Choosing music for Android
After Vkontakte transferred the ability to listen to music offline in the paid BOOM application, many users finally had a reason to look in the direction of alternative music applications. Under the cut is my comparison of the most popular music applications available in the Russian Federation. The topic is very subjective, but I hope someone will help make the right choice.
Participants in the review were:
To begin with, we will determine what parameters we will use to make a comparison:
We now turn to the comparison.
In general, the tariff policy of applications is similar - the healthy influence of competition.
At the time of this writing:
BOOM offers one unlimited individual rate for 149 rubles / month. To enter the application, in addition to the Google account, you also need an account in one of the social networks: Odnoklassniki or Vkontakte.
The first month of use is free.
Yandex.Music works in a free mode, and also offers an individual subscription for 199 rubles / month. For a subscription, you will be able to listen to the tracks in HQ and save them to your phone to listen offline.
You can log in to the application with a Yandex, Google, VKontakte or Facebook account.
Payment can be made by credit card or via subscription on Google Play.
Play Music offers 2 fares:
Log in, of course, through Google. All made a standard subscription to Google Play. The first month of use is free.
Apple Music offers 3 tariffs:
The first 3 months of use are free. Login to the application is only possible through Apple ID.
Zvooq can work in a free mode, also offers an individual subscription for 169 rubles per month. All made a standard subscription to Google Play. For a subscription, you will be able to listen to the tracks in HQ and save them to your phone to listen offline.
You can login, respectively, either in anonymous mode, register via mail or mobile phone, log in with your Vkontakte or Facebook account. The first month of use is free.
SoundCloud works in free mode. You can login with your SoundCloud, Google or Facebook account.
Deezer works in a free mode, and also offers 2 tariffs:
For a subscription, you will be able to control the playback of tracks, listen to them in HQ and without ads, save them to your phone to listen offline. Payment is possible through PayPal or card.
Therefore, we will continue to test the free mode .
You can login through Google, Facebook, or through your own registration.
With releases, especially foreign ones, from major labels during the test, I did not notice any problems in any application.
In Play Music, there are problems with Russian releases - whether Russian musicians do not count on this platform, or if there are any difficulties with publishing. But at the moment when the next Russian album is actively advertised in Yandex.Music and BOOM - Play Music still does not know anything about it.
Even more difficult is the situation with the "underground". Today, the chances that your neighbor is a talented producer are greater than ever. Take and look for some of the fresh tracks (at the time of this writing), advertised in social. networks: caught the eye of " Gourski - Cala Blava ".
Yandex.Music seems to know very little about Cactus trap :
With Play Music, the situation is better - at least the performer definitely is. But the desired track, which has been on Vkontakte for several days, is not here:
BOOM , albeit in a strange way, finds the track, and is also ready to show the other tracks of the artist:
And this situation occurs very often. The probability of finding a song of interest in BOOM is much higher. As a rule, this is due to the fact that the content is laid out right along with the post in the social. network.
I leave behind brackets the reasoning on how legally such an arrangement is, that it is up to the artist to place on platforms, etc. - I, as a listener, are not interested. As a listener, I’m interested in what I find what I’m looking for.
The downside of this advantage is the absence of any quality assurance in BOOM - often “pinched”, or even worse - “bassboosted” tracks.
In Zvooq, the example of Gourski works in the same way as in Play Music. But for example, a fresh, yesterday's album from Teddy Killerz , which has already appeared everywhere, is not there.
SoundCloud has little music available for money at other venues. SoundCloud is an excellent service, but, in my opinion, it’s rather a social network around the author’s music, where the authors share the “tricks” with each other, what they do with the full-fledged publication and distribution. The example from Gourski confirms this - the link to the track is on SoundCloud. That is why I did not even plan to include the SoundCloud application in the review.
In Deezer, the example of Gourski works in the same way as in Play Music. But during the test there were things that are not found in either the application from Google or Yandex - it seems that the repertoire there is very wide.
Anyway, in each application, the ability to download content to the device for offline listening is implemented.
For myself, I selected several important points in this functionality:
Below are the settings blocks associated with the setting to save music to the device:
As we can see, the restriction of downloading over the mobile network is implemented in all applications. But as for the choice of drive and quality - I could not find them in BOOM .
In Play Music, the cherished download / delete button is at the playlist level, i.e. one track cannot be downloaded or deleted.
Yandex.Music allows you to manage content both at the album level and at the level of individual tracks. It also seemed to me that the download speed of Yandex was higher, although I did not make any special measurements.
BOOM implements control solely at the level of individual tracks. Lovers to listen to albums, there will not be sweet.
In Zvooq, I could not find any settings related to limiting downloads or selecting a device for saving tracks — only the HQ button. But when downloading allows you to manage content at the album level, and at the level of individual tracks.
SoundCloud offline can not.
Deezer in the free mode offline can not.
Here applications from Google , Yandex , SoundCloud and Deezer have gone far ahead - these applications:
BOOM , it seems, is looking for music only by the exact occurrence of the substring in the name of the artist or track, and in the issue will not show albums / playlists.
In Yandex.Music and BOOM there is still a search function for similar songs - it works very rarely in both applications, but sometimes it works.
The situation with recommendations is generally similar.
When you first sign in to Yandex. Music, you will be prompted to go through the targeting procedure.
And then you will be relevant collections and news:
The only drawback here is that there is no possibility to somehow influence the profile (except for listening) or at least reset it. If your friend asked me to include something on the phone the whole evening, which you are not very happy about, then be prepared that this performer will stay with you for some time.
In Play Music, the targeting is made to the settings - the item “Improve recommendations”. Its meaning is the same as in the previous case, but it can be reused, and it seems that it really affects the resulting profile. But again, for correct testing of this hypothesis, more time and a more or less stable profile are needed.
Applications from Yandex and Google are able to take into account in the recommendations even the time of day and geo-coordinates.
BOOM , it seems, creates a profile only on the basis of the profile of Vkontakte and the history of listening:
Zvooq , during the test did not disclose any targeted recommendations - not sure that they even exist there.
SoundCloud , being, soc. Network, recommends profile - likes, subscriptions, comments.
Deezer uses the same initial targeting as Yandex.Music and Play Music.
Recommendations are quite relevant in notifications.
BOOM in terms of ease of use causes a lot of negative emotions.
First, the location settings :
Secondly, this is the only application that does not always start. Sometimes the launch looked like this:
The positive thing is that after departure, the application restores the playlist.
It makes no sense to compare player interfaces, although BOOM have distinguished themselves here.
Apparently for better integration with Vkontakte, the download button is combined with a button for adding to audio recordings in the profile. If you do not add everything that you download to listen to - you are not lucky.
In general, integration with VKontakte is not up to par. You can listen to music from communities and friends, but first you still need to find these sections (see above to the left of the settings!).
And then it turns out that friends and groups are sorted there not by “importance” - but in some other way. The section “Updates of friends”, which is in the music section of the web version of Vkontakte, with the summary list of the music of friends, is also not present - although its presence is quite logical in the paid version.
The application allows you to listen to music from the tape, but the recordings are filtered by the presence of audio, that is, the recordings are displayed not all. All this means that using the application as a full replacement for the Vkontakte application will not work - you need to keep both applications on your phone.
Between Play Music and Yandeks.Muzykoy in terms of ease of use, I would prefer the latter. Google interface looks overloaded. For example, artist pages:
In the Play Music screen, you can barely fit a part of the top, and before the list of albums and recommendations you still need to wind and wind. In general, the design from Yandex looks more concise and informative.
Another advantage of Yandex.Music is the import mechanism:
Depending on the type of account is possible including. and import music from Vkontakte.
But during the test several times the phone told me that the Yandex.Music application was eating the battery hard, although I didn’t perform any specific actions with this application. And both in active and in the background:
Zvooq has an even stranger design than Play Music. There is a side menu, but it duplicates the tabs menu. All functional controls are there, but the design is dark and dark:
SoundCloud pleases with a nice interface. it’s still a social network, the lion’s share of krutilok ’doesn’t refer to listening to music: notification schemes, comments on the time stamp of the track, profiles, etc.
Deezer has a convenient interface. I liked it a little less than Yandex.Music, but more than the application from Google.
If you want to share music, then all applications except BOOM can give you at least a link to a track / album. BOOM itself is able to share audio recordings of Vkontakte.
And further. I can not fail to note that Play Music comes with Android, that is, without rutting and customization, this is a pre-installed component of the system and you will have it regardless of your desire.
When you start paying for music, you want to receive a certain level of service for this money - so that the application can be conveniently used, so that the new products of your favorite artists appear on time and in good quality.
Unfortunately, today the BOOM application does not provide this level of service. For a subscription, you will receive an awkward application in the appendix to Vkontakte, which will simply allow you to save music offline. With great pleasure I would have bought this option without leaving the social network application.
As for the remaining participants in the comparison, then if you have the opportunity not to save memory and battery power of your phone, then I advise you to purchase a subscription to Yandex.Music - you will receive:
If you, like me, do not like to scatter megabytes to install applications that duplicate existing functionality, and do not like when the application does not save your battery, then I advise you to stop playing Play Music - the lack of some convenient details, such as saving by one track, and the small delays of the Russian repertoire can be forgiven for more careful attitude to the resources of the phone.
* With regard to the additionally reviewed applications, it seemed to me that Zvooq was much inferior to competitors in all respects - and there were no special reasons to use it, especially in the paid version.
I would not recommend as a music service and SoundCloud , because He does not know how to work at all offline and has a limited, specific repertoire.
Deezer was a pleasant discovery for me - it is good in terms of repertoire and usability, but, unfortunately, does not know how to work with subscriptions. For me, as you know, this is critical, and in the free version, Deezer logically loses to any paid counterpart.
Participants in the review were:
At the request of the comments add
Comparison criteria
To begin with, we will determine what parameters we will use to make a comparison:
- RepertoirePerhaps the most subjective criterion. Today, less and less good music that I like, to the labels and official releases. I, as a listener, are not at all interested in the legal troubles - I want to listen to Spor , and the fresh tracks of the novice producer-neighbor.
- Work offlineUnfortunately, a fairly fast and unlimited Internet connection, allowing you to listen to quietly listen to music online, remains rare even in cities, not to mention trips, when you need it most. Therefore, the ability to download music to the device is a must. In this case, the management of downloaded music should be convenient, since device memory is also a valuable resource (at least for me).
- Payment and price: everything is simple - I want cheaper and betterYou can and should pay for music. But only for the one that really pleases. And to understand, like it or not, you need to listen. And in order to listen you have to buy ... As a way to resolve this contradiction, today we are offered a subscription model - to pay less than the maximum cost, but certainly on a regular basis. Well, as long as there are no serious results from alternative monetization models, such as boostframe , this will do.
- Search and recommendationsThere is so much music today that the search should be very intellectual: fuzzy search, expansion and correction of the request, active use of meta-information: album, genre, year, and at least BPM. In addition, recommendations can be useful - the robot can shovel a much larger amount of data, according to your profile.
- Ease of use and resource consumptionListening to music is an activity, usually background and long-lasting. Therefore, management of the application should be clear, simple, reliable, even in the background, and the application itself should not eat off all the resources of the phone.
We now turn to the comparison.
Payment and price
In general, the tariff policy of applications is similar - the healthy influence of competition.
At the time of this writing:
BOOM offers one unlimited individual rate for 149 rubles / month. To enter the application, in addition to the Google account, you also need an account in one of the social networks: Odnoklassniki or Vkontakte.
The first month of use is free.
Yandex.Music works in a free mode, and also offers an individual subscription for 199 rubles / month. For a subscription, you will be able to listen to the tracks in HQ and save them to your phone to listen offline.
katletmedown tells you that the subscription on the site is cheaper: 169 rubles per month.
You can log in to the application with a Yandex, Google, VKontakte or Facebook account.
Payment can be made by credit card or via subscription on Google Play.
Play Music offers 2 fares:
It was rightly noted in the comments about unaccounted VAT - fixed
- individual subscription for ~ 188 (159 + VAT ) rub./mon.
- Family subscription - up to 6 accounts for ~ 282 (239 + VAT ) rub./mon.
Log in, of course, through Google. All made a standard subscription to Google Play. The first month of use is free.
Apple Music offers 3 tariffs:
- individual subscription for 169 rubles per month.
- Family subscription - up to 6 accounts for 269 rubles per month.
- for students - up to 6 accounts for 75 rubles per month.
The first 3 months of use are free. Login to the application is only possible through Apple ID.
Therefore, Apple Music flies out of comparison.
Registering an Apple ID through the app requires the mandatory payment details:
I am quite anxious to provide such data for storage, so I could not go further than the initial screen of the application, and will not participate in comparison with other criteria of Apple Music.
I am quite anxious to provide such data for storage, so I could not go further than the initial screen of the application, and will not participate in comparison with other criteria of Apple Music.
Zvooq can work in a free mode, also offers an individual subscription for 169 rubles per month. All made a standard subscription to Google Play. For a subscription, you will be able to listen to the tracks in HQ and save them to your phone to listen offline.
You can login, respectively, either in anonymous mode, register via mail or mobile phone, log in with your Vkontakte or Facebook account. The first month of use is free.
SoundCloud works in free mode. You can login with your SoundCloud, Google or Facebook account.
Deezer works in a free mode, and also offers 2 tariffs:
- individual subscription for ~ 188 (169 + VAT ) rub. / month.
- Family subscription - up to 6 accounts for ~ 301 (255 + VAT ) rub./mon.
For a subscription, you will be able to control the playback of tracks, listen to them in HQ and without ads, save them to your phone to listen offline. Payment is possible through PayPal or card.
Therefore, we will continue to test the free mode .
You can login through Google, Facebook, or through your own registration.
Repertoire
With releases, especially foreign ones, from major labels during the test, I did not notice any problems in any application.
In Play Music, there are problems with Russian releases - whether Russian musicians do not count on this platform, or if there are any difficulties with publishing. But at the moment when the next Russian album is actively advertised in Yandex.Music and BOOM - Play Music still does not know anything about it.
Even more difficult is the situation with the "underground". Today, the chances that your neighbor is a talented producer are greater than ever. Take and look for some of the fresh tracks (at the time of this writing), advertised in social. networks: caught the eye of " Gourski - Cala Blava ".
Yandex.Music seems to know very little about Cactus trap :
With Play Music, the situation is better - at least the performer definitely is. But the desired track, which has been on Vkontakte for several days, is not here:
BOOM , albeit in a strange way, finds the track, and is also ready to show the other tracks of the artist:
And this situation occurs very often. The probability of finding a song of interest in BOOM is much higher. As a rule, this is due to the fact that the content is laid out right along with the post in the social. network.
I leave behind brackets the reasoning on how legally such an arrangement is, that it is up to the artist to place on platforms, etc. - I, as a listener, are not interested. As a listener, I’m interested in what I find what I’m looking for.
The downside of this advantage is the absence of any quality assurance in BOOM - often “pinched”, or even worse - “bassboosted” tracks.
In Zvooq, the example of Gourski works in the same way as in Play Music. But for example, a fresh, yesterday's album from Teddy Killerz , which has already appeared everywhere, is not there.
SoundCloud has little music available for money at other venues. SoundCloud is an excellent service, but, in my opinion, it’s rather a social network around the author’s music, where the authors share the “tricks” with each other, what they do with the full-fledged publication and distribution. The example from Gourski confirms this - the link to the track is on SoundCloud. That is why I did not even plan to include the SoundCloud application in the review.
In Deezer, the example of Gourski works in the same way as in Play Music. But during the test there were things that are not found in either the application from Google or Yandex - it seems that the repertoire there is very wide.
Work offline
Anyway, in each application, the ability to download content to the device for offline listening is implemented.
For myself, I selected several important points in this functionality:
- possibility to choose a storage drive - it is more convenient to keep music on a flash drive
- the ability to save and delete tracks one by one or the entire playlist / album
- mobile download restriction
- quality selection of stored tracks
Below are the settings blocks associated with the setting to save music to the device:
As we can see, the restriction of downloading over the mobile network is implemented in all applications. But as for the choice of drive and quality - I could not find them in BOOM .
In Play Music, the cherished download / delete button is at the playlist level, i.e. one track cannot be downloaded or deleted.
Yandex.Music allows you to manage content both at the album level and at the level of individual tracks. It also seemed to me that the download speed of Yandex was higher, although I did not make any special measurements.
BOOM implements control solely at the level of individual tracks. Lovers to listen to albums, there will not be sweet.
In Zvooq, I could not find any settings related to limiting downloads or selecting a device for saving tracks — only the HQ button. But when downloading allows you to manage content at the album level, and at the level of individual tracks.
SoundCloud offline can not.
Deezer in the free mode offline can not.
Search and recommendations
Here applications from Google , Yandex , SoundCloud and Deezer have gone far ahead - these applications:
- will offer obvious options for correcting the request;
- will show similar requests;
- understand genres;
- in the issuance will show and artists, and albums, and individual tracks
BOOM , it seems, is looking for music only by the exact occurrence of the substring in the name of the artist or track, and in the issue will not show albums / playlists.
In Yandex.Music and BOOM there is still a search function for similar songs - it works very rarely in both applications, but sometimes it works.
The situation with recommendations is generally similar.
When you first sign in to Yandex. Music, you will be prompted to go through the targeting procedure.
And then you will be relevant collections and news:
The only drawback here is that there is no possibility to somehow influence the profile (except for listening) or at least reset it. If your friend asked me to include something on the phone the whole evening, which you are not very happy about, then be prepared that this performer will stay with you for some time.
In Play Music, the targeting is made to the settings - the item “Improve recommendations”. Its meaning is the same as in the previous case, but it can be reused, and it seems that it really affects the resulting profile. But again, for correct testing of this hypothesis, more time and a more or less stable profile are needed.
Applications from Yandex and Google are able to take into account in the recommendations even the time of day and geo-coordinates.
BOOM , it seems, creates a profile only on the basis of the profile of Vkontakte and the history of listening:
Zvooq , during the test did not disclose any targeted recommendations - not sure that they even exist there.
SoundCloud , being, soc. Network, recommends profile - likes, subscriptions, comments.
Deezer uses the same initial targeting as Yandex.Music and Play Music.
Recommendations are quite relevant in notifications.
Ease of use and resource consumption
BOOM in terms of ease of use causes a lot of negative emotions.
First, the location
Secondly, this is the only application that does not always start. Sometimes the launch looked like this:
The positive thing is that after departure, the application restores the playlist.
It makes no sense to compare player interfaces, although BOOM have distinguished themselves here.
Apparently for better integration with Vkontakte, the download button is combined with a button for adding to audio recordings in the profile. If you do not add everything that you download to listen to - you are not lucky.
In general, integration with VKontakte is not up to par. You can listen to music from communities and friends, but first you still need to find these sections (see above to the left of the settings!).
And then it turns out that friends and groups are sorted there not by “importance” - but in some other way. The section “Updates of friends”, which is in the music section of the web version of Vkontakte, with the summary list of the music of friends, is also not present - although its presence is quite logical in the paid version.
The application allows you to listen to music from the tape, but the recordings are filtered by the presence of audio, that is, the recordings are displayed not all. All this means that using the application as a full replacement for the Vkontakte application will not work - you need to keep both applications on your phone.
Between Play Music and Yandeks.Muzykoy in terms of ease of use, I would prefer the latter. Google interface looks overloaded. For example, artist pages:
In the Play Music screen, you can barely fit a part of the top, and before the list of albums and recommendations you still need to wind and wind. In general, the design from Yandex looks more concise and informative.
Another advantage of Yandex.Music is the import mechanism:
Depending on the type of account is possible including. and import music from Vkontakte.
But during the test several times the phone told me that the Yandex.Music application was eating the battery hard, although I didn’t perform any specific actions with this application. And both in active and in the background:
Zvooq has an even stranger design than Play Music. There is a side menu, but it duplicates the tabs menu. All functional controls are there, but the design is dark and dark:
SoundCloud pleases with a nice interface. it’s still a social network, the lion’s share of krutilok ’doesn’t refer to listening to music: notification schemes, comments on the time stamp of the track, profiles, etc.
Deezer has a convenient interface. I liked it a little less than Yandex.Music, but more than the application from Google.
If you want to share music, then all applications except BOOM can give you at least a link to a track / album. BOOM itself is able to share audio recordings of Vkontakte.
And further. I can not fail to note that Play Music comes with Android, that is, without rutting and customization, this is a pre-installed component of the system and you will have it regardless of your desire.
findings
When you start paying for music, you want to receive a certain level of service for this money - so that the application can be conveniently used, so that the new products of your favorite artists appear on time and in good quality.
Unfortunately, today the BOOM application does not provide this level of service. For a subscription, you will receive an awkward application in the appendix to Vkontakte, which will simply allow you to save music offline. With great pleasure I would have bought this option without leaving the social network application.
As for the remaining participants in the comparison, then if you have the opportunity not to save memory and battery power of your phone, then I advise you to purchase a subscription to Yandex.Music - you will receive:
- access to a wide, regularly updated repertoire; if something is not going on Yandex.Music, then most likely it will not be found in the application from Google
- convenient interface
- intelligent search and recommendations
- high-quality offline mode
If you, like me, do not like to scatter megabytes to install applications that duplicate existing functionality, and do not like when the application does not save your battery, then I advise you to stop playing Play Music - the lack of some convenient details, such as saving by one track, and the small delays of the Russian repertoire can be forgiven for more careful attitude to the resources of the phone.
* With regard to the additionally reviewed applications, it seemed to me that Zvooq was much inferior to competitors in all respects - and there were no special reasons to use it, especially in the paid version.
I would not recommend as a music service and SoundCloud , because He does not know how to work at all offline and has a limited, specific repertoire.
Deezer was a pleasant discovery for me - it is good in terms of repertoire and usability, but, unfortunately, does not know how to work with subscriptions. For me, as you know, this is critical, and in the free version, Deezer logically loses to any paid counterpart.
All Articles