Tidal Vs Apple Music: Which One Should You Choose?

By ChesterUpdated on February 17, 2023

• Select your language:
• English

  Arabic Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Kazakh Korean Malay Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Slovenian Spanish Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese

In recent years, music streaming has become increasingly popular among music lovers, and there are many options available. Two of the most popular music streaming services are Tidal Music and Apple Music. Tidal Music is a subscription-based music streaming service owned by Jay-Z and other musicians which offers a library of over 70 million songs and exclusive content and live events. While Apple Music was developed by Apple which allows users to stream and download songs from its library of over 75 million tracks, including exclusive content such as radio shows, live events and origina music documentaries. So Tidal Music or Apple Music, which one should you choose? Keep reading this article, we will compare Tidal and Apple Music in terms of the catalogue, user interface, audio quality, subscription, compability and user experience, in order to help you make a decision easier.

CONTENTS

Part 1. Tidal Music Vs. Apple Music: Catalogue

Both Tidal Music and Apple Music offer an extensive catalogue of songs from various genres. Tidal Music focuses more on high-quality audio and offers a range of Hi-Fi options for audiophiles. Tidal also offers exclusive content from a range of artists, including Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Kanye West. On the other hand, Apple Music offers a broad range of music, including exclusive releases from popular artists like Taylor Swift and Drake. Apple Music also has an extensive library of music videos and documentaries related to music.

Part 2. Tidal Music Vs. Apple Music: User Interface

Tidal Music has a user-friendly interface with a stylist and simple design. The app is easy to navigate and has a dark mode option, making it easy to use in low light conditions. However, some users have reported that the app can be a little laggy, particularly when searching for specific songs.

Apple Music has a more comprehensive and intuitive user interface that makes it easy to browse and search for songs. The app also integrates with Siri, allowing you to use voice commands to play music. Overall, both apps are easy to use and navigate, but Apple Music has a slight edge in terms of user interface.

Part 3. Tidal Music Vs. Apple Music: Audio Quality

Tidal is known for its high-fidelity streaming option, called Tidal HiFi, which offers lossless audio quality at a resolution of 44.1kHz/16-bit(CD quality) or 96kHz/24-bit(better than CD quality). Tidal HiFi also offers support for Master Quality Authenticated(MQA) audio, which is a technology that allows for even higher-quality streaming by packaging high-resolution audio into a smaller file size. Tidal claims that its HiFi streaming option delivers the best audio quality available on any streaming service.

Apple Music offers a high-quality streaming option that delivers 256kbps AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) encoding, which is also known as "iTunes Plus". This is a higher quality than the 128kbps AAC encoding used in the standard Apple Music streaming option, but it's not lossless like Tidal HiFi.

In terms of audio quality, Tidal's HiFi option is generally considered to be superior to Apple Music's highest-quality option.

Part 4. Tidal Music Vs. Apple Music: Subscription

Tidal Music Subscription:

Tidal Music offers several subscription plans, including Tidal HiFi, Tidal Hi-Fi Plus, and family plan. The Tidal HiFi plan costs $9.99 per month and offers access to Tidal's entire music library, as well as standard-quality audio. The Tidal HiFi Plus plan costs $19.99 per month and offers access to Tidal's entire music library in high-quality audio, including Master Quality Authenticated(MQA) audio. The family plan allows up to six users to access Tidal Music and costs $14.99 per month for the HiFi plan and $29.99 per month for the HiFi Plus plan.

Tidal Music also offers a student discount, which costs $4.99 per month for the HiFi plan and $9.99 per month for the HiFi Plus plan.

Apple Music Subscription:

Apple Music also offers a few subscription plans which is including an individual plan, a family plan, and a student plan. The individual plan costs $9.99 per month and offers access to Apple Music's entire music library, as well as standard-quality audio. The family plan allows up to six users to access Apple Music and costs $14.99 per month.

The student plan costs $4.99 per month and offers access to Apple Music's entire music library, as well as standard-quality audio. To sign up for the student plan, you must be currently enrolled in a degree-granting institution.

Both Tidal Music and Apple Music offer free trials for new users. Tidal Music offers a 30-day free trial, while Apple Music offers a three-month free trial. Additionally, both services allow you to cancel your subscription at any time, and you will not be charged for future months.

Part 5. Tidal Music Vs. Apple Music: Compability

Tidal Music can be used on Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, as well as on desktop computers and web browsers. The service also supports a range of smart speakers and audio equipment, including Sonos, Bluesound, and KEF.

While Apple Music is only available on Apple devices, including iPhones, iPads, iPod Touch, Macs, and Apple Watch. The service can also be used on Apple TV and Android devices, but with limited function.

Both Tidal Music and Apple Music can be integrated with other apps and services, such as virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, which makes it easier to control your music. All in all, both Tidal Music and Apple Music are compatible with a wide range of devices, but Apple Music is limited to Apple devices only.

Part 6. Tidal Music Vs. Apple Music: User Experience

Tidal Music User Experience:

Tidal Music has a modern and intuitive user interface that is easy to navigate. The app has a dark mode option, which is particularly useful in low light conditions. The home screen displays recommended songs, albums, and playlists based on your listening history and preferences, making it easy to discover new music. The unique features of Tidal Music is its high-quality audio. The service offers several Hi-Fi streaming options, including Master Quality Authenticated(MQA) audio, which provides studio-quality sound.

Apple Music User Experience:

Apple Music has a clean and straightforward user interface that is easy to use. The app has a similar home screen to Tidal, with recommendations based on your listening history and preferences. One of the standout features of Apple Music is its integration with Siri. This allows you to use voice commands to play music, search for songs, and control playback.

Comparison Between Tidal Music & Apple Music in Table

From comparing Tidal Music and Apple Music, the differences between Tidal and Apple Music are obviously seen. The user experience of Tidal and Apple Music will depend on personal preferences and what features are most important to you. Both services offer a free trial, so you can try them out and see which one you like best.

Bonus: How to Download Tidal Music & Apple Music and Keep Them Forever

As well known, Tidal Music & Apple Music are DRM protected, which is designed to prevent users from copying and distributing music files, as well as to limit the ability to play songs on unauthorized devices. Even you are on the subscription plan, you are limited to play the downloaded files within its official app, the file will be encrypted with DRM to prevent you from transferring the songs to your own devices for offline playback, such as MP3 players, iPods, Smart speakers, USB drives, etc. Also when the subscription ends, all the downloaded music files will be lost.

How do you keep Tidal Music & Apple Music forever on your device? Do you want to download Tidal Music & Apple Music to MP3 for offline playback on other unauthorized devices. In order to complete this tasks, you will need to use a third-party music converter.

Download Tidal Music & Apple Music to MP3 - UkeySoft Music Converter

UkeySoft Tidal Music Converter and UkeySoft Apple Music Converter are both software applications for Windows and Mac computer that allow users to remove DRM protection from Tidal and Apple Music respectively. These converters enable users to download and convert DRM-protected Tidal Music/Apple Music to MP3, M4A, AAC, FLAC, WAV, or AIFF without any quality loss, which can be played on a wider range of devices and platforms. Additionally, these converters offer further features such as batch conversion at 10x faster speed, the ability to preserve ID3 tags metadata for music tracks. After conversion, you can keep Tidal/Apple songs forever on your device and transfer them to any device for offline playback.

UkeySoft Tidal Music Converter

UkeySoft Apple Music Converter

Conclusion

Both Tidal Music and Apple Music offer a large range of music and user-friendly interfaces. Tidal Music has a more focus on high-quality audio, while Apple Music offers a broad range of exclusive content and features like Siri. Finally, the choice between the two will depend on your personal preferences, particularly whether you value high-quality audio or exclusive content.

Chester

Justin Sabrina has over 10 years of content writing experience. She specializes in product reviews, how-to guides, tips and tricks, top lists, etc. on data encryption, multi-media conversion, screen recording and iOS unlocking. At UkeySoft, she performs in-depth research SEO copywriting and collaborates with our R & D team to offer effective software solution, most of her articles on software are helpful and easy to read, helping our reader easily solve problems through using software or apps.

Chester

Li Zhang is a sophisticated editor for UkeySoft in tech blog writing, as well as a SEO and content marketing expert. She has been writing related article about multimedia conversion, streaming music and streaming video since 2018. Also, she's starting to write article about data security, including articles about file lock, USB encryption, DVD encryption, etc. Each helpful tutorial and solution is based on her practical tests, she is aways energetic and trustworthy in this field.

Chester

Chester is an experienced editor for UkeySoft focused on tech article writing, software & hardware produce review and tutorial. He specializes in composing posts about music conversion, video downloading, video conversion, screen recording and other tech knowledge tips. He always understands user needs and pain points and familiar with all kinds of multimedia conversion software and streaming music downloader on the market. So far, he has published 400+ helpful tech articles of software reviews, how-to guides to help reader in need.

Comments

1. No comment yet. Say something...

Prompt: you need to log in before you can comment.
No account yet. Please click here to register.