Spotify once again makes me wish Apple would get more into the core features of what makes listening to music so great: shared experiences. Today they announced Spotify Blend, a "blended playlist" feature where two people can combine their tastes into one auto-generated playlist. This is very cool stuff.
Apple Music does nothing like this. You can't share a playlist others can contribute to, let alone combine two people's music preferences into a singular list. Apple can't even be bothered to compete with Spotify Wrapped. This feature that makes me jealous every December.
Here's what the Blend feature will do:
...a new way for two users to merge their musical tastes into one shared playlist made just for them, making it even easier for users to connect, discover, and bond over the music they love with one another. Now, the experience includes new cover art to easily identify each of your Blend playlists, taste match scores to see your listening preferences compared to your friends’, and shareable data stories that are unique to every listening pair and can be shared across social channels.
Spotify's Newsroom Blog
When I used Spotify years ago I liked it but not enough to become a subscriber. Ditto when I tried Beats Music for a few months. It took Apple's purchase of Beats to get me to try streaming. It's only with the tight ecosystem integration + my decades-old iTunes library that I prefer Apple Music over anything else. I want one place to hear new streaming music and old music that I bought forever ago. Yes, it's lock-in but I'm okay with that. Features like Spotify Blend do have me longing for Apple to step it up. They have the resources to make their music offerings that much better. I hope competition from Spotify helps spur that innovation.