Apple Music and Spotify are battling for listener support, through bargains aimed at college students. Apple Music offers a student discount for $4.99 a month without other benefits; however, Spotify offers the same price but with Showtime and Hulu subscriptions. Which one do NIU students prefer, and why?

“Apple Music has features like carplay that Spotify doesn’t,” junior engineering major Bradley Kraft said, “The recommended playlists are better than Spotify’s playlists.”

Spotify and Apple Music may have similarities, but they aren’t the same.

“(Spotify) syncs with Facebook so you can follow your friends and share your playlists,” senior finance major Erik Pizarro said.

Although there are more features with Spotify, is it worth it?

“Apple Music is more on time with releasing music … I used Spotify music before and they were late when releasing albums.” Kraft said.

If you can’t get your music when it’s released, that might be a problem. On the other hand, Spotify has aspects that Apple Music does not. These features might steer some listeners away from using the latter.

“I also like to play my music through the Spotify app on my Xbox while playing video games,” Pizarro said.

Personally, I’m in favor of Spotify as my streaming service. I enjoy the easy-to-use interface and the playlists it curates. When I used Apple Music, the playlists that they created weren’t up to par with music I wanted to listen to and weren’t accurate overall.

Both Spotify and Apple Music student subscriptions are available for $4.99.