When comparing Groove Music vs Apple Music, the Slant community recommends Groove Music for most people. In the question“What are the best music streaming apps on Android?” Groove Music is ranked 4th while Apple Music is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Groove Music is:
A Groove Music application is available for Windows 10, Xbox, Android, iOS and Windows Phone. There is also a web app that will open all of your music with a simple sign in.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Available cross-platform
A Groove Music application is available for Windows 10, Xbox, Android, iOS and Windows Phone. There is also a web app that will open all of your music with a simple sign in.
Pro Huge music library
Groove Music has a massive music library with over 40 million songs, more than Spotify, Tidal, Deezer and Google Play Music,
Pro Integration with OneDrive
Groove Music integrates the music streaming service with OneDrive so that users can stream their own music files hosted in their OneDrive.
Pro Modern UI design
The designs of each Groove Music application from the web application to the Windows Phone 8 application are all slightly different but they all share a modern and attractive design. Though the applications on iOS and Android are less appealing than on the other platforms.
Pro Ability to request missing content
While other music streaming services simply suggest to contact the artist to add their music to their service, Groove Music allows you to easily file a request for missing content right from the Groove Music player.
Pro Free music streaming on computers and tablets
The Groove Music web application and Windows 8/10 application offer free music streaming on demand or artist based radio stations with unlimited skips. Although there are occasional advertisements and after 6 months of use, free streaming is limited to 10 hours a month.
Pro Over 92,000 music videos available with Groove Music Pass
Pro Has monthly and yearly subscription plans
The Groove Music Pass offers unlimited on demand music and artist based radio stations with unlimited skips, no advertisements, and offline playback. A one month Groove Music Pass is $9.99 and (a better deal) a 12 month pass is $99.90. The 12 month pass is great for kids, those that do not want to pay for a continuous subscription, or those that do not want to use their credit card.
Pro Sleek interface
iTunes has a flat, clean design with playback controls at the top-left, search at top-right and a row of ways to categorize available media beneath that. Plus it can be minimized to take up much less space. The minimized interface is called the MiniPlayer and it can be set to display on top of all other windows. It's possible to show iTunes on top of all other windows when playing movies as well.
Pro Syncs across devices
iTunes can synchronize playback information, podcast subscriptions & settings and automatically download purchases made on other devices.
Pro iTunes Store has a huge selection of media
iTunes has a huge catalog of videos, songs, and podcasts in the iTunes store.
Pro Playlists created by people
The Apple Music streaming service focuses on playlists selected by curators rather than intelligent radios in other streaming services. Choosing playlists selected by the curators improves the experience with another method of music discovery. Of course you can still heart or disheart any song on your own to improve the service's suggestions in the For You section.
Pro Family sharing for up to six devices
Pro Siri integration in a music streaming service
Pro Internet radio
iTunes includes a streaming music service called Radio that creates stations based on chosen genre, song or artist. Requires Apple ID to access.
Pro Airplay support
iTunes allows streaming audio to all Airplay enabled devices within Wi-Fi range. It's possible to select more than one device to play a song at the same time.
Pro Beats 1 Internet radio offers a shared audio experience
Beats 1 is a 24-hour radio station station run by Apple. It is hosted Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden and Julie Adenuga.
Pro Built-in parental controls
iTunes parental controls can be used to deny access to certain parts of iTunes such as podcasts, internet radio, store or shared libraries and restrict access to media that has a certain rating or warnings.
Pro Connect feature allows closer communication with musicians
Musicians post on the Apple Music streaming service about news, ideas, new music etc. You can engage with them directly on the site.
Pro Great podcast integration
Pro Lossless at no additional cost
Includes streaming lossless formats as part of the basic subscription.
Pro Dynamic Crossfade
When crossfade is set to automatic, its length changes based on what's playing to keep the flow between songs.
Pro Programmed DJ Sessions
DJ sets can be listened to like it’s a set.
Cons
Con Poor music quality
Bitrate quality is not explicitly stated by Microsoft, but music is reported to be streamed at 192kbps WMA which is lower than most comparable streaming services. While music is downloaded at 256kbps WMA, an improvement but still lower than Google Play Music and Spotify.
Con Inconsistent updates to Android app
It's a lot better than it used to be, but the update cycle is a slow and painful process.
Con No social network integration
This may be a huge pro or a con for different types of people. Groove Music does not offer comprehensive social integration like other music services such as Spotify. The only social feature Groove Music offers is the ability to a share a link to a song to Twitter, Facebook, or email. Groove Music will keep all your musical tastes strictly private unless you individually share it.
Con No song lyrics
Con No family plan
Many other streaming services now offer a family plan, Groove is lagging behind.
Con No tablet specific app for iOS or Android
The exclusion of a tablet specific application leaves Android or iOS tablet users with an unoptimized feeling experience.
Con No free plan
While there's a three month free trial that lets you test out features of the service, Apple Music is a subscription-only deal. There's no ad-supported free version or anything like that.
Con Poor audio quality compared to other services
Con Heavyweight
Appears to get bigger and bigger with each update, without really adding more value to someone who just wants to listen to and organize music.
Con The mobile app is known to crash from time to time
Con Buggy iTunes app
Immediately after the launch of Apple Music worldwide with the release of the iTunes 12.2, once users upgrade to the latest version of iTunes, many users experienced issues with music list being mixed up, wrong metadata etc.
Con Some albums have missing tracks / artists have missing albums
Due to copyright issues some albums on the service have tracks missing or some artists on the service have albums missing, which begs the question, why list the album if it is not complete.
Con Mediocre algorithms
Apple Music's algorithms are not very helpful if you are trying to find more music.
Con Poor UI
Con Doesn't pay artists a fair price
As of march 2018, Apple Music paid the artists $0.0074 per count. That's better than Spotify ($0.0044) and slightly more than Google Play ($0.0068) but way less than Tidal ($0.0125) or Napster ($0.019).
Con It changes the default artwork of your music
Con Confusing onboarding process
Con Apple Music has in some situations deleted user's local files
Con Requires an Apple device
Apple products are expensive as hell, and you can't use Apple music without one or iTunes.