Spotify debuts 'Daily Mix' to compete with Apple Music's 'For You'

Spotify on Tuesday debuted a feature called the Daily Mix, offering tailored playlists apparently meant to challenge the "For You" content on Apple Music.

Daily Mix material will be updated every 24 hours, and like Discover Weekly and Release Radar, feature tracks selected by algorithm, according to The Verge. Unlike those sections the Daily Mix is less geared toward finding new content, and more about ensuring that each track is something a person will enjoy.

In fact, people should get between one and six Daily Mix playlists per day, depending on genre tastes and specific habits. While each will often have an overriding genre, songs from different genres may be interwoven as long as they flow together. Appropriately, each playlist is identified by a mosaic of album covers and a list of artists.

Spotify won't completely refresh the content each day, but instead just tweak tracks or occasionally replace a playlist.

Apple Music's "For You" section is likewise updated daily, and offers an assortment of playlists and albums to choose from.

Although Spotify is the world's biggest on-demand music service, with 40 million paid subscribers and many more on its ad-based tier, it has been looking to solidify that position given Apple Music's rapid growth. Still less than two years old, the latter is already over 17 million subscribers.

13 Comments

irnchriz 1595 comments · 17 Years

About 8 years ago

Had Spotify free for 6 months, this is not enough to entice me to go back to that mess of an offering. Don't get me wrong, the interface etc was great however I just couldn't find anything i was looking for. Contrast that with Apple Music where I could find anything I was looking for and the suggestions we're ridiculously accurate to my taste.

On on that basis I would never ever consider even looking at nor promoting it as an option to friends.

matrix077 868 comments · 9 Years

And people says Spotify is for serious listener while Apple Music for casual one. :roll eyes:

if Apple Music wants to leave Spotify in the dust, it's so easy. Uses Amazon strategy. Sell iCloud Drive unlimited for $60 a year (or even $80) and let people upload their own iTunes library then use Apple Music to stream it. (Likewise for videos with Video app)

rotateleftbyte 1630 comments · 12 Years

matrix077 said:

And people says Spotify is for serious listener while Apple Music for casual one. :roll eyes:

if Apple Music wants to leave Spotify in the dust, it's so easy. Uses Amazon strategy. Sell iCloud Drive unlimited for $60 a year (or even $80) and let people upload their own iTunes library then use Apple Music to stream it. (Likewise for videos with Video app)

Why would I ever want to upload my iTunes Library to the cloud and stream it?
I already have it on my MacBookPro and my iPhone. With a 128Gb iPhone and my iTunes library only 38Gb I have plenty of space for other stuff.
Why would I use my valuable (i.e. potentially costly) 3G/4G bandwidth to stream musing to a device that errrrrrr has the space for it anyway?
I'm off on a trip next week to Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. The roaming charges will be huge (if I can get a signal in the parts of Patagonia where I'm going)
Please put this confused old git out of their misery and explain in simple terms why I'd ever considering doing this?

rotateleftbyte said:

matrix077 said:

And people says Spotify is for serious listener while Apple Music for casual one. :roll eyes:

if Apple Music wants to leave Spotify in the dust, it's so easy. Uses Amazon strategy. Sell iCloud Drive unlimited for $60 a year (or even $80) and let people upload their own iTunes library then use Apple Music to stream it. (Likewise for videos with Video app)

Why would I ever want to upload my iTunes Library to the cloud and stream it?
I already have it on my MacBookPro and my iPhone. With a 128Gb iPhone and my iTunes library only 38Gb I have plenty of space for other stuff.
Why would I use my valuable (i.e. potentially costly) 3G/4G bandwidth to stream musing to a device that errrrrrr has the space for it anyway?
I'm off on a trip next week to Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. The roaming charges will be huge (if I can get a signal in the parts of Patagonia where I'm going)
Please put this confused old git out of their misery and explain in simple terms why I'd ever considering doing this?

One word: "Anywhere".

iTunes library for music lovers is sacred. One with all the tags and details owners meticulously and carefully put in, with all their favourite playlists. Most are lossless and very large library. Mine is ~ 300 GB.
To have access to this everywhere in addition to all the new music is the best of both worlds.

And it's not only music though. You let people upload their files to your cloud, you have locked these people in. No one want to upload same files again and again. They will stick to the one they choose for as long as there's no major problem.

matrix077 said:

One word: "Anywhere".

iTunes library for music lovers is sacred. One with all the tags and details owners meticulously and carefully put in, with all their favourite playlists. Most are lossless and very large library. Mine is ~ 300 GB.
To have access to this everywhere in addition to all the new music is the best of both worlds.

And it's not only music though. You let people upload their files to your cloud, you have locked these people in. No one want to upload same files again and again. They will stick to the one they choose for as long as there's no major problem.

Streaming implies that you have Internet access. There are large parts on the lower 48 states that have no Cellular signal. I was in Nevada a few months ago and was out of signal range for more than 3 days.

IMHO, the key to your statement is 'all the new music'.
Again IMHO, 99.99% of Music released today is just noise for more than 50% of the population. I have recordings (taken from Vinyl) that go back to the mid 1950's. Very little of what I am remotely interested in was released (as apposed to re-mastering) since the Millenium.
The artists that I want to listen are not releasing new music very often. I can live with missing a few tunes for a month or so.
Streaming (and therefore paying for each bit) songs that I already have in my collection is IMHO wrong, totally wrong. I've paid for the music. I have the music so why on earth would I want to pay a carrier (and Apple Music) to get the sound sent to me again?

As for your music library. Mine is around that size lossless. I have a lossless library for playing through my HiFi system. Not for travelling around. Your ears probably won't notice the difference. Mine certainly won't but they are damaged from playing Drums in an amateur rock band for 30+ years.

I still am not persuaded by the need for any streaming service where I have to pay for the music and for the transmission. I can get that for free off the Radio.