Whether you're a Spotify or Apple Music user, I wager there's a chance you like to keep an eye on what the other side of the fence is working on in their quest for music streaming service dominance.
While I'm firmly in the green camp for now, when Apple's Senior Vice President of Services, Eddy Cue, opens up on the rivalry, it's worth listening to what he has to say.
Cue took to popular tech YouTube channel SuperSaf to talk about the differences, and similarities, between the two services. You can check it out below.
Eddy Cue on Apple Music vs Spotify
"Everyone pretty much has all the same songs so there are not any differences there," Cue admits, "But that doesn’t mean you can’t innovate and that you can’t do special things. That’s the mistake that people think."
"If you look over the last few years, we’ve innovated in quality of the music. In the history of music, there’s really been two formats, mono and stereo. Now, with our surround sound, it’s the first time that you put on a set of AirPods and you’re moving your head and the music is like you’re sitting on the stage with the band exactly how they were hearing it when they’re singing it."
One of the reasons I've stuck with Spotify is the company's willingness to try new things with curation around AI, but Cue seems to be focused on the human side of streaming music.
"We still think there’s a people part here, as much as we love technology. There’s still an aspect of people that’s critical to us," he explains, "That starts with radio, where we do live radio shows with real DJs and the playlists we’re creating that are algorithmic but always with a personal touch to it."
Cue also acknowledged Apple's shortcomings with classical music, noting that the company "knew we sucked" at handling classical music.
"One of the things that we knew we sucked at doing was classical inside of Apple Music," he admitted. "So we decided like if you love classical we should give you the same kind of experiences, so we went off and did a completely different application for Apple Classical."
