Spotify versus Apple Music

Spotify and Apple Music are two of the leading music apps that people use for mobile streaming. Spotify has 551 million users including 220 million subscribers. While Apple Music has 101 million users and 88 million subscribers.

This debate of which is preferable is a current topic of discussion at McNicholas High School among the student body. Students often use headphones or AirPods throughout the day to listen to music. Observing the reliance on these devices raised the question, which music app do students listen to: Apple Music or Spotify?

In a poll taken by McNicholas students, out of the 48 students that took the poll, 32 of them choose Spotify, 10 of them choose Apple Music, and 7 others choose another music app such as YouTube Music or Amazon Music.

Senior Gabie Hopkins states, “You can listen to Apple Music when you’re offline, all the time which is different than Spotify” making her more inclined to use the former. To listen to Spotify offline, listeners have to download the song, unlike Apple Music, where listeners can listen to all the songs offline.

With Apple Music, users pay for the songs whereas Spotify doesn’t make users do that. “You don’t have to pay for all of the music on Spotify like you do on Apple Music” states freshman, Kennedy Haucke.

An individual plan for Apple Music costs $10.99 with Spotify also costing that amount. With Apple Music, users can buy an album, a specific song, or you could buy a month with all of the songs on Apple Music. With Spotify, users pay for the month and get all of the songs on Spotify.

Apple Music requires users to make their own playlists, but with Spotify, the app itself and other users playlists are discoverable. “I like that I can look at other people’s playlists” states Freshmen Ella McConnell.

Alternatively, some students at McNicholas High School also listen to YouTube music and Amazon Music. One student states they listen to YouTube Music because there aren’t any ads. Kaitlyn McConnell states that she listens to Amazon Music because “I can play it on my Alexa rather than on my phone.”

In conclusion, even though there are many music apps used at McNicholas High School, Spotify is the favorite at McNicholas due to the variety of ways students can use the app.