The debate, Spotify desktop vs mobile app seems so intense by looking at what each version has to offer. The mobile version is good for convenience and you can play your music at any place anytime so long as you have the Spotify app installed. Program Windows 10 Is it better to use normal installed program or the app from Windows store? (in terms of efficiency, least ram,hdd use etc.). Spotify: The best music streaming service for you The giants of streaming offer a lot for music and podcast fans alike. Let's see how they compare on price, catalog, features and more. Now, the App Store contributes massive amounts towards Apple's services review, which the company has pledged to grow over the next few year. So lowering or eliminating that App Store cut hurts Apple's service narrative. It's probably not Spotify or even Netflix contributing most of that money.

The way we consume music has evolved dramatically over the past 50 years.

One of the biggest changes is the shift from ownership of physical – and latterly digital – music (remember Steve Jobs pulling 1,000 songs out of his pocket in 2001?) to streaming; playing songs in real-time from a library in the ether.

Streaming has in some ways provided a huge boost to the music industry, offsetting the decline in sales of physical formats and reshaping the way music is packaged, distributed and consumed.

According to global music industry representative IFPI, by the end of 2019, streaming accounted for more than half (56.1 per cent) of global recorded music revenue for the first time.

It is the industry’s fastest-growing revenue source, with 89 per cent of music-lovers across the globe listening to music through on-demand streaming, and 54 per cent of 35 to 64-year-olds using a streaming service in the past month – up eight per cent on figures taken 12 months previously.

MORE:

The state of play

There are plenty of streaming services vying for your attention: Deezer, Google Play Music, Primephonic, Amazon Music Unlimited, and YouTube Music to name a few.

Tidal, with its CD-quality lossless streaming tiers, has made ripping CDs a thing of the past, while Qobuz’s Sublime+ subscription offers hi-res downloads too.

But the biggest two by far are Spotify and Apple Music. Since 2008, Spotify has been at the forefront of streaming.

As one of the longest-running and most subscribed-to services, its dominance has seen many rivals fall by the wayside. But Spotify arguably faces its biggest threat yet from Apple Music (previously Beats Music until Apple acquired it in 2014).

Here, we compare the two giants to see which most deserves your money.

MORE: Best music streaming services 2020: free streams to hi-res audio

Subscription plans

If you don’t have the extra cash to splash on streaming, then Spotify should probably be your go-to service.

Staying true to its “music for everyone” ethos, it is one of the few to offer a free (ad-supported) subscription tier alongside its Premium service.

The desktop version is pretty unrestricted in terms of search and stream options, and while free users on the mobile app could previously only listen to playlists in shuffle mode rather than specific tracks and were limited to six song-skips per hour, Spotify updated the app in 2018 to allow free users unlimited listening to as many as 750 tracks across 15 top playlists every month (including Discover Weekly), equating to about 40 hours of music playback.

Of course, there are adverts, and the data rate is capped at 160kbps, but the service is free, so it'd be churlish to complain.

The majority of Spotify’s 100 million active users settle for the free tier but, as the 140 million who now subscribe to the paid-for Premium service can vouch for, there’s plenty of reason to shell out: 320kbps streams, offline listening, Spotify Connect support, search and skip tracks on mobile devices, and no adverts.

Apple Music doesn’t have a free tier, although there is a three-month free trial and you don’t need to be a member to listen to Beats 1 radio – one of the service’s most celebrated features.

For online and offline streaming and access to more radio stations, the monthly fee is also £10 ($10) (or £5 ($5) for the student membership).

Apple Music may have arrived late to the party, but it did so with a huge fanfare. While it may currently have around half the number of paying subscribers as Spotify (68m by the end of 2019, according to German statistics portal, Statista), the fact that it has skyrocketed to that in just over five years is staggering.

Now that Spotify has revised the initial monthly £30 cost of its Family Plan, both services now offer £15 ($15) family membership covering up to six users. Recently, Spotify also launched a £12.99 ($12.99) Duo membership too, for couples.

**Winner** Spotify

Catalogue

It’s a pretty even match when it comes to catalogue size and platform support.

Apple Music claims over 60m tracks in its back catalogue, while Spotify's figure is 50m songs. And that’s growing – in April 2019, Spotify founder Daniel Ek told investors that 40,000 songs were being added to Spotify's streaming platform every day. It's not just music though, the catalogue is growing in terms of types of content too.

Battling to be at the forefront of innovation, Spotify has focused on podcasts as well as music for its content growth. Since the acquisition of podcasting production specialist Gimlet Media in 2019, over 700,000 podcasts have been made available to stream and download on Spotify, including a raft of Spotify exclusives.

And if that sounds a bit much, there a set of human-curated podcast playlists to help you find your new favourite shows with names such as 'Best Podcasts of the Week', 'Brain Snacks' and 'Crime Scene' – all self-explanatory and well worth delving into.

Perhaps Apple's advantage over Spotify here is that while both services offer playlists that comprise songs based on your listening habits, Apple also has the Beats 1 Radio stations which feature human DJs at the decks.

But streaming services aren’t quite the global jukebox they could be.

Some anti-streaming artists, including Adele and, historically, Prince, have deliberately restricted their work. Spotify has come into conflict with artists over both the low royalties it pays acts and the very existence of its free tier.

In 2014, Taylor Swift publicly pulled all but one of her songs from Spotify. At the time, Spotify said that 16m of its users had played Swift's music in the 30 days leading up to the removal, adding that she appeared on 19m Spotify playlists.

Swift wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, 'It's my opinion that music should not be free' although she has now conceded this protest.

Jay-Z’s involvement in Tidal has seen some of his albums, including The Blueprint, appear exclusively there, although the artist eventually threw in the towel on that particular exclusivity war.

Apple has cut exclusive deals, including Dr Dre’s Compton album, Drake's Views From The 6 and Britney Spears' Glory, all of which initially appeared on Apple Music only – although they are now available on Spotify. Still, the lure of a paid-for service clearly works when it comes to securing artists, to a degree at least.

Time will tell whether Apple Music’s artist-exclusives will hurt Spotify in the long run, but Spotify is rumoured to be considering keeping some music off its free tier to get more artists on board.

Both services are available on a number of platforms: there’s desktop support for PC and Mac (Spotify has a web player too), plus Android and iOS apps.

Spotify also has the benefit of Connect, which lets premium subscribers stream directly to speakers, TVs or systems, while Apple deploys AirPlay 2 here.

Both have become a function on many hi-fi and AV products – and it's a big pull for those interested in bringing streaming and multi-room listening to their existing system.

**Winner** Draw

The user experience

Both Spotify and Apple Music offer similarly clean, simple and intuitive layouts. That wasn’t always the case, though. When Apple Music first launched, we found its busy interface a bit clunky to use.

But with Apple's 2016 iOS 10 update, the Cupertino giant stripped it back, with cleaner typography and graphics. Features and options are hidden away behind icons and collapsible tabs, and the layout is easier to navigate.

The rule of thumb for using Apple Music is to click everything. Tapping the ellipsis that appears almost ever

Spotify Vs App Store