When passing students in the hallways at West Springfield, it is impossible not to miss white earbuds coming out of their ears. The question lies in what they are actually listening to. Spotify and Apple Music are among the most popular music applications that high schoolers use. Spotify offers both a free and a paid, premium version of the app while Apple Music is paid subscription only. Both apps have their pros and cons, so it’s hard for students to know where to spend their money, or fill up storage on their devices.
Spotify Premium and Apple Music have similar subscription price points. They both cost $9.99 a month for an individual user and $14.99 a month for a family plan where up to five people can listen to music at the same time. So, price is not a deciding factor when deciding on which subscription to purchase.
The different features within the apps are what hook music listeners. For example, Spotify will personalize playlists for listeners based on their previous listening history. The free and premium versions will sort song history into genres and then make playlists. Senior Sean Krysinski swears by Spotify for all of his music listening needs.
“There are so many options, and music from every genre,” said Krysinski.
Despite all of his praise, Krysinski admits Spotify has its caveats. The individual subscription plan as well as the free version only lets you listen to music on one device at a time. Meanwhile, an individual Apple Music plan can be shared between two or more people.
“It’s annoying because two people can’t listen at the same time. It’s not like that on Apple Music.” said Krysinski..
Apple music seems to make up for what Spotify lacks, for instance, being able to share an account. Senior Ciara Olmeda made the switch from Spotify to Apple music when someone offered her to join on their accoun
.“Apple Music is basically like a Youtube, but you can close out your phone.” said Olmeda.
Senior Ford Phillips agrees that Apple Music is superior than Spotify, especially when it comes to the availability of current music.
“I think their strength is that when new music comes out they have it. For example, Post Malone’s new song, “Rockstar”, was on [the app].” said Phillips.
For comparison, Spotify released the same song a few hours after Apple Music. It’s up to music listeners to decide whether they should join Apple Music to join the conversation on a song or to wait patiently for a few hours. Sophomore Miggy Frondoso is impressed by Apple Music’s dedication to working with artists to release songs on their site first.
“Apple Music releases new albums a day before Spotify,” said Frondoso.
Apple music appeals to the trendy music listener- the one who wants to know what song everyone’s talking about and recommend them to their friends before the songs are popular. On the flip side, Spotify Premium appeals to the music lover, who is constantly looking for new genres to listen to and does not care about the popularity of a song. Whatever the case, there is a music app for everyone, except senior Effie Petalas.
“The best one to me is Spotify because it’s free. You can’t beat that,” said Petalas