MUSIC: Spotify v Apple Music v Google Play Music

Just what the world doesn’t need - another blog comparing streaming services...

I’ve been streaming music as my main way of consuming music for about seven years now.  Like most people I started with Spotify, and that has been my go to music place since then.  

However a few things happened recently that made me decide to reevaluate this.  The first - EE gave 6 free months of Apple Music (data included).  The second - I started using a Chromebook as my main computer, and got 3 free months of Google Play Music with it.  As I was becoming a bit disillusioned with the Spotify Android app, it seemed like a good idea to check out the competition...

Apple Music

I’d tried Apple Music for a month when it first came to Android and remember not expecting much and having my expectations met.  What surprised me about my second try of Apple Music was how little has really changed since it launched.  Most obviously for me, the sound still sounds flatter than Spotify Premium and Google Play.  I’m by no means an audiophile and most of the time use the headphones that came with my phone and am happy with that.  So for me to notice it is quite a thing.  There are some quirks of the interface that are odd - it took a Google search for me to figure out where the repeat function is, and there’s no way of ‘liking’ a song from the lock screen - minor irritations that add up.

One of Apple Music’s selling points with its playlists is that they’re made ‘by hand’ (ie by music loving individuals) rather than by algorithms.  The curated playlists can be good, but for me there's no discernable difference between the ones on other services. The relatively short length of them is much more digestible than Spotify’s 4 hour plus ones. Despite all the bubble tapping when setting up (a gimmicky way to tell the app your tastes) and upvoting songs, after 2 weeks of daily use the playlists never seem particularly tailored to my tastes - the most recent have been Rock In The 00’s, Hits Of 1980, and Indie Hits 1987, and there aren’t really any surprises there. These are practically identical to lists on the other services, and not particularly personalised.  They just leave me thinking that I could make a better Rock In The 00’s playlist for example, which defeats the point of having curated playlists at all.

Probably I should accept that Apple Music is not designed for the likes of me. I don't use iTunes, I don't have an iPhone or any other Apple product - I’m sure you get a lot more out of it using it on iOS.

Spotify

Formerly a big fan of Spotify I found myself becoming more and more dissiosioned by it. The Android app is somewhat deficient in features - relatively basic features at that, such as being able to reorder songs within a playlist. That feature is something which can't be done on the web player either, meaning that using my current setup curating a playlist is not possible. It's method of uploading your own songs is also fiddly, requires access to a Windows or Mac desktop and only works if you download these songs to your device - meaning it won't work on your phone without premium.

There’s two things I still really like about Spotify that makes it stand out. The first is the ability to share playlists either via Facebook or embedding into a blog. The other is its music discovery algorithms, leading to the Discover Weekly playlist and decent (and very long) curated playlists recommended based on your tastes.

But guess what? You can get both these features for free on the free tier. So if you’re going to pay for a service you might as well pick another and get the best of both worlds...

Google Play Music

Perhaps it's inevitable that using Google systems exclusively, the clumsily named Google Play Music is the best one to suit my needs. It's chiefly web based - although there are apps for Windows and Mac the web player is good enough I don't miss having an app for the Chromebook. You can stream your own tracks by uploading them into the cloud via the website.

Finding all this out was something of a surprise.  I’d subconsciously written Google Music off as being a lame duck without ever really trying it out, and it’s only ever been recommeneded to me by one other person when talking about music.

It’s a little bit weak on recommendations and though it has excellent curated playlists, they’re styled as radio stations that you can’t see the actual tracks upfront or play from a particular song.  But the interface is nice and bright (I was getting a bit sick of Spotify’s perpetual black gloom, so something a bit more friendly on the eye is nice). Sharing music is available... But only to Google+, which, well... ahem.

Maybe it’s just because it’s refreshing to have a change, I don’t know, but I let the trial period finish on Google and start taking my money, and cancelled Spotify because I can still use that anyway. Google is ultimately nice to use, has a utilitarian but friendly feel to it, and does the job nicely.

Having tried all these streaming services, really the main observation is that you can’t really go wrong with any of them.  I mean, they all do what they set out to do pretty efficiently - the final choice you make as a consumer is going to be based on relatively minor or superficial details, a similar situation to smartphones - whether you’re an iOS/Android fanboy, these days the noticeable differences from a user’s perspective are almost entirely cosmetic.  The music catalogues differ slightly, apparently, but I’ve not had many situations where something is on one service and not the others.  I listen to mainstream and obscure stuff and haven’t had trouble finding anything at all really.

I chose Google Play Music because I’m becoming more and more rooted in the Google eco-system as time goes on, just as iOS users are going to find Apple Music a natural fit, and Spotify caters for anyone - because of its free tier it's probably the best option if you don't actually listen to music other than the radio that often.  And all of the above only goes to show how mainstream streaming is - it’s no longer some sort of niche thing; it’s no longer the future.  It’s now part of the humdrum, everyday present.

TECH: Chromebooks And Why I Am A Convert

I’ve been using a Chromebook for just over a month now, and I’ve totally fallen in love with it. After years of mainly Windows, some Mac, some Linux and even older stuff (Acorn Archimedes anyone?) I’ve found an OS that just does works for me.

The last computer I actually bought was a cheap Linux netbook for £100 about 7 years ago - all others had been inherited or bought.  It just about did the job - I needed it to write basic documents like CVs, to check emails and to blog. 

Since that more or less bit the dust I’d been borrowing a spare laptop that had Windows XP on it which was a big step up but was slooooow.  Booting up into a usable state was about 8 minutes, and having to install more and more programmes to do what I wanted to do just slowed it even more, along with the virus checker chugging away in the background.

So I got an Acer 14 Chromebook with an HD screen because I wanted an efficient and affordable laptop I could call my own. The interface is very intuitive, but is in reality is only there to enhance the Chrome browser that 67% of readers of this blog use.  This is a really weird concept to get your head around at first if, like me, you have been using Windows for over 20 years.  You aren’t installing programmes, just plug ins to the Chrome browser.  You aren’t using a virus checker because there’s nothing a virus can really do to you.  The system updates itself in the background so if there are updates (and they do seem pretty regular) you won’t notice it at all.

Most importantly, everything is fast and feels ‘clean’.  It’s booted up in 10 seconds - it actually takes me about as long to enter my password.  There’s never been any lag for me.  It’s a no-frills approach to computing that’s a pleasure to actually use.

As technology goes more and more down the cloud route, the benefits of a browser-based OS become very real. One of the main criticisms of ChromeOS is that there’s little you can do on them unless you have an internet connection.  Which isn’t entirely untrue, but my response question would be: how often does an average user use their laptop without an internet connection?  

Writing documents and listening to downloaded music are the main things probably, which can be done with a Chromebook offline.  Games as well maybe, although the chances are if you’re a serious gamer you have a desktop or a console, not a laptop - and even then, our dependence on internet has encroached into this area with some of the most popular games being MMO. The majority of things people use their computers for today require wifi.

I know 2 people with MacBooks and many, many more with Windows laptops, but I think the minority would suffer from using a Chromebook instead.  All that time ago my netbook felt very limited.  Since we have become more and more fond of streaming media and using our smartphones for doing things, confining yourself to using a web browser is far less constricting.  It should be said that I have been invested in using Chrome, Google Drive, Android etc for years now - if you’re already part of the IOS ecosystem it would make sense to get an IOS laptop.  But I’ve been using a Chromebook for around 6 weeks there have been only 2 times when I have had to use a Windows PC to try and do something.  Once was to fill in a form which had been created using lots of boxes on MS Word, which neither Google Docs or MS Online could manage (and to be honest even using desktop Word it wasn’t easy to do because it had been badly formatted to begin with). The second time was trying to upload different versions of songs to Google Play Music without them being replaced by the service’s matching system (and it didn’t work doing it on Windows).  Neither were major things, although it goes to show that there’s a way to go for Google before it can expect people to use Chromebooks as their only device.  

That time may be closer than expected though.  Chromebooks are being used heavily in schools, meaning that a generation will be comfortable with using them, offices are increasingly becoming paperless and our media is now not only almost completely digital but largely cloud-based as well.  Coupled with that, Android apps are planned to come to most Chromebooks soon - although the roll out has been painfully slow - and these will plug a lot of the gaps for people that see a lack of functionality.  Although seen as a bit silly when they first came out, Chromebooks are definitely a very viable option for people these days, and it’s not impossible to foresee a time where they are doing extremely well out of beating Apple on price and Windows on ease of use.

It’s maybe premature to say that ‘they’re the future of computers’ - but I really hope they are.