Hi folks, tried to search earlier topics to see if this question has been posed previously, but didn't come up with any results, so.....
With a 21 year old at Uni in Edinburgh, a 17 year old at home, plus my wife and I, we've recently been discussing moving to a music streaming service. My Son currently has a Spotify account that he pays monthly for, my daughter has a trial version of Spotify which she informs me has just finished (so she has no music to listen to; long story but it involves an inability to put iTunes onto her MacBook), and we have Sonos at home which either service will work for. I think it's pretty much the same monetary outlay for a family account per month for either and we all have iPhones, so my inclination was to go to Apple Music, but I seem to recall that there were stories about music libraries being lost, including people's own music disappearing. I've had a look online, most reviews are from last year and seem relatively evenly split. I just wondered if there was anybody here who has any experience of either or both who could offer some thoughts? As I say, we all have iPhones, none of us have Windows PC's so all my owned music is in iTunes, would welcome some views please?
Thanks
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I use Spotify and gave a family account and really enjoy it, integrates into my volvo straight away and works on all my apple devices. I tried apple music but cancelled after the initial trial.
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I use Spotify and gave a family account and really enjoy it, integrates into my volvo straight away and works on all my apple devices. I tried apple music but cancelled after the initial trial.
If your daughter cannot put iTunes on her MacBook it is time to worry as it is there naturally (part of a MacOS install)
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Reading that back, the correct terminology would be, "populate iTunes". As you say, iTunes is there, but due to performance slow down issues, the MacBook was restored to factory settings, and her music library is sat on an external hard drive, waiting to be imported.Originally Posted by Saint-Just
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Last edited by ghu1967; 13th September 2016 at 17:12.
Leave it on the external drive and point iTunes to it in preferences. Thats what I do.
Tried all the pay for services, I think Deezer is best.
Spotify family acc here £15 - up to 6 people
I find more of my style of music on Apple music.
Might look into that. I assume that there are no performance issues with reading an external disk. Going off topic slightly, I think her problem was that she saved the music files onto the laptop hard disk, then imported them into iTunes, and then started getting all sorts of performance issues and messages to say the laptop had run out of space (messages were garbled as neither of us are particularly technology focused), but I wondered if this duplicated the files? I keep telling her to take it to the Apple Store to have a Genius look at it.
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" it involves an inability to put iTunes onto her MacBook”
seriously? take it to a genius bar and get a whizkid to sort that.
i use apple music, the only issue i had was when i had limited data on my phone plan and it would interrupt a cued up playlist when wi-fi became available. dont have the problem now as i stream most of the content and only keep a few hundred regular songs on the phone. i like the ‘for you’ suggested content and playlists and have discovered many new songs/artists this way. i guess spotify offers something similar and it comes down to how many users and devices you can have with one payment.
my only gripe would be the lack of high bit-rate content for when i listen through a DAC/NAIM hi-fi set-up where the extra resolution would be noticeable, that said it’s still very good quality.
It's more to do with importing her music 'into' iTunes, I've told her to get to the Genius Bar, but as yet she's still to make an appointment.
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Reading the blurb on both, it seems that they both offer enough users for us. I did see that Spotify emphasise that all users must reside at the same physical address; with my daughter in Edinburgh, and the rest of us in the North of Scotland, that might be a problem, but not sure how this would/could/is policed?
Edited to add the word reside.
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Last edited by ghu1967; 13th September 2016 at 17:53.
No real difference my wife and I both travel a lot and I use spotty everywhere.
I really enjoy Deezer too. They are constantly improving an already great product.
You can do even better than an external hard disk, with a NAS. Works brilliantly.
Does Deezer offer a family subscription in the UK? Reading up on it, I thought this was only in France & Netherlands.
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Thats what I've got - no clogging up the hard drive :)
I can recommend Spotify family 3 of us use it, plus you can download and keep to your library, a good feature is the top 100 songs each week, plus they know what you listen to and suggest new artists you might like.
There is a tick box in preferences that says copy files to iTunes media folder when adding to library - uptick it. That way you don't duplicated files, iTunes is just referencing their original location.
Plus in preferences make your iTunes media file location the external drive.
Thanks for the great tips so far folks. Think I might look into the NAS idea for home rather than clogging up the HD.
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Amazon Prime music is good, but not a reason on its own to get Amazon Prime.
I use Napster which is £10 per month for computer and smartphone use across the family.
Spotify user here. I like the radio function. Create a mini playlist and start a radio station for it.
Apple Music was good I stuck with Spotify out of convenience.
Spotify - I find discovering new music better here with the recommendations Spotify give.
Not sure to be honest, I've got it on my phone, iPad and the wife's phone but all signed in as me. We just set up separate playlists and save them that way.
"Flow" is very good, learns what you like and plays similar if you want, I cannot fault it.
I've got to say that the user interface and "learning" on Deezer is the best I've used. However, the family option isn't available in the UK, so is therefore more expensive if you want simultaneous use on multiple devices. A number of times during the trial, I couldn't use Deezer because 14 year old daughter was on it. Spotify I found OK, but not great.
We're heavily into the Apple ecosystem and £15/month for family use seems good value. They've also got the most music available - that's the one area that Amazon Prime Music is a real let-down.
love spotify. Got family membership with members of my family. works great....
I use both Spotify and Deezer, not much in it but the flow option in deezer might just sway it......
I use Spotify, like the interface. I have at various times tried Napster and Deezer.
A recent convert to Spotify (family subscription) and it's fantastic!
Do the folks who have a family Spotify account have any family members who are using the account but not physically living at the account address? I'm sure it's not a deal breaker, but this is highlighted on the Spotify T&C's.
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Spotify user here, not tried any of the alternatives as I was sold as soon as I started the trial. Works across all devices, has all the music I want and good features.
Technically both.
I have iTunes match for my old/physical music. Once its ripped and matched or uploaded to iCloud its on my phone, iPad etc. This is £20 for the year so if my drive and or backup dies i dont have to spend days ripping my music again.
Spotify is used for everything else. Radio is great and i dont mind the adverts. If you stop paying you can still use the service unlike Apple music
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