Smart Listening: Spotify vs. Apple Music (Updated – June 2025)
As music streaming continues to dominate the way people consume audio, Spotify and Apple Music remain two of the most widely used platforms. With recent updates and feature rollouts in 2025, here's how the two services compare today. Audio Quality and Fidelity Apple Music continues to lead in sound quality, offering Lossless Audio and Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos as standard features. Over 100 million tracks are available in CD-quality or Hi-Res Lossless, and the service supports up to 24-bit/192 kHz playback. AirPods Max and other Apple hardware now support wired lossless audio over USB-C, enhancing fidelity for audiophiles. Spotify, after years of delays, is preparing to launch its own lossless tier. Internally referred to as "Music Pro," the new plan will include CD-quality streaming using the FLAC codec and introduce advanced EQ features to optimize headphone performance. While a release date hasn't been officially announced, backend code and recent leaks ...