Spotify’s player offers more functionality, with more options accessible from the main player (play, skip, shuffle and repeat). Both interfaces want to highlight their cover art, but choose different strategies for achieving this: Apple Music selects a predominantly white colour scheme (a move that aligns with their larger branding conventions), Spotify goes dark (a choice I discuss in this piece about light vs dark UIs). Placing the two players side-by-side immediately reveals the blatant contrast between the two. We begin with the most crucial component of any music app, whether its Spotify, Apple Music, or even Soundcloud: the music player itself. So while Apple Music’s video content is excellent, it will be a non-factor in this head-to-head showdown. Instead, we will pick out functions that both apps share, and compare them directly. (That means we will not be docking points just because Spotify does not have your band’s EP on it).īecause Spotify and Apple Music are incredibly complex and expansive platforms, we will not be combing through screens or modules like we usually would. Instead, we will be comparing from a purely UX perspective. So we will not be using those metrics to evaluate the two. They have spawned countless articles and infographics comparing the two platforms regarding cost, music library, feature lists, and more. The two music streaming giants have a well-documented history of feuding, as well as stubbornly devoted fanbases. Moreover, what better way to start with two of the largest, polarising mobile platforms on the market today: Spotify and Apple Music.

Rather than a single platform, we will be pitting two against each in a contest of user experience. However, for this instalment of UX Case Study, we will be doing something a bit different. You can see a complete list of the UX Case Study series at the bottom of this page. In the past, we have conducted UX reviews of apps ranging from Bumble to Overcast, Duolingo to Venmo, covering mobile experiences of all sizes, sectors, and levels of quality. In a blogosphere full of articles honing in on single, often granular components of user experience design, Codal‘s UX Case Study aims to examine UX from a holistic perspective, panning the camera back to explore how an experience functions as a whole. And we are back in action! It has been awhile since our last UX Case Study so that I will give a brief refresher for our returning readers and an intro for the uninitiated.

Spotify vs apple music popularity