I tried YouTube Music for two weeks. Here's why I'm going back to Apple Music

Music streaming services. We all use them, and for all the different options available — Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Tidal, etc. — they all essentially do the same thing. However, it’s the small details that count. What’s the app experience like? How good is music discovery? And, most importantly, how expensive is the subscription?

For the last few years, Apple Music has been my music streamer of choice. I have an extensive library built up in it, and I like the overall app experience. It’s never given me a reason to switch to something else.

That said, I love testing new/different apps, so for the last couple of weeks, I ditched Apple Music to go all-in on YouTube Music. It’s been an interesting time, and there are a few things about YouTube’s streaming app that I quite like. But once all is said and done, I’ll be switching back to Apple Music. Here’s why.

What I like about YouTube Music

Before I get into the negatives, I want to make it clear that, overall, YouTube Music is a good streaming app. And it should be! The service has been around since mid-2018, and over the last seven years, Google has built it into a mature and capable music streamer as you’d expect.

But looking beyond the basics, there are a few things about YouTube Music that have really stood out to me — and they’re things I’ll miss after returning to Apple Music.

Ask Music is a fun use of AI

The first thing is YouTube Music’s “Ask Music” feature. Released last September, Ask Music allows you to type in the kind of music you’re looking for, and within a second, YouTube Music uses AI to create a custom station based on that prompt. If you need some inspiration, you can also choose one of the suggested options, such as “Chill beach tunes” or “Music to pump me up.”

I love starting my day with calming coffee shop-style music; it helps me focus on my writing, and it pairs nicely with my morning cup of joe. I told Ask Music to create a station with “Calming coffee shop style music, with a focus on acoustic and folk style tunes.” In about two seconds, I had a station featuring Bon Iver, Agnes Obel, Damien Rice, Tracy Chapman, and The Lumineers — exactly the type of music I was looking for.

Very strong music discovery

Additionally, for those times when I don’t want an AI-created playlist and want to find something on my own, YouTube Music does an excellent job of surfacing artists, playlists, and albums I’m interested in. All of its album and “similar to” artist recommendations are spot-on, and I love the categories at the top of the Home page to narrow down what you’re looking for — such as Energize, Feel Good, Focus, etc.

The Explore page is well laid out, too. I love the dedicated tabs for seeing new releases and top music charts, and the recommended new albums/singles have lined up nicely with my music taste. I’m always looking for new things to listen to — whether that’s new music from artists I already know or new artists altogether — and YouTube Music has done a great job in this regard.

It really is the best deal in music streaming

My final and favorite thing about YouTube Music is an obvious one: the price. The $11/month YouTube Music Premium plan is fine, but the secret sauce of YouTube Music is getting it bundled with YouTube Premium.

For just $14/month, you get all of the benefits of YouTube Music Premium — including ad-free listening and the ability to download songs offline — plus ad-free YouTube videos, the option to download YouTube videos, and background playback.

As someone who uses YouTube daily, the YouTube Premium experience alone is worth $14/month. Ad-free videos are a game-changer, as is being able to watch/listen to a video in a picture-in-picture window or while my phone is locked. The fact that you also get a fully-fledged music streaming service with YouTube Music Premium included is almost too good to be true. Even though Apple Music fits my needs better than YouTube Music, I may keep my YouTube Premium subscription just for the YouTube benefits.

What I don’t like about YouTube Music

If there’s so much I like about YouTube Music, why don’t I stick with it? For me, it ultimately boils down to the app experience. The Ask Music feature is very cool, and the value of YouTube Premium is unmatched. But in day-to-day use, there are enough quirks with YouTube Music that have me ready to leave it for Apple Music.

Lack of human curation

One of my main sticking points with YouTube Music is its lack of a human touch. Having AI generate playlists for me is cool — and it often works quite well. But compared to Apple Music, there’s a noticeable lack of curation and human input, which I miss.

For example, Apple Music has hundreds of playlists based on moods and activities. When I want my morning coffee music each day, I have multiple such playlists to choose from — including Coffee Shop, Coffee Shop Essentials, Morning Coffee, and Making Coffee; each one slightly different and created by human Apple Music editors. There are other similar playlists I frequently listen to as well, such as the Rainy Day and Working From Home playlists. YouTube Music has some similar options, but the selection isn’t nearly as exhaustive.

I also love how some artists in Apple Music have an “Essential Albums” section on their profile page, highlighting albums the Apple Music team has selected as must-listen-to’s. It’s a fantastic way to start exploring the discography of a newly discovered artist. Similarly, while YouTube Music sources its album descriptions from Wikipedia, many of the ones in Apple Music are written by Apple Music’s editorial staff — often adding interesting insights into the album, artist, and individual tracks.

Speed dial isn’t very good

This is a fairly small complaint, but it’s been an annoying one nonetheless. Apple Music has a “Recently Played” area that shows all of your recently listened to albums and playlists in reverse chronological order. I like seeing my listening history like this, as I have a few albums and playlists I listen to pretty regularly. YouTube Music has a “Speed dial” section that also shows your listening history, but it isn’t nearly as reliable.

For one thing, not all of my listening history appears here. I’ve created multiple stations with the Ask Music feature, but for whatever reason, none of them appear in my Speed dial. And when stuff is included, it doesn’t always make sense. For example, after listening to Weezer’s White Album, I see entries for the album itself and California Kids (the first song on the album) in my Speed dial. It’s as if YouTube Music thinks I really like the one Weezer song and isn’t smart enough to realize I’m clicking play on the entire album, not that song specifically.

Podcasts make everything messy

One of the main reasons I left Spotify a few years ago was that I didn’t like having podcasts and music in one app. It’s convenient, sure, but it also sours the music discovery experience. Coming back to YouTube Music, I stand by that take.

When I go to the Explore page in YouTube Music, I go there to find new music. And while I do get that, I also have to sift through podcast recommendations I simply do not care about. I’m looking for music, not a podcast about “The Terrible For-Profit Elder Care Industry” or a Spanish news video about the Trump Administration. Yet, in YouTube Music, that’s what I get.

Furthermore, bundling the standard music library with podcasts ruins YouTube Music’s search experience. When searching for Talking Heads’ “Little Creatures” album, Apple Music shows it front and center.

YouTube, meanwhile, shows a review of “Little Creatures Pale Ale” as the top result — a 2023 YouTube video from a beer review channel. That’s followed by more beer review videos, other podcast episodes, and songs from an unknown Japanese band by the same name. Finally, below all of that is the Talking Heads’ album I’m looking for.

I miss Dolby Atmos and lossless audio

Most of my music listening is pretty casual, with songs played through a couple of HomePod mini speakers on my desk for background noise throughout the workday. But sometimes, I want to bust out my AirPods Max and really savor an album. On Apple Music, that’s easy to do. Dolby Atmos adds a completely different feeling to supported albums and gives them depth and layers that the “normal” versions lack. And even for tracks without Dolby Atmos, better overall sound quality and song mastering make every track in Apple Music sound better to my ears.

YouTube Music, like Spotify, doesn’t have any of this. There’s no Dolby Atmos, no special mastering, and all songs stream at a standard rate of up to 256 Kbps (compared to up to 24-bit/192 kHz on Apple Music with Hi-Res Lossless). YouTube Music is fine for casual use, but for anything beyond that, it’s sorely lacking.

YouTube Music is weirdly buggy

Last but not least, my two weeks with YouTube Music were surprisingly buggy. The service worked fine for most of my listening, but it wasn’t without a few hiccups.

On multiple occasions, the song I was listening to got stuck buffering and refused to skip to other tracks. I thought at first it might be a Wi-Fi issue, but each time, YouTube Music was the only thing on my computer that wasn’t loading properly. I’ve also had songs randomly stop playback on their own, requiring me to manually press play to resume them. It’s nothing deal-breaking, but it means I’ve had to baby and troubleshoot YouTube Music in a way I don’t have to with Apple Music.

Why I’m switching back to Apple Music

YouTube Music is a fine music streaming service. It has a vast library and a well-designed app, and the value proposition with YouTube Premium is so, so good. However, due to all of the complaints I talked about above, it’s not the right fit for me.

As good of a deal as YouTube Music is, there are pretty clear sacrifices that come with its low price. I like higher-quality Dolby Atmos tracks. I want expert curation for albums and playlists. I don’t want podcasts cluttering up my music app.

Those things may not matter to you, and if not, YouTube Music is probably a fantastic choice. But those are all things I place a lot of value in, and because of that, Apple Music is still the best music streamer for me.