Can you look up playlists on Apple Music?

When the Apple One subscription bundle launched, it caused even the most ardent Spotify fan to consider the merits of switching music-streaming services. But since then, there haven't been too many reasons to entice Spotify users over to Apple Music. The cut-price Voice Plan, where you only use Siri to summon your favorite tracks, seems far from a masterstroke (just try asking it to play “Metamatic” by John Foxx). 

But now we have Rogangate. A chorus of disapproval from outside the streaming apps has seen artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell request that their music be removed from Spotify in protest against content in Joe Rogan’s podcast. Young said Spotify had become “the home of life-threatening Covid misinformation” and that the platform could have “Rogan or Young. Not both.” 

Apple Music acted swiftly in a bout of schadenfreude, promoting Neil Young's music via push notifications, as well as creating “We Love Neil” and “We Love Joni Too” public playlists.

Spotify's response was not to drop Rogan, but to say it “regrets” Neil Young’s decision. The Apple Music rival then made public its “platform rules and approach to Covid-19.” The rules include further steps Spotify is now taking, such as adding “a content advisory to any podcast episode that includes a discussion about Covid-19. This advisory will direct listeners to our dedicated Covid-19 hub.” This includes Joe Rogan.

Rogan weighed in through a video on Instagram. The host apologized to Spotify and said, “I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people's perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.”

Whether this whole saga has suddenly made Apple Music more appealing or you were intent on ditching Spotify anyway, making the switcheroo while keeping all your carefully curated playlists is extremely easy.

My personal favorite solution is SongShift—a tool I’ve used for many years with little trouble. It allows you to move your playlists back and forth between a range of popular streaming platforms—for free. 

One of the big tasks the switching app has to complete is matching your songs correctly with tracks on a different streaming service. With SongShift, over several years of using it and many shifts, it has only mismatched a song once. Read on to find out how to do it yourself.

Download SongShift

First off, you’ll want to download SongShift from the App Store. Once you’ve got it, it’s as simple as selecting the supported music services you want to transfer to and from, and then logging in to each via SongShift.

Transfer Your Spotify Playlists

In this case, you’ll want to sign in to Spotify and Apple Music via the SongShift app itself.

Once you’ve signed in to each, click Setup Source and choose the playlist you’d like to transfer from Spotify. Next, select Setup Destination and choose Apple Music. Then simply click I’m Finished, and the transfer of your precious playlists will begin.

Review Your Transfer

You can now review SongShift’s work to check that everything is in order. Select Ready for Review and browse all the matches the app has made. If there’s a mistake, select the problem match, which you can then rematch by manually searching for the correct song. Click Confirm Matches when you’re all done, and SongShift will create the new playlist in your destination.

That’s it. You’re switched. In an age of locked-down ecosystems, it is admittedly surprising that there is still such a quick solution—so use it while it’s around.

Switching From Apple Music to Spotify

You can also send your latest playlists back the other way—from Apple Music to Spotify—should you ever change your mind. You might decide to do that if you were a reluctant Apple Music user who jumped across to iOS to take advantage of things like offline listening on your Apple Watch. Spotify recently announced it was adding this very feature, including on Wear OS for Android smartwatches, so you could be contemplating another move.

To switch your playlists back from Apple Music to Spotify, simply follow the above steps with the music streaming services swapped around to get the desired results. It's just as fast and just as simple in reverse.

The Best Bluetooth Speakers for Your Spotify and Apple Music Listening Sessions

Combing through streaming services to find new tracks and forming perfectly curated playlists of your favourites is all well and good, but what about something to them on. It's an essential part of the equation. WIRED has tested a wide range of Bluetooth speakers.

Our top pick is the Ultimate Ears Megaboom 3 (£169). It's a party speaker with booming bass that doesn't neglect detail. It also comes with waterproofing, up to 20 hours battery life as well as the option to team it up with other UE speakers. It's also got a long range of 45m so you can go about your business relatively carefree without worrying it'll disconnect–think playing football on the beach or dashing to grab another drink.

Not too long ago we uploaded a blog covering some nifty tricks to help you get the most out of Spotify. Don’t worry Apple Music lovers, this time we’re looking at some tips and tricks especially for you. Here are a few features you might not be using!

Edit the ‘For You’ section

The ‘For You’ function is a great way to discover new music, displaying your ‘New Music Mix’ playlist and anything else you’ve recently been listening to. However if it hasn’t been working that effectively, there’s a simple way to change it. In the For You tab, tap your profile icon in the top right corner, you should then see the ‘Find More Artists and Curators’ tab. From here you can select artists and genres at your own leisure!

Love and Dislike

Another way of helping Apple Music understand your music tastes is by marking songs, albums and playlists with either ‘Love’ or ‘Dislike’ tags. To do this tap the three dots icon and mark them accordingly. Apple Music will learn from your decisions and use this to shape future recommendations.

Custom Alarms

Exhausted all the sounds built into the clock app? Well using Apple Music you can choose any song from the service and use it as your alarm ringtone. On your device head to the Clock app, then to the alarm tab and tap edit to select which alarm you want to change. Tap sound and choose your song from your Apple Music library. Remember you’ll need to have added the song to your music library to use it.

Bringing Back the Stars

So the aforementioned Love and Dislike method of rating replaced the Star rating that existed before it. However if you prefer this method there is a way to get it back. Head to your settings, then music and enable ‘Show Star Ratings’ if this is the rating system that you prefer.

Optimise Storage Space

If you’re constantly seeing the ‘Storage Almost Full’ window pop up on your device, Apple Music has a clever way of helping you manage your downloaded music. Once again, head to your settings and then to music. Tap the ‘Optimise Storage’ option and turn it on. From here you can set a minimum storage amount for your music on that device, so if you exceed this amount Apple Music will delete songs that you haven’t listened to recently.

3D Touch for Menus

As with most Apple apps and menus, the UI is clean and minimalistic, so even simple features are tucked away out of plain sight. Use 3D touch (iPhone 6s or later) by pressing firmly on a playlist or artist to bring up quick actions. From here you can view lyrics, queue the song, download it and much more!

iCloud Music Library

An extra that comes with an Apple Music paid subscription is the iCloud Music Library, which lets you store up to 100,000 tracks in the cloud, separate from your regular iCloud storage capacity. Anything you store in there gives you access to your saved music on up to 10 devices, both from Apple Music and your own library you might have stored on a Mac computer. This way you can have the best of both worlds!

Built-in Equaliser

Just like we mentioned in our Spotify tips blog, there’s a built-in equaliser for Apple Music to enhance musical performance based on the genre of music. There are 23 presets laid out based on different genres including jazz, hip hop and classical, with even more options for boosting bass. Bear in mind that you’ll need to dip back into the settings and change the equalisation manually if you listen to a different genre.

Using Siri

The benefit of using the Apple streaming service on an iOS device is that it works effortlessly with Siri. If you’re already using the tool, it’s worth using Apple Music with her too as Siri will act as your personal DJ! Ask her to ‘play my hip hop playlist’ or to play ‘Biffy Clyro’ for example and consider it done. You can even ask to play more in depth requests like ‘play the top songs from 1993’ or to ‘like this’ so you can come back to a song you’ve just heard later. There are plenty of commands to check out so give it a Google!

Know any more hidden tricks for Apple Music we haven’t mentioned? Make sure you share them in the comments below!