I’ve always been a huge Spotify fan. Haven’t used my iTunes in ages. I have mostly just used the free Spotify versions though I currently am entering month 3 of a three month Spotify Premium offer which I do love. I do not love the thought of payng $9.99/month for this service after the three months is up!
I also became a member of Amazon Prime over the holidays. I hadn’t checked out Amazon Prime Music till prompted by an email today. Hmmm. I’m wondering if this is a solution to NOT paying for Spotify when I’m not in wireless? If I download something to my Amazon Music Library via the app on my phone am I using data??? The Spotify data seems very minimal when I use it for exercising and stuff. If the Amazon Music library will still use data is it a data saver or sucker?
Your opinions of one service over the other? I tend to listen to mostly current/recent music. I like to build playlists. I use this music when I run, walk, sometimes when I drive. (don’t use the radio much)
I’m interested in this discussion, but I don’t have a lot to offer. We just got Amazon Prime recently, and I am building a music library there, but have not tried to use on a phone yet.
S is paying for Spotify now and has hundreds of songs on his phone. He doesn’t seem to be using discernible amounts of data. He absolutely loves it and thinks the price is well worth it.
I moved to Amazon Prime recently, and am almost ready to move back. From a data usage standpoint, I don’t see why they’d be different EXCEPT that Spotify lets you download music when you are on Wi-Fi, and then play it locally for a period of time. So, if you have space, that great. I’m not sure Amazon allows this…I haven’t found it. I used this feature on Spotify when we did our trip out west to Yellowstone. I feel like Spotify has much better and more varied playlists…I don’t like creating my own. I like to listen to other people’s music. If I listened to music just a LITTLE bit more than I do, I would go back to Spotify in a second, but right now $10/mo is a little too steep if I can get something close for free.
Oh good, a comment! I thought I was the only one using these services!
Yes, if you pay for Spotify, then you don’t use data when you play your downloaded music outside of wireless. It’s stored in your library and you can skip through playlists, replay songs, etc. - you can’t do that with free Spotify.
There is a student membership at $4.99/month. For some reason that seems much more reasonable than the usual $9.99/month!
I’ll let you know what I discover when I download the Amazon app.
I use Amazon Prime. You can download songs and play them back offline. There is a setting for your phone that determines what can be done when not connected to wifi. I have one device with metered data–it is set to only download and stream when connected to wifi–I use my offline library the rest of the time. Downloaded songs do “expire”, not sure what the time is–I’ve only had this happen once, but you just have to connect to the internet again to “renew”.
Spotify has such an amazing catalog, you can find almost anything and it is very easy to make playlists. I still buy physical media to play on my “big rig”, but use Spotify to screen any new releases prior to purchase.
I downloaded the Amazon music app tonight. Easy peasy to link to my Amazon account, see music and adjust settings.
This comment seems to indicate that data won’t be used for downloaded music??
Prime Music lets you download tracks for offline listening, a handy option if you don’t want to burn through your data plan while on the go – or you’re stuck somewhere without Internet access.
My daughter has been trying to get me to get a spottily account, but I already have Apple Radio and Pandora. Her friends who think they are discovering music that no one knows want to follow me when they learned that I saw some artists in concert when I was a teenager . Also, I still use my iTunes. I alternate between all of them , mostly when I am driving. Apple Radio confuses me to be honest and I have contemplated dropping it. I still buy songs on iTunes , and I get the option of listening to the entire album
So once I got out of the house and wireless today, I attempted to play a downloaded album on Amazon Music. It appears it will use SOME data because I got a message that I would need to change my settings to have it play while not in wireless. So now just to figure out how much data and options when streaming (to skip songs, restart a song, etc. - things you can’t do on Spotify free).
As an avid YouTube watcher and Google Play Music user, I’ll have to recommend it. Like Spotify, it’s 10$ a months, with the usual offline download, ad-free streaming, and uploading a library (50k songs on the cloud instead of on your phone), etc. but also has some useful YouTube Red perks. The main complaint of Amazon Prime is its limited library, but most people buy prime for the shipping anyways. I would recommend Google Play Music, but Spotify is basically the same thing.
Since I have an XM account, I just got the all access for $20 a month, which includes one radio (in the new car) and streaming. Since I have T-Mobile (free mobile streaming on most music services), I use the streaming on my other cars without the XM receiver and the app is surprisingly good. I think I’m going to ditch my home receiver and go wifi from now on. The variety of XM can’t be beat.
I think I have XM in my car , but I never use it. It’s just overwhelming to even find the genre of music I want to listen to. The only thing it’s useful for ( to me ) is letting me know there is severe weather in my immediate area.
I generally only want music in the car and in my house. On the rare occasions I want to listen on my phone while walking I use Amazon Prime. I listen to XM in the car and Pandora in the house. I have been fairly successful in teaching Pandora what I like and it’s pretty good about introducing new music and playing the old stuff I love, but I thumb up and down and add variety pretty conscienciously. It’s pretty hard to figure out the Pandora algorithm; occasionally I have to leap across the room to give it a thumb down because it playing something entirely wrong. But mostly I don’t want to be in charge of what I hear next; surprise me. Oh, and XM is okay in the car because I only have a 6 mile commute and I have ten presets so I can usually find something I like while I’m going to work.
" You’re missing a lot then. Learn the channels and how to program them in your radio. "
I have tried listening to it in my husband’s work vehicle when I have to use it…it just falls flat with me .
Pandora is pretty good at searching out what I like based on the station I create and if I don’t like a song, I won’t be stuck listening to it again…or if I want to skip a song because I’m just not in the mood to hear it.
All of my daughters give me music suggestions which also opens me up to artists I might not get to hear.
What I never tune into is regular radio stations in my area.
My oldest moved back to Boston after moving back home for awhile, yet still listens to a radio station from Philadelphia online….she found me a rendition of Florence+ the Machine singing Fleetwood Mac’s " Silver Spring "( which was really beautiful ) and posted it to my FB wall…leading to more recommendations from others.
It works for me
I have been a prime member forever and my daughter has spotify. I had no idea about prime music though I use prime video a ton. So glad I found this thread and very excited about prime music. Great catalog so far given my tastes.
