If you were a regular coffee buddy of mine you’d already know that my life runs on music. You’d also know that I am in the first year of a PhD program that follows on from completing Honours last year. My study has been fueled on coffee and a lot of music. I estimated that I listened to more than 20,000 songs during my Honours!

So as we catch up on coffee I’d ask you what are you listening to and how are you listening to it? I’d get into the specifics and quickly I’d get to my current dilemma – Apple Music or Spotify supported by a Pandora. You of course were expecting the topic of conversation over coffee to be on the US elections and its impact on us in Australia!

Before you had a chance to change the topic I’d continue with my topic telling you that I like all three. I’d quickly explain that I see Pandora as a great companion to my mainstays of Spotify and Apple Music. Pandora is easy as the music is selected for me and with the best part of a thousand Thumbprints Pandora makes listening easy.

However if I want to listen to something specific Pandora’s greatest asset, that it does it all for you becomes a problem, so its off to either Spotify or Apple Music.

I’d explain to you the history of how a couple of years ago I moved from iTunes to Spotify. As I transitioned away from CDs I’d found iTunes an easy way to carry all my own music with me.  This was because I had downloaded my hundreds of CDs to my iTunes Library via iTunes Match. That way my CDs were available everywhere on my iPod, particularly with the work travel timetable I was on at the time. About the same time as my iPod froze for the last time I also  decided that buying CDs from the almost nonexistent CD Stores in Adelaide was no longer satisfying as they didn’t have the range and with that I moved to Spotify.

It was initially a bit  of a hassle finding what I liked but I got used to it and at the same  time Spotify got better. As a Premium user, that is I pay for it, I was able to download music so I could listen offline solving a dilemma of listening while traveling which I was still doing.

It was all going swimmingly until a couple of months ago when  my car sound system somehow accessed Apple Music.I have no idea how this happened but it did.  I had taken up a “free look” subscription service through my phone provider a few months earlier but hadn’t used it much as it seemed to me that the only difference was that Apple had Taylor Swift and Spotify didn’t (don’t get me wrong I don’t mind Taylor Swift but it wasn’t going to bee a deal breaker!).

Anyway I decided to give Apple Music a go. That was a couple of months ago and now I have a dilemma do I stick with it or go back to Spotify?

I have large libraries of music and playlists in each and as they don’t “talk” to each other its not really possible to sync them. Also by listening to both the way that suggestions are made for you is diminished. This is an issue for me, I’d tell you.

Wow, I can only imagine you seeing this as a genuine first world problem! Still as a coffee buddy, you’d know the importance of music to me and pretend to continue listening to me as I explained my problem.

Still feigning interest I’d get to the nub of the problem.  I think it comes down to the fact that I like the way Apple Music displays, and makes suggestions. I’d tell you as your eyes slowly shut and you feel yourself drifting off to sleep that its the simple screen  that I really like more than the black Spotify Screen.

By this time you’ve remembered that you have a dental appointment and how much you are looking forward to it as compared to a further 10 minutes on this riveting topic.

As you get up to I leave I ask what would you do and do you have a preference?