This is turning out to be increasingly frustrating on a daily basis – most of my music sits in iTunes. I have lots of playlists – some created years ago that I still frequent, some that I created last week. What makes the iTunes experience less appealing is the lack of immediate sync between units – the playlist I just created will not turn up on my iPhone or iPad (like in Spotify or Rdio), I will have to sync my desktop computer with any external unit first.
Spotify on the other hand will automatically sync any changes – add a new playlist on your iPad, and when you get back to your desktop computer, there it is. Surely a similar solution would be possible in iTunes and some kind of iCloud integration. But being a bit of a statistics nerd, I appreciate the play count that iTunes offers.
Then there is of course the all-you-could-possibly-eat solution from Rdio and Spotify. After checking out various Best of 2012 lists around the interwebs, I discover a whole bunch of some amazing new jazz releases. Not a couple, not a handful, but a dozen. Why would I pay 10 bucks per album when I could just add them to my “Collection” in Rdio or “star” them in Spotify?
The interface of Rdio (I will have to agree with Zack Shapiro) will give you an entirely different, more human feel than Spotify. Still, why oh why will some albums play perfectly fine on one platform (Max Richter’s Vivaldi album on Spotify) while the other (Rdio) will tell me that the album’s not available because of licensing restrictions. Oh please.
You see, I don’t want to be going back and forth between three different applications and music libraries when listening to music. It should be seamless. It should just work, regardless of where I am at the moment. As it is right now, I perfectly understand that some people revert to piracy. Personally, I find myself using iTunes a bit less nowadays, and let Spotify and Rdio grab my attention. Then I remember that wonderful playlist in iTunes, and go back… But this obviously can’t go on – my relationship with music will be strained in the long run. And that’s the last thing I want to happen.
So what to do? Rumours surface every now and then about Apple getting into the streaming service, but not even iTunes Match has been released in Sweden yet, so I doubt it. I’m torn between iTunes, Rdio and Spotify. For now, that’s the way it will have to be.
