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Apple Music refuseniks seemingly head to Spotify, as app hits #1 spot in U.S. App Store

Apple Music appears to be off to a strong start in terms of paying subscribers, but as the old adage has it, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. A decent chunk of those who have opted not to pay for Apple Music appear to have headed instead to SpotifyTechCrunch notes that Spotify’s iOS app has taken the top grossing spot in Apple’s U.S. App Store for the first time ever.

Spotify was quietly hitting a milestone of its own. The company’s music streaming app just moved into the No. 1 position on the iPhone App Store’s “Top Grossing” charts for the first time in the US. Previously, according to data from App Annie, the highest rank Spotify saw on the “Top Grossing” charts stateside was No. 3, which it hit earlier this year and maintained in September.

When we polled 9to5Mac readers, 19.5% of you said that you would be switching to Spotify instead of paying for Apple Music.

With Apple hot on defending customer privacy, Spotify did hit a bit of a sticky moment back in August, when it was forced to clarify its new privacy policy, which appeared to allow the service to share personal information. CEO Daniel Ek apologized for the lack of clarity previously, and sought to reassure customers that data is used only to improve the Spotify service and use of customer data is opt-in.

Photo: curved.de

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Comments

  1. iSRS - 8 years ago

    I’ve used and paid for Spotify in the past. Even before it hit the US with that hack to get a UK account.

    I don’t see the draw over the fully integrated Apple Music. Apple Music has been great, my family of 4 all having our own library. And it is all just right there.

  2. o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

    Isn’t that because it just recently received the ability to allow in-app subscriptions? I don’t see how that is representative of anything but that fact.

    • chrisl84 - 8 years ago

      They always let you IAS but it costs more than going through their website….so people are even willing to pay a premium than switch to Apple Music

  3. rogifan - 8 years ago

    Is this people who canceled Spotify and are now going back after Apple’s 3 month trial

  4. Tim Sparke (@sparkey) - 8 years ago

    I think it’s probably the usability of the apps. Spotify is single-minded and does one thing and one thing well. The Apple music’s interface is a mess (both desktop and mobile versions). Additionally, since Spotify bought the data company that powered Beats recommendations (http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/24/pulling-the-data-rug-out-from-under-apple/) and launched the ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist their recommendation engine is incredible. Great use of data.

  5. William D - 8 years ago

    I resisted for a few months for the trial, and then signed up about a month ago to  Music. Frankly i’m disappointed. The whole UI/UX seems a mess both on the Mac but also on my iPhone. I keep ending up in the iTunes store which means that  Musis completely separate, so it’s just s giant mess, and no better than using a completely different service to me. I mean so much for “one place, one app” stuff mantra they used at WWDC. it’s just so complicated. I feel so thick getting used to it.

    • iJonni - 8 years ago

      Sounds like you’re either doing something wrong, unintended or something they didn’t think about when working on it. I’ve never ended up in the iTunes Store when using the music app. I’ve also never ended up there from iTunes. I’ve been using Apple Music since launch, previously I was both a Spotify and Beats Music customer. The only issue I have is with Playlistsnot being easily scrollable. I’d like to manually sort them. Other than that I offline play just fine, add to library just fine. Maybe I’m lucky but I’ve no software issues with the app and I understand how to navigate it without issue.

  6. AeronPeryton - 8 years ago

    Spotify is Apple Music’s Blackberry.

  7. mojodk - 8 years ago

    Apple Music is imo beta – tons of bugs, bad design etc. If Apple just could be inspired by the other streaming services.

    • Benjamin Stocksdale - 8 years ago

      I totally agree. I wanted to love Apple Music and found lots of great artists while I used it but I had to go back to Spotify due to all the bugs. I tried for two weeks to download two albums for offline listening ( because I don’t have Wi-Fi at work and love listening to music all day ) and they would never download. I also had problems adding things to my library. It would say added and would never show up. It was immensely frustrating. I will contemplate Apple Music again if they get the bugginess worked out because I think the integration and approach has great potential.

  8. chrisl84 - 8 years ago

    Psh not possible, everyone here told me Spotify would be dead by the end of the year….

  9. I pay for Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora. At least I did until the first 9.99 of Apple Music when I canceled the subscription. I thought Sptofy’s interface was bad but Apple Musics is worse mostly because they shove Beats radio in your face which I don’t want and try to force buying of music at every turn. I have bought a lot of music on iTunes in the past but they are getting in my way of listening to music with their constant sell, sell, sell interface. I really thought Apple Music would cause me to cancel Spotify but its turned out the other way. Pandora still has the best streaming radio stations and is cheap so I’m sticking with that.
    Apple has done a terrible job with Apple Music and I’m as big an Apple fanboy as you can find.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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