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The advent of YouTube Music has further opened the app market for streaming music. Since the precursor and popular Spotify, several projects have imitated its model, trying to end the hegemony of the Swedish application, but for now, with relative success. With similar offers and tools, Apple Music and Tidal have not finished disturbing Spotify, which has been able to incorporate in time the news that its competitors were bringing. Apple Music has become more related to mobile and tablet users of the Cupertino company - many Android users are unaware that they can also have this app - and, therefore, to a smaller market share. Tidal, the ambitious project of multitasking artist Jay-Z, seems to have faded somewhat in popularity, especially in Europe, with a more technical listener profile. Now we see what the giant Google brings with its bet and we compare its price and characteristics with these three applications.
Youtube music
Google has created a simple app, even almost excessively simple. At the design level, the app has only three tabs and a search engine. In the Home tab we will find content similar to what we already find when opening other music apps: news, recent hit lists, suggestions based on the last thing we have saved in favorites and, this is exclusive, recommended videos. We have to say that as we keep saving songs that we like, the recommendations do not improve significantly and we continue to see suggestions that have little or nothing to do with the styles that we have saved. In this regard, it is still a long way from Spotify and its great recommendation lists, which rarely fail with a suggested track.
The rest of the features are very similar to what all streaming music apps offer today. It allows us to listen to a fairly wide catalog of music without any limits, we can create playlists, save albums in our library, follow our favorite artists and download music to listen offline. And an extra compared to other music apps: we can listen to music on different devices with the same account.
The price of YouTube Music is 9.99 euros per month, and for two more euros, 11.99, we will access YouTube Premium, which consists of the same service without the annoying ads between streaming songs and, very importantly, before the videos on YouTube.
Spotify
The pioneer app in terms of streaming music is a benchmark in terms of the amount of music and its interface design. The free service is offered with advertising and some restrictions. These restrictions especially apply on mobile phones, without the possibility of choosing a song, skipping three at most, not having access in offline mode and a somewhat capricious random mode. The app for Mac and PC does allow us to choose a song and skip as many as we want.
The menu has four tabs at the bottom. In Start we will see quite successful recommendations, the last thing we have heard and some personalized lists. Another tab is a search engine in which we will see different musical styles. In Your Library we will find everything from a playlist that we follow to our favorite songs and albums. And a fourth tab that informs us of the benefits of the Premium account. Spotify's clean and uncluttered interface has changed little over the years.
The musical offer is vast, between 35 and 40 million songs. It can be synchronized with our own music library and if you are going to leave home listening to music from the app, try to do it in an area with a lot of 3G or 4G coverage because otherwise you will notice constant cuts in the song. To avoid this and if you are Premium, use the offline mode before exiting. Being a Premium user is 10 euros per month or if you prefer, you have the Family Plan, which consists of six accounts paying 14.99 euros per month between all of them. Advertising is suffered every quarter of an hour or so. I say it suffers because they are usually promotions of reggaeton records like Enrique Iglesias or Luis Fonsi. There seems to be no smarter way to get us to purchase the Premium subscription.
Apple Music
In June 2015, the apple company presented its strong commitment to streaming music, Apple Music arrived. Those from Cupertino have managed to stand up to Spotify in the United States, in part because of the extra that this app comes installed by default on all iPhones and iPads. Like Spotify or YouTube Music, it has a free version, although we have to say that it can be quite improved, especially compared to the free version of Spotify. The white background color predominates in the design, due to the black of Spotify, but with an order of tabs that is not far from that of the Swedish app.
In terms of catalog breadth, it has about 40 million songs, almost the same number as Spotify. In this regard, both exceed the approximately 30 million tracks that YouTube Music has. The recommendations come in the For You tab and, not having an algorithm as good as Spotify's, which constantly hits the suggestions, it is true that it has a fairly decent percentage and in this both are far above the same service offered by the Google platform.
In price it is also quite similar to Spotify, with a Premium version for 9.99 and a family version (up to three accounts) for 14.99. But we highlight again the difference between its free versions, in which Apple has limited its app a lot. Meanwhile, Spotify or YouTube allow access to all music as long as we do not mind not always selecting songs or constantly suffer advertising.
Tidal
Tidal was born with the blessing - and money - of famed rapper and producer Jay-Z. And that was the approach that wanted to differentiate this app from other streaming music, that of an app for listening to music designed by musicians, which respected sound quality more than any other. The design of the app is very similar, almost nailed, to Spotify, with an identical order of the tabs and even with the predominance of black.
Tidal's commitment to high-quality sound makes its files FLAC, an audio format without loss of quality. But this addition caused the platform to be launched at a somewhat more prohibitive price for some, 19.99 euros. That has left him quite far in number of subscribers to Apple Music and, above all, Spotify. That is why the American app has opted to compete directly with both platforms by bringing to light a quality MP3 service at 320kbs for 9.99 euros. Both prices drop 2 euros in the first case and 1 in the second if you are a Vodafone customer. Tidal offers a catalog of more than 50 million songs, superior to that of YouTube Music, Spotify and Apple Music.
A plus about the Google and Apple apps is that, like YouTube Music, Tidal offers more than 52,000 video clips. Of course, it does not have a free version beyond the 30-day free trial. Something that leaves it at a clear disadvantage, especially compared to Spotify and YouTube Music, which offer quite complete free versions.
