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Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Which music service wins?

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Which music service wins?

Apple Music vs Amazon Music
(Paradigm credit: Shutterstock)

Both Apple Music and Amazon Music have made some large changes. Apple Music has launched both lossless music streaming and spatial audio support, while Amazon has taken the lossless capabilities of its Amazon Music HD tier and added the loftier-fidelity feature to Amazon Music Unlimited at no extra charge.

These music apps are therefore much ameliorate deals than from a few weeks ago, simply which one is amend? In this Apple Music vs. Amazon Music face-off we'll compare the features, availability and value of each service to find out which is more than deserving of your listening time.

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Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Cost

Dissimilar Apple Music, Amazon Music has a free tier, so you can sign upwardly and start listening without paying a single penny. However, it's heavily restricted: y'all tin simply access Amazon's "pinnacle playlists," can't utilise offline playback, and need to sit through ads interrupting your music. If you're an Amazon Prime number fellow member, you can upgrade to the Amazon Music Prime tier for no actress cost, while besides getting rid of ads and gaining offline playback — but the library is express to 2 meg songs, compared to the 75 1000000-plus of Amazon Music Unlimited.

This is the tier music fans should pay most attention to, and a standard individual subscription costs $ix.99 per month. This drops to $vii.99 if you're an Amazon Prime member, though obviously you should factor in Prime's annual $119 price equally well. Alternatively, Prime number members can pay $79 annually for an Unlimited subscription.

Apple Music vs Amazon Music comparison

(Epitome credit: Future)

Student plans are available at $4.99 per month, and if you're a Prime fellow member with an Amazon Echo speaker, you can get Unlimited for just $iii.99 per month — though your subscription volition be tied to a single speaker.

Lastly, Amazon Music Unlimited has a Family Plan, costing $14.99 per month and including half dozen individual accounts under one subscription.

Mercifully, Apple Music keeps things a lot simpler. Granted, at that place'southward no gratuitous tier, but at $nine.99 per month for a standard individual plan and $4.99 for students, it's no more expensive than Amazon Music Unlimited. Even the Apple Music Family unit subscription is practically identical, costing $fourteen.99 per month and granting six accounts.

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: At a glance


Apple Music
Amazon Music
Starting Cost
$9.99 per month Gratis
Price for offline manner, no ads $9.99 per month
Free (Prime members merely, but with library size limit); $ix.99 per month (standard)
Student Price $4.99 per calendar month
$4.99 per month
Family unit Package $xiv.99 per month, half dozen accounts
$14.99 per month, 6 accounts
Annual Plan
$99 per year $79 per year (Prime number members merely)
Exclusives Spatial audio, works with Siri on the HomePod/HomePod mini; Apple Music 1 Radio; Cloud music locker Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Sound (on specific speakers only); Alexa controls, DJ Way
Sony Library Size 75 million songs 75 1000000 songs

Apple tree Music vs. Amazon Music: Music library

Apple Music vs Amazon Music: Amazon Music library

(Prototype credit: Future)

Equally mentioned, paying for Amazon Music Unlimited expands the library of available songs from a sorry 2 million to over 75 million, not to mention Amazon's good for you supply of podcasts.

Apple tree also offers over 75 1000000 songs, besides as its own podcast stable. Platform-exclusive releases are largely a thing of the past, also, so don't worry about missing out on new launches; you lot're likely to find the same songs whichever y'all choice.

Winner: Draw

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Music quality

Apple has always stayed hush nigh the technical qualities of its streaming, though we know that songs you save for offline listening are 256 kbps AAC files. Amazon Music, meanwhile, streams using a 320 kbps format.

Frankly, you'd struggle to tell the departure fifty-fifty if you listening with a pair of the very all-time headphones. Speaking of which, your pick of playback device will have a much greater bear upon on sound quality than bitrates and sample rates, and so if you're merely going to heed to standard-quality tracks, Apple Music and Amazon Music are substantially fifty-fifty.

It's a dead oestrus for their respective lossless formats, too. Both Apple Music lossless and Amazon Music HD (which, remember, is now part of Amazon Music Unlimited) offer a option between CD-quality 16-chip/44.1kHz and Hi-Res 24-bit/192kHz formats. Merely recall that on mobile devices, you'll likely demand an external DAC for the best possible quality. Our guide on how to play Hi-Res music on iPhone tin aid you find and set one up.

Winner: Depict

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Immersive sound

Apple Music vs Amazon Music: Apple Music spatial audio

(Image credit: Apple)

When it comes to 360-degree audio, both Apple Music and Amazon Music diverge. Apple tree Music has its spatial audio option, which is based on Dolby Atmos and can create a digital 3D effect even in headphones. The main limitation is that it merely works when the source device is an Apple iPhone, iPad, Mac, MacBook or Apple tree Television receiver 4K.

Amazon Music Hd, and past extension Unlimited, claims to support both Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio, the latter of which is basically Sony'due south answer to spatial audio. Even so, both are even more hardware-limited than Apple'south format: Dolby Atmos playback is only compatible with a single speaker, the Amazon Echo Studio, while 360 Reality Sound is stuck with the Echo Studio, Sony RA3000 and RA5000 speakers.

In other words, Apple may hoard spatial audio to Apple tree device, but it'due south withal the only way either of these music apps can get 360-degree audio on your headphones.

Winner: Apple Music

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Deject locker and offline listening

One of Apple tree Music's underground weapons is its iCloud Music Library, which lets users sync whatever downloaded songs across whatever devices signed in with the same Apple ID. It'south a handy tool to which Amazon Music doesn't really have an alternative.

Similar Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited has a 100,000 song limit on downloads. But while Amazon lets you save these to equally many equally 10 devices, you can't sync those devices so your download library stays consistent across all of them.

Winner: Apple Music

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Brower playback

Apple tree Music used to require an iTunes installation, but Apple has seen sense and now lets you play music, create playlists and browse curated content in a browser just as easily as in the app. Likewise for Amazon Music: whether you're on a free account or an Unlimited subscription, you go all your tier's features in-browser.

Winner: Draw

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Availability

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Apple Music on HomePod mini

(Image credit: Apple)

Besides browsers and the iOS and Android apps, Apple tree Music is also bachelor on the Apple TV 4K, Apple tree HomePod and HomePod mini, the Apple Sentinel and Apple CarPlay. All the same, dissimilar with Spotify's CarThing, you can't add CarPlay to your existing car as information technology needs to be built-in.

Amazon Music tin can work with a very similar system in Alexa Motorcar, which as well needs to built-in. Nevertheless, you lot could alternatively upgrade your existing wheels with the Repeat Auto, a pocket-sized device that also lets you lot play Amazon Music content on the route. Otherwise, it has a comparably broad range of supportive devices, like the Fire Tv range of media streamers and Amazon Repeat speakers.

Whichever you lot choose, then, you won't remotely exist stuck with smartphones and desktops.

Winner: Draw

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Playlists and curated content

Apple Music vs Amazon Music: Apple Music playlists

(Image credit: Future)

Both services handle curated content very similarly, analysing your listening habits to build playlists containing both your favorite tracks and new music they retrieve you'll bask.

Apple tree Music and Amazon Music can also both build and nowadays playlists past genre, and even according to the time of day, similar offering a option of upbeat songs to wake you upwards in the morning.

One divergence is how these services evangelize radio, or at least a radio-like feel. Apple Music'south Apple Music 1 is essentially a standard, digital radio station, hosted by the likes of Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden. Meanwhile, Amazon Music has DJ Mode, which isn't live radio only adds commentary from the celebrity "host" to a playlist of tracks curated by that host.

Winner: Draw

Neither Apple Music nor Amazon Music can stand up upwards to Spotify when it comes to social media integration. Still, Amazon Music is the more than advanced of the 2. In addition to creating shareable links that you can post wherever you want, the Amazon Music app lets you post a song straight to the social network of your choice.

Apple Music can also create sharing links hands, and lets you quickly share songs with other registered users over AirDrop, merely doesn't have the immediacy of Amazon Music's social sharing. You always need to shut the app, switch to a dissimilar ane and paste the link there.

Winner: Amazon Music

Apple tree Music vs. Amazon Music: Design

Apple Music vs Amazon Music design comparison

(Image credit: Future)

Apple Music'southward UI blueprint is typically Apple: clean, light and stark. Amazon Music's more closely evokes Spotify, with light text on a dark background and smaller tiles.

Both apps fifty-fifty apply the same tactic of splitting upwardly personalized and non-personalized content recommendations onto dissimilar screens, which you lot tin jump between using a low-slung taskbar in both. If you're in a hurry to find some new music, the more sensible, organized-by-genre layout of Amazon Music's "Find" page might appeal more, but for the well-nigh function there'southward piffling practical deviation.

Winner: Draw

Apple tree Music vs. Amazon Music: Value

It'south unremarkably hard to fence with "gratis," simply Amazon Music's entry-level tier is so limited it's hard to recommend. Likewise the Prime tier, which is a neat bonus for side by side-solar day-commitment addicts but ultimately includes less than iii% of Unlimited's music library.

On that notation, going purely by cost per song, Apple tree Music does give y'all about v million extra tracks for the same greenbacks every bit an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. On top of that it has an arguably more than convenient implementation of 360-degree sound, and its cloud syncing feature helps make upwards for its less developed sharing capabilities.

Winner: Apple Music

Apple tree Music vs. Amazon Music: Which is the best music app?

It's shut, but right now Apple tree Music simply offers a little fleck more of what we desire from a music streaming app than Amazon Music Unlimited. This is the example fifty-fifty if yous're already an Amazon Prime subscriber: the $2 monthly discount doesn't injure, but if you treat the Prime subscription itself equally a sunk price, an extra $24 per year isn't exactly going to pay off the house.

Patently, Unlimited isn't the only option, and Amazon Music'south free tier will naturally be a improve fit than Apple'south subscription-merely model for those whose budgets are beyond tight. But if y'all're facing a choice of which to spend on, Apple tree Music wins out, specially if you've got the hardware to take reward of spatial audio.

Apple Music vs. Amazon Music: Scorecard


Apple tree Music Amazon Music
Music Library
Music Quality (bitrate)
Immersive Audio
Cloud Locker and Offline Listening
Browser Playback
Availability
Playlists and Curated Content
Social Media
Blueprint
Value
Total nine seven
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James is currently Hardware Editor at Rock Newspaper Shotgun, but earlier that was Audio Editor at Tom's Guide, where he covered headphones, speakers, soundbars and anything else that intentionally makes noise. A PC enthusiast, he also wrote computing and gaming news for TG, usually relating to how hard it is to find graphics card stock.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/face-off/apple-music-vs-amazon-music

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