality than the new Spotify 1.0.4 app. The difference is so significant, it's amazing. The new desktop app is downright awful by comparison. I'm switching to the Web Player now because it is also much faster than the new deskop app and it has Ctrl-F functionality (through the web browser).
Speaking of Google, their journey has been eventful in music streaming. The search giant first tried their luck with Google Play Music, made it available as default on all Android devices, and yet failed to get meaningful traction among the users.
Afterward, Google ditched Play Music and announced YouTube Music, a brand-new music service with audio and video integration. To counter Spotify, Google is trying to leverage the YouTube platform for deep integration and aims to deliver better value for money combo.
In this post, we are comparing YouTube Music with Spotify. The comparison will cover their UI, discover menu, listening experience, price, features, and more. Let’s get started.
Cross-Platform Availability
Spotify is available on every platform. The app is accessible on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, web, Apple Watch, and Galaxy Watch. It also supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.
Google has made YouTube Music available on iOS, Android, web, Windows, and macOS (via Progressive Web App).
Download Spotify for iOSDownload YouTube Music for iOSAlso on Guiding Tech
How to Turn Spotify Lyrics on for All Devices
Read MoreUser Interface
YouTube Music uses a nice dark theme throughout the interface. You can navigate the major options from the bottom. The Settings menu and search rest at the top. The Library menu is nicely divided into downloads, liked songs, artists, and playlists. I like how the Player UI changes the color based on the music album.
Spotify has the best user interface among all other music streaming apps. It uses a gradient theme across the menus and sections. It almost gives you an effect of ambient lighting.
Unlike YouTube Music, the search menu is at the bottom, which is good for reaching it easily. Spotify also changes the player UI based on album color, but once again, the presentation and overall feel is better than YouTube Music.
Discover Songs
Discovering new music is as important as the listening experience. After all, these music streaming services offer millions of songs to the user, and one won’t want to spend much of their time finding new songs.
As for YouTube Music, the service asks for interested languages and artists for a personalized homepage. When you search for a song and start playing it, the app auto-queue similar suggestions for the user.
As expected, YouTube Music offers ready-to-go playlists for a workout, driving, happy mood, etc. My favorite function is Discover Mix, which put together a list of 50 songs and gets updated every Wednesday based on my listening habits and liked songs.
The concept is identical to Apple’s New Music Daily and Spotify’s New Music Friday.
Spotify also asks for languages and favorite artists for better recommendations. You can search for new songs by going into categories such as Rock, Dance, Chill, Jazz, and more.
When you create a playlist, Spotify suggests more songs based on the added tracks. And I have to say, they are usually spot on.
Spotify also creates a ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist that put together a list of new songs based on your listening history and liked songs. It doesn’t stop here. Spotify generates four daily mix playlists, which combines most listened songs as well as new ones.
Also on Guiding Tech
Amazon Music vs Apple Music: Which Music Streaming Platform Is Better
Read MoreListening Experience
As expected, both services offer high-quality 320kbps music streaming. YouTube Music offer stats for nerds option, which displays technical data for a song. You can enable the option by going into settings > playback & restriction > switching on stats for nerds menu.
As for Bluetooth streaming, it worked as expected with my Mi speaker and Funcl AI wireless earbuds. There was no delay or any weird behavior. My only issue was that YouTube Music couldn’t resume a song with a single tap gesture on my earphones' right earbud. It worked perfectly fine with Apple Music and Spotify. I would like to see lyrics support in the future update.
Spotify provides few functions to customize and improve the overall listening experience for the end-user. You can enable gapless playback to eliminate the delay between two songs.
It also comes with a built-in equalizer to make adjustments as per your music listening tastes.
Spotify provides audio normalization to balance out all the songs on a single scale. I usually don’t prefer that.
My favorite addition is behind the lyrics section. It is right under the listening UI and provides lyrics as well as cool trivia about the song.
Extra Features
YouTube Music has added video and lives performance section in the app. While listening to a song, one can quickly switch to video and play the clip from YouTube. I appreciate the integration but hate the behavior where my YouTube Music search history gets synced with the YouTube app.
YouTube Music supports Siri Shortcuts too. It’s available in the Settings menu. I have set it to play my Bollywood playlist when I speak, ‘Hey Siri, play some music.’
Spotify wants to be the hub of all audio streaming needs of a user. Last year, the company heavily invested in podcast products, and now it’s offering a solid podcast experience in the app. Just go to search, scroll down to podcast, and start following channels.
The app also comes with Facebook integration. You can connect it to your social account and follow your friends. Sadly, the service doesn’t offer Siri Shortcuts or iOS Widget support.
Price
Spotify offers three plans. Premium individual costs $10 per month. The Student plan is 50% off at $5 per month, and the Family plan starts at $30 per month, which lets you add five more members. The added functionalities include ad free experience, high music quality, and unlimited downloads. These prices are for the US region and may vary in different countries.
YouTube Music is a part of YouTube Premium, which costs $12 per month. The family plan is set at $18 per month. The plan offers ad-free YouTube experience, unlimited downloads, and background video playback.
Also on Guiding Tech
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Click here to see our music articles pageLevel-Up Your Music Game
As you can see from the comparison above, both YouTube Music and Spotify have their pros and cons. YouTube Music shines with video integration and Siri Shortcuts. Spotify edges out rivals with more accurate song suggestions, podcast add-on, better UI, and lyrics integration.
Next up:Convinced about leaving Spotify for YouTube Music? Read the post below to learn how to move your playlist along with it.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read NextHow to Transfer Playlists from Spotify to YouTube MusicAlso See#spotify #YouTube Music
Did You Know
Google plans to roll-out ARCore to around 100-million Android devices.
More in iOS
Top 5 RSS Reader Apps for iPhone
2007
The iPhone launches
And there’s no question it was a game changer. At first, Apple does not allow outside apps. But they soon realize that this approach is a non-starter if they want to sell more and more phones and really excite users.
2008
And then comes the App Store
Apple decides to open up the App Store to outside app developers and lures them in by the hundreds. They ask users – want to order a pizza, find your nearest florist, or look up how to do the Soulja Boy dance? “There’s an app for that.”
2008
Hello world! Spotify launches
Spotify launches on desktop at the end of 2008, bringing music streaming to the masses.
2008
Spotify is available on the App Store
It wasn’t long before we launched the Spotify iPhone app, giving our fans all the world’s music — wherever and whenever they wanted.
2010-2011
Apple starts changing its App Store Guidelines
When Apple introduced the Guidelines we thought, “Yep. Makes total sense to have rules for security, safety, privacy, and quality.” But Apple not only has unilaterally changed the rules themselves time and again, but also frequently decides to interpret (and re-interpret) them in ways to disadvantage rivals like us. So those totally legit things we did which were fully in compliance just a few months ago? Now apparently not so much.
2011 (Feb)
Good Spotify Playlists Reddit
Apple eliminates payment system choice and imposes a 30% fee on content-based apps like Spotify...But at the same time, Apple prohibits us from showing customers how to upgrade any other way
For Spotify to use Apple’s billing system (IAP) — giving our fans the opportunity to upgrade to Premium — Spotify and others now have to pay 30% of any subscription fees. Apple now prohibits buttons or links to any other external ways to pay. This is the first of many moves from Apple that would make it harder and harder for our fans to upgrade to Premium.
2011
We deem the 30% charge as too expensive for our fans and our business
We elect not to use IAP for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that giving up 30% was too much for us to keep our prices low for our fans. Unfortunately, the end result is that you can no longer upgrade to Premium through the app.
2011 (Oct)
Siri launches on the iPhone, but won’t play Spotify
“Siri can you play that awesome Spotify playlist?” Siri says no.
Spotify Web Vs App Reddit Yahoo
2011-2014
For the next three years, we continue to face intense pressure from Apple to adopt their payment system
From 2011 to 2014, Apple puts us under constant pressure to adopt IAP.
2014 (June)
So, we give IAP a try. That means we are now charged Apple's 30% tax and sadly have to increase our price for our fans
Our users will finally be able to buy a Premium subscription directly through our iOS app. But it also means we have to raise our prices to €12.99 a month. And you guys were rightly not very happy about this.
2015 (Apr)
Us: 'Hey Apple, we love your watch; can we make an app for that?' Them: 'nah'
When Apple launches their new Apple Watch, they dismiss our proposals and won’t work with us to develop an app for it. However, they allow other apps to be on it.
2015 (June)
Apple Music launches at a price all too familiar to Spotify
Late to the streaming party, Apple buys Beats, rebrands it, and then launches Apple Music. Because Apple Music doesn’t have to pay the 30% IAP charge, they are able to hugely undercut us and charge €9.99. To our fans, this just looked like we were ripping you off.
2016 (May)
We opt out of Apple's payment system and the artificially uncompetitive price we had to charge for using it
Because we turn off IAP, it means you can no longer upgrade to Premium through the App Store *sigh*.
2016 (May)
Apple starts an intensified pattern of Spotify app rejections - and threatens to remove us from the App Store
Now that Apple has Apple Music, rejections of the Spotify app start becoming more and more common, and they even go as far as threatening to remove us from the App Store. Those rejections seem to coincide with our promotional campaign seasons.
2016 (June)
Apple tightens the App Store Guidelines...again
While we haven’t been able to include any buttons or external links to pages containing product info, discounts, promotions, etc. (even if they don’t link directly to a payment system!) since Feb. 2011, this time a “call to action” restriction is added.
2016 (Sep)
Apple rejects Spotify's proposal for an Apple Watch app yet again
We submit a new proposal for a streaming app directly on the Apple Watch. Apple declines.
2016-2017
Apple continues to make more frequent, unexpected and unjustified rejections of our app updates
Now just having a “Learn More” button is enough to upset the Apple cart even though this is the first time we’ve heard of such a rule. All we can do is focus on ensuring compliance, but that’s not easy when the definitions of what we can and can’t do change from one day to the next.
2017 (June)
App Store Guidelines are tightened once again
This app update means that rival apps have to agree not to “directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than IAP or discourage the use of IAP.”
2017 (Sep)
Apple continues to create obstacles around the Apple Watch
With WatchOS 4, Apple continues to make it challenging for us to deliver a workable streaming solution for the Apple Watch.
2017 (Nov)
Apple rejects Spotify's app again
Free Spotify App
This time, we are rejected because of a campaign that makes reference to a Spotify Premium promotion (“get 3 months now for €0.99”), despite only directing users to a landing page with no info on where or how to purchase Premium (which Apple had allowed only a few months prior). In fact, Apple’s chief lawyer told us a year earlier that such a landing page was OK, but that didn’t stop the App Store from blocking our app for this reason.
2018 (Feb)
Apple HomePod launches without Spotify support
Apple launches HomePod – the smart speaker that, like Siri, will do loads of cool stuff in response to voice commands. Well, lots of cool stuff except playing music through Spotify. Apple welcomes other apps to play on it, but until recently shut the door on competitive music streaming apps like Spotify.
Spotify Web Vs App Reddit App
2018 (May)
Apple rejects Spotify's app yet again
Rejected this time because we showed the word “Free” in Spotify’s app screenshots on the App Store. And apparently that’s prohibited…?!
2018 (July)
And the rejections keep on coming!
At this point, it’s hard to know how Apple will interpret anything that we do. This time, the phrase “Get in, Get Premium” is prohibited.
2018 (Sep)
Apple finally allows enhanced functionality for the Spotify app on the Apple Watch
With Watch OS 5, Apple allowed the Spotify team to start developing offline functionality.
Update (Oct. 2020): Spotify has rolled out streaming capabilities on the Apple Watch.
2019 (Feb)
Apple Music disregards its own rules
Apple Music sends the very type of promotional push notifications that it forbids its rivals to send.
2019 (Feb)
Next up on Apple's restriction list -- podcast recommendations
So we announce two podcast acquisitions we are super excited about, and all of a sudden Apple arbitrarily decides to prohibit use of its API to recommend podcasts to users.
2019 (March)
Spotify asks the European Commission to ensure a level playing field
When competition is fair, consumers and companies win.
2019 (OCT) / 2020 (APR)
Apple FINALLY announces that it will allow Siri integration on certain devices
Apple, for the first time (and after years of unavailability), will allow Siri integration with Spotify, letting users on certain devices with iOS 13 control Spotify using their voice. However, you still can’t choose Spotify as the default music player. And unless you mention our name (“I want to play [X] on Spotify”), every time you give a command to play audio, Siri will default to Apple Music and so will your Apple device.
2020 June
The European Commission launches a formal investigation into Apple
A key development not only for Spotify, but also for consumers and the many other companies around the world that are being disadvantaged by Apple’s anti-competitive behavior.