Optus Mobile Review ALDI Mobile Review Amaysim Mobile Review Belong Mobile Review Circles.Life Review Vodafone Mobile Review Woolworths Mobile Review Felix Mobile Review Best iPhone Plans Best Family Mobile Plans Best Budget Smartphones Best Prepaid Plans Best SIM-Only Plans Best Plans For Kids And Teens Best Cheap Mobile Plans Telstra vs Optus Mobile Optus NBN Review Belong NBN Review Vodafone NBN Review Superloop NBN Review Aussie BB NBN Review iiNet NBN Review MyRepublic NBN Review TPG NBN Review Best NBN Satellite Plans Best NBN Alternatives Best NBN Providers Best Home Wireless Plans What is a Good NBN Speed? Test NBN Speed How to speed up your internet Optus vs Telstra Broadband ExpressVPN Review CyberGhost VPN Review NordVPN Review PureVPN Review Norton Secure VPN Review IPVanish VPN Review Windscribe VPN Review Hotspot Shield VPN Review Best cheap VPN services Best VPN for streaming Best VPNs for gaming What is a VPN? VPNs for ad-blocking As successful as Spotify is, it’s not necessarily the most suitable choice for everyone. Apple fans seem to have a bottomless reservoir of brand loyalty as it stands but they also get some attractive offers when it comes to Apple Music (like an extensive free trial program). And while Tidal might sound like an unnecessary luxury for most of us, audio nuts will pay the premium for its superior sound quality and exclusive access to original podcasts. Let’s tune in and see if we can find the right frequency for you when it comes to the best music streaming services around. Looking for more streaming? Check out our guide to the best streaming services in Australia. Its recommendation algorithm may not be watertight, but in our experience, it’s one of the most reliable and user-friendly out of the bunch. Spotify’s ‘Made For You’ playlists deliver a healthy mix of tracks you already enjoy, mixed in with new artists based on your genre and mood profile. On top of all that, there’s everything we didn’t include in our scoring matrix; the little flourishes that make Spotify unique such as it’s yearly ‘Wrapped’ feature, which celebrates your year in musical taste with dense statistics on your most listened to artists, albums and more. There’s even its own ‘Concerts’ feature, which lets you know about upcoming gigs based on your listening trends. Spotify briefly split-tested lossless audio back in 2017 but there’s still no word on whether the feature will be available to users in the future. Deezer offers more skips, with 6 per hour on any playlist. iHeartRadio offers 6 skips per hour on each Artist Radio playlist but caps out at 15 skips per day. Deezer is a solid option but it’s just not as fully-featured in Australia as it is in other countries, and skip as much as you like, the ads won’t stop coming. In Australia, iHeartRadio doesn’t break up your streams with ads. Sure, there’ll be ads if you choose to listen to a radio station, such as KIIS 1065 that already runs ads, but when it comes to Artist Playlists (playlists themed around popular artists like Post Malone) you’re only limited by skips. You’ll also find some of the world’s most popular podcasts on iHeartRadio, such as The Daily from New York Times, Stuff You Should Know and The Breakfast Club. As far as free music streaming services go, iHeartRadio is one of the best. The only downside is that you run the risk of human trashcan Kyle Sandiland on iHeartRadio. Best to keep your wits about you. Mac and iPhone users will get a better experience out of Apple Music than somebody using PC and Android, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best choice. There are a couple of reasons you might prefer Apple Music over Spotify as an iOS/macOS user though. For example, if you already own a HomePod speaker, Apple Music is your only option for full voice-supported music streaming (Siri doesn’t support third-party music streaming services). Maybe you just want to keep your iTunes purchases in the same place and keep all of your wheeling and dealing under one ecosystem. Also fine. However, that doesn’t make Apple Music the best choice for Apple users, it just works better on those devices. Here’s how much data you will use at every quality tier:
Low-quality 96kbps: 43.2MB p/hour Medium quality: 160kbps: 72MB p/hour High-quality 320kbps: 115.2MB p/hour HiFi 1411kbps: 330MB p/hour
We also analysed the free versions of iHeartRadio and Deezer but did not give them a star-rating as it wasn’t a fair comparison against paid services. We also couldn’t include iHeartRadio’s paid tiers, Plus and All Access, as they aren’t available in Australia. We gave each service a score out of 5, or a binary yes/no score, for the following categories:
