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What's up, Prize Fight fan?
I'm Brian Tong, and hold onto your butts for the best streaming music service battle.
It's a throwdown showdown between Apple Music and Spotify.
The judge and the jury for this fight is you-know-who.
Ring-a-ling-a-ding Tong.
There will be no scoring in this fight, but I'll decide a winner for each round.
The final Prize Fight king of the ring will be the competitor with the most rounds one.
Let's get it on.
Round one is Design and UI.
Apple's known for the Cleanest and minimalist design in the world, but that's not the case with Apple music, it's a visual overload with album art galore, different themes and graphics and a navigation bar that's always there, that almost looks like five different apps in one, with for you, new music, radio, connect, and my music, it's really a mess.
Now Spotify takes a cleaner approach, with the navigation bar on the side.
That makes the overall app look cleaner.
It's main home screen features chart-toppers, new releases, and a list of icons for different genres.
That's straightforward, but I wish there was a faster way to have my playlists right on the main screen.
Both apps feature the song bar that you tap to expand and swipe down to put it away, but it only offers Play and pause control unless you expand it.
Overall, Spotify keeps it simpler and takes this first round.
Next round is value.
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We're breaking up value into two separate rounds because these services really have two different offerings.
First up, paid subscribers.
Now Spotify and Apple both offer a ten dollar per month subscription plan that gives you access to their entire library online or offline.
But when you're talking about a family plan, apple allows six accounts to share a music plan for just 15 dollars.
Now that's a steal because each additional member you add on Spotify will cost 5 dollars a month.
So do the math and six people sharing a Spotify plan will cost 35 bucks a month, compared to six people on an Apple Music plan for $15 a month.
Apple Music takes round 2. [SOUND] Now, round 3 is all about free.
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This is where Spotify strikes back, with an ad-supported limited streaming plan that works on both your desktop and mobile devices.
This a huge win and something that Apple can't even come close to.
Apple Music's free plan gives you a three month trial of the service.
Apple Radio looks to remain free for now, but you won't have access to Apple's music library at all.
Spotify takes round three and it's the biggest differentiator between these services.
Round four is music selection.
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Both services have a music library of roughly 30 million songs and growing, but Apple Music has shown it's getting more exclusive content.
WIth big time names like Taylor Swift's 1989 and Dr. Dre's the Chronic Albums.
Only being available on Apple Music, and new songs released by Pharrell, Nine Inch Nails, and Eminem, again, only being available on Apple Music.
They've already shown that they're serious about content that you can't get anywhere else.
Now, Spotify's radio stations including eras like the 80's and 90's are nowhere to be found on Apple Radio, but exclusive content is king here, and Apple Music takes round four.
We're tied at two rounds a piece.
Final round that decides it all is features.
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Spotify streams had a 320 kilobits per second bit rate.
Apple streams had a roughly 256 but they won't officially reveal that.
The most people won't be able to tell the truth through earbuds, but it's still a difference.
Apple users benefit from Siri integration that allows to call up Chart Toppers and more.
Beats 1 is the biggest Apple music feature with its unique 24-hour radio station that I love, or you can listen to it with or without a subscription.
The killer Spotify feature is Spotify Running, that detects the tempo you're running at and matches it with music from a music genre that you picked and really, it's awesome.
But the biggest different tome is that Spotify allows you to bring in your current music library through their desktop app and mix it in with a subscription service.
Compared to Apple music, that forces their matching feature.
Now the problem, Apple music's matching can completely destroy your current library, change the album art, change the metadata, and replace explicit lyric versions with clean versions, and I stay away from it completely.
Spotify takes round 5. So let's check out the final results.
And in another prizefight [UNKNOWN], Apple Music and Spotify went back and forth.
But in the end, Spotify take this prizefight three rounds to two, and is your prizefight winner.
Now sometimes the service you end up picking comes down to the ecosystem you're in, but in this first battle of many more to come, Spotify is the king of the ring.
I'm Brian Tong, thanks for watching and we'll catch you all next time for another prize fight.
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