The streaming music wars are heating up. Apple Music, now at 17 million subscribers is doing everything it can to catch up to Spotify, which has 40 million paid subscribers. The latest phase of that battle saw Apple Music add two new auto-generated playlists, which launched with iOS 10 and on the Mac with the latest version of iTunes.
The new playlists were designed to counter what users say is the best feature of Spotify, its Discover Weekly playlist. This playlist is auto generated and includes new music that user might like based on past listening habits. Spotify seems to have identified the ingredients of a personalized playlist that feel fresh and familiar at the same time. This has been one of the reasons the music streamer has grown so rapidly. The playlist is so popular that users were distraught when technical issues cause the playlist to stop for a few weeks.
Instead of copying Spotify, Apple Music instead chose to make two playlists: My Favorites Mix and My New Music Mix. As the titles suggest the “My Favorites Mix” is music you listen to a lot along with other songs just like it. The “My New Music Mix” on the other hand is all new music, also based on your listening habits.
Slowly but surely as Apple Music removes the feature and technical lead that Spotify enjoys, we will likely see Apple Music catch up. The music streaming market as a whole is still growing so it will be some time before we see them fight for the same market share.