Apple Music vs. YouTube Music in 2023

Which service is better for most people? What features really help differentiate Apple Music from YouTube Music? Which service has more music available? Which one has higher quality music and better recommendations? We'll answer these questions and more in our in-depth review comparing Apple Music and YouTube Music.

🛒 Purchase Links (Affiliate Links):

🔗 Related Video links:

💻 Signup for our Free Newsletter!
• Exclusive Review Follow-ups and Deal Alerts
• A monthly recap of everything we publish
• Hot Takes on Tech, plus Recommendations

❤️ Follow Josh:

🎥 Video Production Equipment we use 📹

🕰️Timestamps:
0:00 - Higher Quality Music
1:36 - Dolby Atmos Music
2:44 - iTunes
3:17 - Radio Stations
4:20 - Apple Music Sing
4:42 - Apple Ecosystem
5:11 - Apple Music Classical
6:18 - Apple's Simple Design
6:57 - Music Track Availability
7:48 - Algorithmic Choice
8:53 - Quick Picks and Tuner
9:34 - Offline Mixtape
10:30 - Issues with YouTube and YouTube Music
10:49 - YouTube Premium subscription
11:06 - Anything similar?
11:52 - Recommendations

📜 Disclosures 📃

The devices used in this video were purchased by the channel. No company sponsored this video.

Any Amazon links we provide in our descriptions are in conjunction with our Amazon partnership. The channel receives a small percentage of revenue from any sales generated by viewers clicking the links.

#applemusic
#youtubemusic
#review

[MonthsLater]

Purchase links and more:

🛒 Purchase Links (Affiliate Links):




👉 View all of our favorite products:


🔗 Related Video links:


💻 Signup for our Free Newsletter!
• Exclusive Review Follow-ups and Deal Alerts
• A monthly recap of everything we publish
• Hot Takes on Tech, plus Recommendations


❤ Follow Josh:


🎥 Video Production Equipment we use 📹

[ranasaha]

YT Music wins, specially for people who has diverse music taste and likes to listen to vast genre of music. Many of those songs are not available in other platforms. I tried Apple Music, Tidal and Spotify but none could compete with YouTube music. Youtube and YT Music has this amazing AI algorithm, their suggestions are just unbeatable.

[ddubs]

I have found several songs on YouTube music that cannot be found on other music streaming services.

[batuhantamburaci]

Actually there is one main reason that why I use YT Music is Youtube Premium subscription. When you purchase Youtube Premium (which I like a lot) it comes with a music service Youtube Music so it will not be economical for me to ignore YT Music and buy a seperate music service (with similar price like Spotify, which only does one job.) Plus I am a student so I pay a little less. When I first started to use YTM to be honest I didn't like very much but later I got used to and now I'm familiar with it.

[JosephWithaG]

Getting Apple Music free for 6 months with the AirPods Pro was my way gateway to ad-free streaming, and it was worth it for the most part. My individual use case, though, was just to listen to albums that I hadn't bought as CDs or digital downloads in CD quality, so I can't say that I took full advantage of the discoverability, the hi-res lossless, and the Dolby Atmos features (which I still think is a gimmick). How I really ended up using it was for friends to take control and just play whatever they wanted on it, especially when I'm driving them around.

YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, however, is a better deal for me. I wasn't expecting the user experience of YouTube Music to be better than Apple Music - I still don't think it is - but being able to play "Spaghetti Again" by Tim and Eric and 30 minutes of the Yakuza 0 substory guitar riff in the car certainly made up for it. No complaints from my friends either while I drive them around.

That being said, nowadays if I wanted to listen to my own music, I'll use VLC to listen to the music I bought - including some that aren't available on streaming services. Track availability in streaming services in general is something that I'm a bit iffy about, because streaming services can pull down tracks on a whim; one year it's there, the next it isn't, and then it's back for only one month before it's gone for good. At least there's some level of permanence with digital downloads and CDs.


TL;DR Apple Music has better UX. YT Music is a better deal and can play meme music. I still prefer CDs because of better track permanence.

[carlosalbertoch]

The fact that I can listen to anime and video game OSTs, along with live performances from my favorite artists, is what makes YouTube Music the one for me.

[quas]

2:55
I miss Google Play Music. It had those mp3 tag system like genre tag and users can edit those tags just like apple music / itunes.

[rusgolden]

I started with Google Play Music and YTM's interface took a bit to get used to, but it keeps getting better and better. He mentioned adding your own CDs to the Apple Music library as an advantage, but you can also upload your CD into YTM... it might not be quite as seamless as using iTunes, but is still an option. Music quality isn't a huge concern for me and I'm sure YTM will get there eventually, just as video has progressed from SD->HD->4K->8K. On the playlist side, I wish there was a way to change the order of songs like there used to be with the old Google Play Music interface and the shuffle algorithm seems to always play the same songs and sometimes in the same order.

[Toasty]

I just want you to know that I absolutely enjoy your content, the way you describe your experiences with various products or services has been a huge help in deciding whether or not to invest into those things, keep up the good work!:)

[NoCaping]

I love YouTube Music I've been a subscriber for years now and I watch alott of shows on YouTube and hate commercials that alone is worth a sub

[yanni]

With YouTube Music you also get YouTube. Case closed 😁😁😁😁

[bighersh]

I determined about a year and a half ago that YouTube music was for me. Before that I was paying for YouTube premium and Apple Music but then I was like “wait YouTube music exists” and I haven’t gone back since. So many of the songs on my playlist are remixes of the original songs that aren’t on other platforms and that’s the second thing that sold me the first being it’s apart of YouTube premium. I love YouTube music and unless they separate YouTube premium and YouTube music I’ll never go back to Apple Music.

[Ragduff]

I can’t believe people actually pick YT music over literally anything that’s originally made for music.
I’ve heard the quality difference and it’s a very big difference if you are a hardcore music listener.

[stanleyomar]

I don't mind Apple Music as a service and use it primarily, but the app is just so frustrating on both Mac and iOS. On the Mac, on so many occasions when pausing an album or playlist to grab something from another room, I come back to find that the app has kicked me out of whatever I was listening to. This can actually even happen just stopping something I was listening to and navigating away from the Apple Music app for a while. If it's an album, for example, it may not even be open anymore and I'll have to go back into the album and then have to select or (worse) figure out whatever song was last playing.

In iOS, that history/upcoming screen of songs you've listened to that appears even if you selected and were listening to an album just seems so pointless, and it forces you to swipe it away and navigate back to the album if that's what you'd really rather see. I also can't count the number of times I've downloaded an album to listen to offline, especially while traveling, only to find that some or all of the downloads disappear whenever I lose an Internet connection. It's pretty annoying that an app that's been around for as long as it has is such a mess.

[NKHSP]

if yt music can give us shareplay, and higher music quality and equalizer that will be a complete music app IMO, i've been using it since 4 years and it has only gotten better. the offline mixtape is the best thing, the music library is just unmatched and i can download even the live shows music rather than the original. Apple music Audio quality doesn't matter if the songs aren't even there. If i like a video song on youtube it auto adds it into liked playlist on yt music and then i auto adds that to offline mixtape, nothing matches this advantage.

[springenderspringer]

I am currently using both YouTube Music and Apple Music, and from my experience, while YouTube Music's discovery algorithm is much better than Apple's, I simply love the UI of Apple Music - especially the smooth lyrics animation/Apple Music Sing and the dynamic album covers - and its superior audio quality in the form of Dolby Atmos. Thus, Apple Music is still a little bit superior to me, but YouTube Music is also a great option considering that as a student, you even get YouTube Premium AND YouTube Music for just 5.49$.

[yxmichaelxyyxmichaelxy]

I have tried both. Apple Music for the superior sound. YouTube Music for everything else, especially discovery. Every time I traveled through 'samples', I was saving the music recommended as it was exactly what I wanted. I was incredulous. Far-superior.

[chinaleto]

Totally agree with you! YouTube’s algorithm is much better, but quality is worse. I also don’t like when YouTube delete a song and after that you don’t know what song was it 😅

[MNMnick]

Just an FYI, majority of you folks will not notice a difference in audio quality unless you're using extremely new high end headphones or if your car supports better codecs.

[RantKid]

Would've loved more opinions on how Spotify folds into this comparison as I currently use that and might want to switch. Also, price was never mentioned/compared.