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Streaming Music Showdown: Spotify vs. Beats

7 minute read
Updated: | Originally published: ;

It’s been almost nine months since Apple’s $3 billion purchase of Beats catapulted the Dr. Dre-backed streaming music service into the limelight for casual music listeners. And while Apple is reportedly working on an overhaul of the service, I spent the last nine months as a paid Beats Music subscriber, after having used Spotify exclusively for more than a year.

Beyond the music, the differences between the two services are stark. Here is what you need to know in comparing the two most prominent (with apologies to all the other players) streaming music services on the market:

Musical Selection

This is a largely subjective category, because it really depends on what you’re looking for. For instance, some tracks, such as “Jungle” by Jay-Z, appear exclusively on Beats before rolling into other services, while other artists, like Led Zeppelin, appeared on Spotify first, then elsewhere next.

Whether these exclusives will affect you is a matter of what kind of music you prefer, but it’s hard to know in advance of subscribing which artists will strike what deals with which service. And the end, most albums end up being available everywhere. Except for Taylor Swift — she pulled her latest tracks from every subscription streaming service.

Winner: Tie

User Interface

One of the biggest differences between these two services (specifically their apps) is the way users interact with them. Spotify has a menu-driven interface that requires a lot of taps to dive into an artist’s catalog from the main screen. Meanwhile, Beats has a visual-driven interface with large tiles that spring users right into the content they want to listen to.

Once a track is playing, Beats transforms into a full-screen player, with large buttons and progress meters, making it ideal for skipping songs on the fly, like when you’re driving (tsk, tsk). Spotify, meanwhile, shrinks the track down to a mini-player that takes up the smallest ribbon at the bottom of the screen. Tapping on the song’s tiny album art will expand it to a full-sized player, but that’s hardly intuitive — and pretty inconvenient, considering the image’s size.

Winner: Beats

Free Accounts

Spotify will let you listen via its mobile app without paying for an account, but that only provides you with a shuffle mode. If you want to listen to an exact song, you’ll have to upgrade to the premium service. Spotify also says “on tablet and computer, you can play any song, any time,” but I found this to be untrue. In fact, this frustration led me to resubscribe to the service. (Tricky move, Spotify.)

Meanwhile, technically, Beats Music does not have a free version. But Apple does offer iTunes Radio gratis, though it doesn’t come close to the free version of Spotify.

Winner: Spotify

PHOTOS: See Taylor Swift Over the Years

2006 CMT Music Awards - Arrivals
Taylor Swift arrives at the 2006 CMT Music Awards at the Curb Event Center at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.John Shearer—WireImage/Getty Images
2007 CMT Music Awards - Red Carpet
Taylor Swift arrives at the 2007 CMT Music Awards.Kevin Mazur—WireImage/Getty Images
42nd Annual Academy Of Country Music Awards - Show
Taylor Swift performs during the 42nd Annual Academy Of Country Music Awards held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2007.Ethan Miller—Getty Images
2008 ACM New Artists Party For A Cause
Taylor Swift performs during the Academy of Country Music New Artists' Party for a Cause show at the MGM Grand Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2008.Ethan Miller—Getty Images
Taylor Swift and Michelle Williams Visit MTV's "TRL" - June 16, 2008
Taylor Swift performs live on MTV's "TRL" at the MTV Studios in Times Square in New York City in 2008.Gary Gershoff—WireImage/Getty Images
The 42nd Annual CMA Awards - Arrivals
Taylor Swift attends the 42nd Annual CMA Awards at the Sommet Center in Nashville, Tennessee in 2008.Ed Rode—WireImage/Getty Images
CNN Heroes "An All-Star Tribute" 2008
Singer Taylor Swift arrives at CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California in 2008.Jon Kopaloff—FilmMagic/Getty Images
Saturday Night Live
Taylor Swift performs on Saturday Night Live in 2009.NBC/Getty Images
The Brit Awards 2009 - Arrivals
Taylor Swift arrives at the Brit Awards 2009 at Earls Court in London, England.Gareth Cattermole—Getty Images
44th Annual Academy Of Country Music Awards All-Star Jam
Taylor Swift performs during the 44th annual Academy of Country Music Awards All-Star Jam at the MGM Grand Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2009.Ethan Miller—Getty Images
Taylor Swift in Concert
Taylor Swift performs at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 2009.Theo Wargo—WireImage/Getty Images
2009 MTV Video Music Awards - Arrivals
Taylor Swift arrives to the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Stephen Lovekin—FilmMagic/Getty Images
The 43rd Annual CMA Awards - Show
Taylor Swift performs at the 43rd Annual CMA Awards from the Sommet Center in Nashville, Tennessee in 2009.Katherine Bomboy—Getty Images
The 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards - Show
Taylor Swift performs onstage at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards held at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California in 2010.Michael Caulfield—WireImage/Getty Images
Taylor Swift drops one of her awards dur
Taylor Swift drops one of her awards during the 52nd annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California in 2010.Valerie Macon—AFP/Getty Images
Taylor Swift 13 hours on the 13th. & some songs
Taylor Swift performs at the CMA Music Festival in Nashville, Tennessee in 2010.Rick Diamond—Getty Images
Grand Ole Opry 85th Birthday Bash
Taylor Swift performs during the Grand Ole Opry 85th birthday bash at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee in 2010.Tony R. Phipps—Getty Images
44th Annual CMA Awards - Show
Taylor Swift performs "Back to December" at the 44th Annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee in 2010.Rick Diamond—Getty Images
taylor Swift attends the 'Alexander McQu
Taylor Swift attends the 'Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty' Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011.TIMOTHY A. CLARY—AFP/Getty Images
2012 MTV Video Music Awards - Show
Taylor Swift performs at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.Jason LaVeris—FilmMagic/Getty Images
BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards - Show
Taylor Swift performs at the Radio One Teen Awards at Wembley Arena in London, England in 2012.Mike Marsland—WireImage/Getty Images
BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards - Show
Taylor Swift performs at the Radio One Teen Awards at Wembley Arena in London, England in 2012.Mike Marsland—WireImage/Getty Images
Taylor Swift Switches On Westfield London Christmas Lights
Taylor Swift switches on the Christmas lights and performs for fans and shoppers at Westfield London in London, England in 2012.Mike Marsland—WireImage/Getty Images
26th Annual ARIA Awards 2012 - Arrivals
Taylor Swift arrives at the 26th Annual ARIA Awards 2012 at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in Sydney, Australia. Don Arnold—WireImage/Getty Images
26th Annual ARIA Awards 2012 - Show
Taylor Swift performs on stage during the 26th Annual ARIA Awards 2012 at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in Sydney, Australia.Brendon Thorne—Getty Images
KIIS FM's Jingle Ball 2012 - Night 1 - Show
Taylor Swift performs during night 1 of the 2012 KIIS FM Jingle Ball at Nokia Theatre LA Live in Los Angeles, California.C Flanigan—FilmMagic/Getty Images
Taylor Swift At Gillette Stadium
Taylor Swift in concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts in 2013.Barry Chin—Boston Globe/Getty Images
2013 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show - Show
Taylor Swift performs while Candice Swanepoel walks the runway at the 2013 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York City.Jamie McCarthy—Getty Images
Taylor Swift Lives In Shanghai
Taylor Swift performs at the Mercedes-Benz Arena on May 30, 2014 in Shanghai, China.ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
2014 American Music Awards - Show
Taylor Swift performs onstage during the 2014 American Music Awards held at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Nov. 23, 2014 in Los Angeles, Ca.Michael Tran—FilmMagic/Getty Images
2014 American Music Awards - Roaming Show
Taylor Swift performs at the 2014 American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Nov. 23, 2014 in Los Angeles, Ca.Christopher Polk—Getty Images
The Voice - Season 7
Taylor Swift performs on The Voice in 2014.NBC/Getty Images
2014 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show - Show
Taylor Swift performs during the 2014 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show at Earl's Court exhibition centre on Dec. 2, 2014 in London, England.Dimitrios Kambouris—Getty Images for Victoria's Secr
KIIS FM's Jingle Ball 2014  Powered by LINE  - Show
Taylor Swift performs onstage during KIIS FM's Jingle Ball 2014 at Staples Center on December 5, 2014 in Los Angeles, Ca.Christopher Polk—Getty Images

Social Integration

Both Beats Music and Spotify offer social integration, letting you post your favorite songs on Twitter and Facebook for your friends to enjoy. But Spotify, which has historically used Facebook Connect to power login information for its service, gives music fans a much richer social experience by allowing you to see your friends’ listening activity.

At first, when Facebook was allowing Spotify to publish activity to the sites News Feed, Spotify seemed hyperactive, alerting every friend to every song that was played. But through some toning down and refinement, Spotify’s social feed is much calmer — you really only see it on a sidebar on the Spotify desktop app unless you dive into the “activity” menu on the service’s mobile app.

Beats, meanwhile, doesn’t show friends’ activity, which could be a selling point if you’re embarrassed by your musical taste, or don’t care to know what your friends are listening to. But it’s hard not to look at Beats’ lack of social integration and see Apple’s failures in this space. The company’s Ping social networking feature in iTunes was one of the company’s most high-visibility failures, and even Game Center, which many iPhone users have logged into (but relatively few use) isn’t very popular.

Winner: Spotify

Desktop App

Don’t spend too long looking for a desktop version of the Beats app — it doesn’t exist, not even on the Mac App Store. Instead, the service is meant to run through your web browser, though good luck with that. Personally, as hard as I push my browser (I have 14 tabs open right now, and that’s below average for me), I’d rather have a separate application chewing on the RAM-intensive music streams. And comically, early on, I couldn’t get Safari to play audio from the Beats service at all — I had to switch to Google Chrome. But that brings up an interesting point: If you really do want a Beats Music app, you can find one on the Chrome Web Store.

Spotify, meanwhile, might be the best desktop music app I’ve ever used. More than just a music player, it’s actually a platform for the service, which allows other programmers to make software that interacts with Spotify. For example, you can link your Spotify account to Last.fm to generate personalized music choices, or you can view lyrics to the song you’re listening to through MusiXmatch.

Spotify’s willingness to open itself up to these outside developers is a key difference between it and Beats Music, and (other than its great library) might be its best feature.

Winner: Spotify

Killer Feature

While most people like Spotify mostly for its music and social features, its platform-like interactivity with other services (described above) is truly its killer feature, letting the service expand and morph in new ways. For instance, if used with certain apps, Spotify’s desktop app can become a karaoke screen, or with other apps it can compete with music-suggesting services like Pandora.

Meanwhile, what made Beats unique was a pair of features. Firstly, expertly-crafted playlists created by humans, not computers, instantly gave users a trove of mixes to choose from. But this feature was quickly aped by Spotify through its ability to let people share their playlists and via expert-driven apps like Rolling Stone Recommends.

Beats’ other killer feature was a fun way to make your own mix called “The Sentence,” where users could tell the app what they are doing (“working out,” “cooking,” hanging out,” etc.) with whom (“my friends,” “my bff,” etc.) and to what kind of music they wanted to hear (“hip-hop,” “bluegrass,” “metal,” etc.). At first, it seems like a great idea, but once you realize you want to chill, party, nap, and barbecue to 90’s rock, it becomes clear that you really don’t need a suggestion engine that caters to every musical genre. The gimmick gets old, quick.

Winner: Spotify

Overall Winner

While Beats user interface is far and away more friendly, over the past nine months with the service I found myself discovering fewer new artists and listing to less music than when I used Spotify. I wanted Beats to be better than it really is, so much so that I probably kept my subscription longer than I otherwise would have. But one week back with Spotify, and I’m back in the fold with all my old playlists — which, ironically, I exported from iTunes.

Maybe Apple’s next iteration of Beats, whether it’s under that name or folded back into iTunes, will be better. But it would take a massive shift in attitude from Apple, because they’d need to embrace social networks that they don’t own and third party developers in a way they currently don’t.

Winner: Spotify

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