4 Spotify options Apple Music wants to repeat ASAP

Like quite a lot 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 just lately, 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 suppose it would not be that arduous 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 hear how I would like issues virtually as a lot as what I am listening to. Under are only a few of the issues which can be preserving me hooked, at the least for now.

Spotify Join

No machine is an island

There is a shocking 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 fitness center time.

You’d suppose that might make me a great candidate for Apple Music, however that is the place you would be improper. 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 technique to swap between all of my output gadgets with Apple Music, since more often than not, Apple forces AirPlay for casting. You do get Google Solid for those who’re utilizing the Android app, however that does not assist a lot in my situation.

Spotify Join helps you to swap output to any machine the service is working on. If my Echo Studio is performing up, as an example, I can at all times fall again to listening on my iPad with a number of clicks. I may 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 quite a lot 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 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 steadily getting higher at personalised playlists. Except for artist, style, and new launch alternatives, you get your individual station, and even a Discovery Weekly equal known as the Discovery Station. However if you would like 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 complete 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 fully totally different. I could 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 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 would like a radio-like expertise, and relying in your nation, you could already have the ability 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 at the least it is introducing you and I to people who may use the publicity.

Apple Music retains a heavy deal with curated playlists. That would 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 — other than belonging to a $3 trillion megacorporation — is that each long-term buyer is a paid one. You possibly can probably hear for a number 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, nonetheless: capturing clients who in any other case could not afford something. Opposite to what many tech CEOs suppose, 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, reminiscent of ad-free listening, audiobooks, and offline caching. However understanding Spotify Free exists is reassuring. It means you’ll be able to’t immediately be locked out of your music assortment as a result of paying the lease and grocery payments briefly took precedence. Once you’re again in your ft, 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 best 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 virtually necessary, 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 decide playlists forward of time. You possibly can for those who like, however Offline Backup is at all times out there in your telephone 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 will surely be sufficient to get me by the worst elements of a drive from Austin to Houston.

It isn’t excellent, in fact. It gravitates in direction of just 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 may stand to implement one thing related, acknowledging that not everybody lives in an space fully blanketed by 5G and Wi-Fi. Even for those who do, some suppliers proceed to impose information caps, and I would slightly hear to a couple outdated tunes than danger apps like Google Maps being throttled.