Why Did I Switch from Apple Music to Deezer?
I even bought yearly subscription plan from Deezer! It is the best music streaming service that you can use!
Streaming Quality
Apple also provides “Lossless” music quality and there is no difference for Deezer too. It is not a game changer on Deezer side, but there are more several qualities based on your Internet speed. Full list is here.
Equalizer
Apple Music and Deezer have equalizers. There is no difference here.
Explicit Content
Both Apple Music and Deezer have an option to hide and show explicit content. There is no difference here.
Dark Mode
Both Apple Music and Deezer have dark mode option which can be read from system settings, or you can adjust manually. There is no difference here.
Library Size
Most probably, Apple Music has a bigger library than Deezer, but there is no certain number here. There are some guesses in the market, but no one officially announces the numbers, so I cannot say something clear here. On the other hand, I found every song and artists that I like in Deezer, so there is no problem for me.
Recommendation
Now, Deezer is a game changer here. Whenever I open Apple Music, the weight of the country hits (App Store country) is way higher than my listening history. I checked several settings, but it didn’t get better. I may have a weird listening taste, I don’t know, but Apple Music is so dull here because I am not interested in 80% of what it shows. Furthermore, I listen metal genre while commuting to work around 30 minutes (generally Iron Maiden), then switch to rock ballads from 70s to 90s and classical music during working hours. I cannot listen to electronic loops no matter the time is. I, personally, believe that we have different frequencies in our brains, so music taste is changing that much. Of course, it is also related with mood but the majority of time, we are following our brain frequency. It doesn’t mean that to make your brain faster, you should listen faster music. This is my thought based on my researches and tests on myself. When I was working for big ones in streaming industry, I researched heavily for recommendation engines and human behaviors. I wrote a summary article here if you are interested in:
Music taste doesn’t specify your personality, intellectual quality etc. After eliminating unnecessary discussions, we can focus on recommendation feature now :)
Recommendation is not something that you can build one and leave it forever, and it will always give the proper result. It is also one of the pieces of tech world that cannot be copied. If you build a very standard recommendation engine based on genre, favorite singer/groups etc. then you are doomed because it was 20 years ago. I believe that Apple Music is not doing right here, and they are not customizing their recommendation engine, like continents. It doesn’t mean that showing me Top 50 in France, Germany or wherever. I am also not following latest music trends because it doesn’t serve me well. You can call me retro guy, but I don’t care, music is a personal taste.
It is entirely different when I open the Deezer. I don’t even need to go to search or scroll too much because they have a functionality called “Flow” and you can choose your mood. It is unbelievably accurate. When we were listening together with my wife, she said: “You updated your playlist”. I have a very long playlist that I play in shuffle especially for the times that I cannot take care of music (like driving) and she thought that it is my playlist and I updated. It is that good!
Music Genre
Deezer is not so good for classical music and recommendation. Apple Music shines here. If you would like to go more specific, I strongly suggest Idagio. But I will offer a better one with more channels if you continue to read.
Radio
I am not talking about auto-generated machine radios, I am talking about real radios and not too-much-talk ones :) Actually, I like to listen local radios when I am traveling. Apple doesn’t have a feature to play local radios, but machine-generated ones. Deezer has radios, not only machine-generated ones, but also the real ones.
Podcasts
Both Apple Music and Deezer have podcasts. I am not pretty sure if there will be a podcast which is available in one place but not another.
What do I use now?
I have Deezer Premium Yearly and Radiotunes memberships. Generally, I am using Radiotunes during daily work and Deezer while commuting and weekends. I am pleased with my choices currently and don’t think to change for a while.
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