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The other big element to these music streaming services is podcasts - and Spotify definitely has the upper hand.
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For example, if you have an Amazon Echo, Nest Audio (Google's smart speaker) or a Sonos One, you can designate Spotify as your default music service voice commands will work. Of course, Spotify works well with pretty much every other smart speaker aside from Apple's line of HomePods.
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If you’re a Spotify subscriber, you can only ask Siri to play/pause, skip tracks and adjust the volume. Unlike other popular smart speakers (like the Amazon Echo, Nest Home and even the Sonos One), Apple's smart speakers only respond to "Hey Siri" voice commands for music if you subscribe to Apple Music (and, as of May 2021, Deezer). We also don't know how much it will cost.Īnother big reason why you'd switch to Apple Music is if you were planning on buying one of Apple's smart speakers, either second-generation HomePod or the HomePod mini. Of course, there's no timetable for that. It's assumed that when it eventually rolls out its lossless streaming service, Spotify HiFi, that it'll also roll out support for Dolby Atmos, too. Spotify doesn't support Dolby Atmos or spatial audio right now. (Previously, Amazon Music Unlimited was the only major music streaming service to support an entire catalog of Dolby Atmos content.)
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This means that Apple Music subscribers will be able to get the most of the Era 300 and its new immersive sound. Along with the announcement of the Sonos Era 300, it was announced that Apple Music is going to roll out support for Dolby Atmos on March 28th. Neither Spotify or Apple Music support Dolby Atmos - but that's about to change. We'll likely have to wait for Spotify to roll out support for Dolby Atmos and spatial audio (more on this below), which it could package with Spotify HiFi and then justify a higher-priced tier. Apparently, there's no longer the financial incentive to launch it right now. According to the latest reports by The Verge, Spotify HiFi has been ready to launch for over a year, but Apple's decision to roll out lossless audio has caused Spotify to stall. Spotify claims to be launching its own lossless streaming service, Spotify HiFi, but it's not here yet even though Spotify originally claimed it would launch by the end of 2021 - that means it's almost a year-and-a-half late. The kicker: to listen to these lossless tracks, subscribers just have to pay the same $10/month charge as before. In May 2021, it added a lossless tier that allows any paying subscriber to listen to CD-quality (16-bit/44.1 kHz) and Hi-Res Lossless (up to 24-bit/192 kHz) audio tracks. The biggest difference between the two streaming services is Apple Music actually allows you to listen to lossless tracks. How to Listen to Lossless Tracks on Apple Music Apple Music vs Spotify: The biggest differences Lossless streaming
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