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 effectively sufficient; it is not doing sufficient to fight AI slop; and till not too long ago, it was internet hosting ICE recruitment adverts within the US. Underneath sustained strain, the corporate does finally appear to budge on points, however you’d assume it would not be that arduous to get issues proper from the outset.

I proceed to make use of Spotify for one overarching motive: practicality. I would love to have the ability to change to another like Apple Music, however since I stream music just about all day — at work, on my EUC, and at the gym — having the ability to hear how I need issues nearly as a lot as what I am listening to. Beneath are only a few of the issues which can be protecting me hooked, at the very least for now.

Spotify Join

No system 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 just a few Macs, Apple TVs, and HomePod minis, plus the Apple Watch I take advantage of to trace all that health club time.

You’d assume that will make me a great candidate for Apple Music, however that is the place you would be mistaken. 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 straightforward method to change between all of my output units with Apple Music, since more often than not, Apple forces AirPlay for casting. You do get Google Solid should you’re utilizing the Android app, however that does not assist a lot in my state of affairs.

Spotify Join helps you to change output to any system the service is operating on. If my Echo Studio is appearing up, as an example, I can at all times fall again to listening on my iPad with just a few clicks. I might additionally push music to my TV’s soundbar, or play it on each Echo in my dwelling 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 taking part in. For some time there, my son had a foul behavior of hijacking my health club 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 progressively getting higher at personalised playlists. Except for 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 intervening 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 example, it is promising me a “dungeon synth martial industrial tuesday morning.” If I tuned in later, the style mashup would look utterly completely different. I’ll placed on Launch Radar, an album, a customized playlist, or a Day by 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 also be making some good use of AI on this area. There is a DJ mode if you need a radio-like expertise, and relying in your nation, chances are you’ll already be capable of spawn authentic playlists based mostly on textual content prompts and emoji. So whereas the corporate may very well be doing a greater job at curbing low-effort AI “artists,” it is at the very least 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 have to see higher parallels with Spotify earlier than I contemplate switching.

A free fallback

No have to panic when cash is tight

Credit score: Alexander Gray / Unsplash

One of many causes Apple Music can afford to pay musicians higher — aside from belonging to a $3 trillion megacorporation — is that each long-term buyer is a paid one. You’ll be able to doubtlessly hear for just a few 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, nonetheless: 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 may afford it, akin to ad-free listening, audiobooks, and offline caching. However figuring out Spotify Free exists is reassuring. It means you may’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. Once you’re again in your ft, then you may 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 occasions when web entry is interrupted or impractical. After I was residing 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 decide playlists forward of time. You’ll be able to should you like, however Offline Backup is at all times out there in your telephone or pill, utilizing some form 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 the worst components of a drive from Austin to Houston.

It isn’t good, in fact. It gravitates in the 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 might stand to implement one thing comparable, acknowledging that not everybody lives in an space utterly blanketed by 5G and Wi-Fi. Even should you do, some suppliers proceed to impose information caps, and I would somewhat hear to a couple outdated tunes than threat apps like Google Maps being throttled.