As with members of the MacDailyNews team, 9to5Mac’s Bradley Chambers has been an Apple Music subscriber since the day it launched in 2015, but Chambers says, “Despite being an Apple Music customer, there have long been aspects of Spotify that I preferred over Apple Music.”
Until iOS 14, that is. Now Chambers says, “Apple Music on iOS 14 brings over the best of what Spotify offers my opinion, making it the ultimate music streaming service.”
In iOS 14, Apple Music renames the For You tab to Listen Now. The Listen Now tab is the default loading screen over the Library in previous versions of iOS. What I appreciate about the Listen Now tab is how it quickly helps me find something to listen to (my station, recently played, one of my Made For You playlists), New Releases, and Replay playlists, etc. Apple’s library management is much better than Spotify, but using it as the launch screen was always frustrating. I felt like I’d always end up on things I recently added to my Library vs. exploring new music. By making Listen Now the first tab, it’s putting it front and center while retaining the excellent library management…
I’ve long believed that Apple Music was the better music playing app, but Spotify did a better job of helping you find something to listen to when launching it. With iOS 14, Apple brings the best from Spotify and combines it with the best library management and iCloud Music Library.
MacDailyNews Take: More bad news for Spotify which was overtaken by Apple Music in the world’s largest music market, the United States, in February 2019.