So I've been an avid Spotify Premium fan for a while now, and I love it. It is not without its flaws and quirks, but I'm erally quite happy with it.

I'm about 3 weeks into the 3 month trial on Apple music, and I have to say that their UX kinda sucks comparatively. If Spotify didn't exist I think I would dig it, but this isn't the reality. 3 weeks in, I have not figured out how to jump directly to the album of the song I'm listening to currently so I can skip around to other tracks (who in the world listens to entire songs especially as they tail out?). It's a pretty core behavior and I have tried mightily to figure it out but come up empty.

On the other hand, Apple Music's auto generated playlists have been fairly fantastic. Rather than make me want to leave Spotify, Apple Music surprisingly makes me content to leave my other favorite music app, Songza, which is a app choc full of curated playlists based on activity, genre, decade, or time of day. It's seriously awesome, and makes listening to algorithm-driven apps like Pandora feel like nails on chalk-board by comparison. So yeah, since Apple Music I think I've opened that app up twice when it used to be every day.

I like the size of the catalog as well compared to Spotify.

I think the biggest knock against Apple music is the fact that it isn't laser focused like Spotify. Spotify is there to do one thing and one thing only. Apple Music is there to do that, plus integrate with all of the legacy iTunes cruft, as well as try and sell you stuff. The 'New' button at the bottom is entirely not needed. If Apple is concerned with funneling user attention to new releases/artists, they can do this by including those tracks into the various generated playlists. I've discovered an untold number of new artists on Songza this way (and I would then jump into Spotify, find them, and add to a playlist...Apple Music could work well like this). The 'radio' button and the 'connect' button where you 'follow' artists are also cruft in my view. The personalized suggested playlists that pop up in the 'for you' section are far better than any of the generic 'radio' stations under that tab.

I'm going to keep at it. At the core, it's a massive catalog of music to stream and the service isn't terrible so far.