Strategy Analytics reports that digital music sales will top $5 billion in 2012, largely thanks to services like iTunes and Spotify. And with figures like that it's no wonder Microsoft wants a piece of the action. But can its upcoming Xbox Music succeed where Zune failed?
Launched today, Xbox Music is Microsoft's 'fix-all' solution for all your digital music needs. The service will initially launch on the Xbox console but will also be available across Windows 8 PCs/Tablets, Windows Phone 8 devices, and eventually iOS and Android handsets and tablets.
Coming in two flavours: paid and freemium, Xbox Music, at least on the surface, seems to have taken all the best elements of Spotify and iTunes and melded them together under one roof. It's a compelling proposition to be sure, but so was Zune, and that tanked. Big time.
This time around Microsoft means business and has launched a full on assault on the space by exploiting current weaknesses in Apple's iTunes model (cost, lack of streaming, locked-down nature) and the comparatively limited selection of tracks available on Spotify.
Below we'll look at a variety of factors from iTunes, Xbox Music, and Spotify in order to find out which service offers the most comprehensive package.
Tracks
- Xbox Music – 30 million
- Spotify – 18 million
- iTunes –26 million
In terms of the total number of tracks, Xbox Music is way out in front of both Apple and Spotify with its promised 30 million tracks. Here Spotify is the clear loser, finishing in third place behind both Apple and Microsoft.
The choice is obvious: if you want the absolute best selection of music, go with Microsoft's Xbox Music.
Access to Music
- Xbox Music – Streaming, download for offline, and purchase
- Spotify – Streaming, purchase, and download for offline playback
- iTunes – Purchase, iTunes Match with iCloud-support
This is where it gets tricky, and Apple's iTunes model really starts to look a little out of sync with today's digital music user.
Spotify and Xbox Music both support streaming – free and paid. Both services also let you purchase tracks and albums individually, as well as store songs and albums offline so you can listen to them without a data connection.
With Xbox Music and Spotify you're free to stream the entirety of both company's respective music catalogues, with the option to buy if something takes your fancy. With iTunes you don't get access to Apple's 26 million tracks unless you purchase them first.
Apple's solution here is iTunes Match: a service that scans your existing music collection and matches it up with tracks inside iTunes. Once all your tracks are matched you can store them on iCloud and stream them to your devices for a fee of £21.99 a year.
In this sense the iTunes model is more of a traditional music portal when compared to Xbox Music and Spotify, which are both clearly more geared towards discovery than cataloguing your existing collection of music.
Apple's decision to not allow streaming access to iTunes' 26 million tracks puts it at a seriouss disadvantage when compared to Spotify and Xbox Music.
Here, we have to go with either Spotify or Xbox Music, although the latter would likely get our personal vote on account of its larger collection of music. iTunes, by comparison, seems locked-down, expensive, and, perhaps most importantly, slightly behind the times.
Where can I get it?
- Xbox Music – Xbox console, Windows Phone 8 hansets, Windows 8 PCs/Tablets, iOS devices, Android devices
- Spotify – Windows Phone handsets, iOS devices, Android devices, Windows, OS X, Windows 8, BlackBerry devices
- iTunes – iPhone/iPad/iPod, Windows, OS X
To get the most out of Apple's services you have to fully commit to its way of doing things, meaning you'll need to have at least one iOS-powered device to get the best music experience possible while on the move.
Tracks and albums bought via iTunes will work on Android devices despite being DRM-protected, but you won't get iTunes Match or iCloud support. For that you need iOS 6 and therefore either an iPhone, iPod, or iPad.
Spotify is an application and is therefore available on all major software platforms, including desktop and mobile, meaning you can get access to its services on pretty much every piece of mobile hardware out there, which is great news for platform agnostics.
iTunes is somewhat limited in its remit when viewed in this context, as to fully realise its potential you do require Apple hardware. That's just the Apple way of doing things.
Microsoft knows this, though. That's why it has decided to release Xbox Music on iOS and Google's Android platform. This could potentially be a masterstroke by Microsoft. The implications of such a move are potentially enormous, for obvious reasons, with many predicting the destruction of Spotify as a result.
Cost
- Spotify: Free / £9.99 (unlimited streaming + mobile-support) / £4.99 (Desktop-only)
- Xbox Music: Free / £8.99 a month or £89 per year
- iTunes: Apple's Match costs £21 per year
Again, Microsoft's Xbox Music, with its 30 million tracks, eventual cross-platform support, and cost-effective pricing is the clear victor in term of cost and the sheer number of available tracks, as well as the ease with which you can access them.
Spotify is still excellent value at just £9.99 for a premium account, which gives you offline access and mobile-support, but it still cannot match Microsoft's service in terms of sheer numbers – Xbox Music has almost double the number of tracks.
Apple's iTunes Match is extremely cost-effective at just £21 a year but as with most things Apple, the emphasis here is on purchasing music and not streaming it in the truest sense of the word – i.e. how Microsoft and Spotify do it.
Still though, iTunes Match does stream all of your existing music collection to all of your iOS devices seamlessly, providing you have iOS 6. It also caches tracks as well so even if your web-connection drops out you can still continue listening.
Another USP of iTunes Match is that it automatically upgrades matched tracks to 256 kilobits per second, even if your old MP3 was 128kbps, which makes iTunes Match one of the most cost effective means of updating your old collection of MP3 tracks – even if Apple has limited the service to 25,000 tracks.
Features
Spotify (premium only)
- Unlimited Streaming access to 18 million tracks
- Freemium
- Ability to purchase tracks
- Spotify Social
- Radio
- Offline Storage
- Recommendations
- Cross-platform support (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Windows, OS X)
Xbox Music
- Unlimited streaming access to 30 million tracks
- Freemium model
- Ability to purchase tracks
- Smart DJ
- Offline Playback
- Wireless Syncing
- Music Videos via VeVo
- Cloud-storage
- Cross-platform support (Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, with support for iOS and Android incoming)
iTunes
- iTunes Match
- Streaming of 26 million tracks not allowed
- Limited streaming options with iCloud, iTune Match and iOS 6
- Seamless syncing across devices
- Supports Android
- Free to download, but tracks cost money
- MP3s upgraded to 256 kilobits per second with iTunes Match
Wrap-up
Should Microsoft make good on its promise of 30 million tracks at launch and support for iOS and Android in the very near future, then it's very easy to see Xbox Music eventually becoming the go to music portal choice for many.
Microsoft has got the pricing bang on, undercutting Spotify, and offers a myriad of features that simply aren't present inside Apple's iTunes model, such as free streaming, cross-platform support, and the ability to save tracks – without purchasing them – for offline usage.
iTunes is currently the de facto choice for many, but the rise in popularity of streaming, particularly free, ad-supported streaming, cannot be disputed and Apple's inability to address this fact will be where Microsoft stands to make its biggest gains – even more so when Xbox Music launches on iOS and Android.
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