Best Music Streaming Service for CarPlay

[jbehrn]

As others have noted, if you have an iPhone, Apple Music is the way to go. SiriusXM just sent me an email with a six months free Apple Music offer for new subscribers, you may want to check your junk mail.

Sponsored

 

[jeeplj8]

I feel your pain. Especially with car play. Like you, Amazon Music is my go-to mostly because I already pay for it. I am sick to death of everything needing a subscription. The Amazon Music CarPlay interface is trash. It seems to work much better on AndroidAuto. You can theoretically voice search it with Google Assistant, but it really only works 1/3 of the time.

My daughter loves Spotify because she can share playlists with friends. She tends to find everything she wants. However, for those of us a bit older, who might like music published more than 10 years ago, I tend to find Spotify and Pandora generally lacking.

I really thought Apple Music would be best, but after a month trial I was sorely disappointed for what it costs.

 

[AmosMoses01]

Wow, reading through this thread helped me see the grass isn't greener. I use a service not even mentioned - Youtube Music - which is essentially the old Google Play Music service. As a very early subscriber to Google Play Music I've been grandfathered in to a super cheap rate, plus after the folded it under the Youtube umbrella I have Youtube Premium as an additional benefit.

Youtube Music does work fine with CarPlay and the JT, but that is always subject to Apple not boinking things up with the next iOS release.

 

[Artsifrtsi]

I just use Apple Music. Before Carplay was a good thing, I used Slacker, now OneX (I think) But, we subscribe to Apple One mostly for the data it comes with, and Apple Music is part of it. And really easy to just press the mic button on the wheel, and "Play Hard Rock".

 

[dcmdon]

I have Spotify paid. I like it a lot. It works well on CarPlay, but I still find myself going back to the phone occasionally. Unlike things like Google Maps, Spotify is not crippled on the phone when CarPlay is being used.

One other thing re Sirius. I was prepared to let the introductory service expire. I had it in a previous car and it was annoyingly slow at picking up stations and just generally flaky.

I have found the implementation in the Jeep (8.4" if it matters) to be really good. I suspect the tuner concurrently tunes in the station you are listening to and several adjacent stations because there is no delay when changing.

Also I'm a big fan of live Grateful Dead and Dave Matthews. The Sirius Dead and DMB stations have a ton of old and new live stuff. So when I got a mailer from Sirius offering me $5/month I jumped on it.

I also have enjoyed listening to BBC and CSPAN.

 

[dcmdon]

Wow, reading through this thread helped me see the grass isn't greener. I use a service not even mentioned - Youtube Music - which is essentially the old Google Play Music service. As a very early subscriber to Google Play Music I've been grandfathered in to a super cheap rate, plus after the folded it under the Youtube umbrella I have Youtube Premium as an additional benefit.

Youtube Music does work fine with CarPlay and the JT, but that is always subject to Apple not boinking things up with the next iOS release.

I completely forgot about that. About 10 years ago I copied all of my CDs up to Google Play music so I could stream my own stuff. Most of it is available through normal streaming services, but some of it isn't. Its also fun to start with A and go all the way to Z in your own music to listen to everything you have. The last time I did that a few years ago it took me like 4 months. Ha.

 

[Maggie Chan]

Currently, Spotify and Apple Music are paid. But it seems that the free version is getting more and more limited. But Apple Music's Family Sharing plan allows multiple family members to have their own accounts under a single subscription. This point still attracts me. But no matter what, I will use my DumpMedia Apple Music Converter and DumpMedia Spotify Music Converter to download those songs I like to my PC in case one day I cancel my subscription.

 

[madesicc88]

Apple Music mostly, but I also use Pandora free a lot too.

Sponsored