Spotify to Google Play Music - My observances on switching for a week

I've used Spotify for well over a year and as my first music streaming service, it's amazing, and Spotify is amazing. The idea of being able to keep all of my music on one cohesive server under one app at the convenience of $9.99 a month was astonishing, and it kept me entertained for such a long time.

I listened to music nearly everyday, and on my device (LG G3 - Verizon), it was horribly slow. This was my one big drawback with the app, and through multiple re-installs of the app it would only temporarily solve my problem before popping back up again. Again, I don't know if this was an issue with my poor wifi signal or with my phone, but I do have good enough internet to stream 4k Netflix over wifi, and the G3 is still a flagship albeit a bit old now, so this left me scratching my head.

GPM never really caught my eye, but over the last week I've been using it under the free 4 month trial offered with the Play Stores 12 day special, and its been an entirely different experience even with a library of the same size. GPM loaded as snappily as it should be expected to, which Spotify failed to do 90% of the time in just loading my albums. I was able to completely replicate my rather extensive, obscure library in GPM and keep all of my regular music player music within the same app.

This was selling me at this point, along with the fact Google bundles a Youtube Red subscription for free with the ALREADY free 4 months subscription, Google had SOLD me on GPM.

In terms of the performance and better integration with casting from my Google Home to my Chromecast, integrating into Googles ecosystem was small, but still felt ever so slightly more streamlined once everything was set up and it truly does feel faster and like less of a hassle running on my phone than Spotify would even refuse to do.

The main gripes i do have with GPM is when you try to actually navigate the App, while it is much faster and doesn't take minutes to load at a time like Spotify did, having to rely on the left side of the phone and the top menus so much felt worse than spotify who landed you right in your library like a music app should.

However in the end, Google wins my hand with everything you get with GPM compared to Spotify. I DO think Spotify has a more streamlined and professional experience by itself on phones and devices that run it smoothly, but with 4 free months of Google Play Music, the same library and selections I was able to have on Spotify, better Chromecast integration, AND especially a free addition of Youtube Red with the subscription trumps an unsupported, buggy experience I had all over the place with Spotify. Perhaps if I had actually gotten my issue solved beyond telling me to "delete and redownload" (I have a 10gb Library on a 5mpbs network, really?), then Spotify could've kept my loyalty. The only thing I'll miss is the better looking layout, but ii definitely won't miss the horrible function of it on my phone.

I seriously have no idea why my phone was specifically so slow on Spotify, maybe it's its age? Maybe, but since support never bothered to help me get it fixed? Goodbye Spotify, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Submitted December 27, 2017 at 10:33PM by Ace_Razgriz http://ift.tt/2liDxih http://ift.tt/eA8V8J