Last week, I finally gave in and subscribed to a premium Spotify account. Before I tell you why I think 129 Php a month is worth it, let me tell you first what my reasons for sticking with iTunes, then iTunes + Apple Music, and back to iTunes were.
The first thing I liked about using iTunes and just purchasing tracks that I wanted was that I am forced to choose only the songs that I really liked. Since I have to pay around 50.00 Php per track, I really needed to think before I clicked.
The second thing was that iTunes is deeply-integrated with my MacBook and phone so that's less tinkering with things (or so I thought).
When I tried Apple Music, I was pretty amused at first because of a lot of music became accessible with no long-term commitment needed. I eventually decided though that it was too expensive to maintain.
Now, what made me trash all those reasons and go with Spotify after all the things I've been saying to my friends about the goodness of iTunes?
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Cost-effectiveness. I think at 129 Php per month, it's pretty cheap. Compared to buying from iTunes, I get more flexibility.
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Manageability of files. Deep integration does not always mean it's a good thing. In my case with iTunes, I had trouble making sure that the tracks I wanted to bring with me offline has been synced to my phone. With Spotify, I can just maintain playlists and download them at a click of a button. No need to do syncing that takes a long time. Also, the 3000-track limit for offline files is actually not a limit for me.
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Speed. One thing I immediately noticed when I was comparing Apple Music and Spotify was the streaming speed. Maybe it's optimised for slow network connections?
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A whole lot more choices. Surprisingly, there are a lot of songs that's not available to Philippine users in iTunes.
So far, the experience has been good. I still haven't had that much time to build my playlists though. That will come soon.