Music streaming has become one of the most popular ways for people to listen to tunes these days. With high-speed mobile internet and smartphones now ubiquitous, streaming apps provide access to vast music catalogs that would be unimaginable to carry around just a decade ago. Tech giants like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music dominate the market, but device makers also try to entice users by bundling their own music apps. Competition is fierce as apps try to differentiate themselves in features, price, and music discovery abilities. In this article we do a music app comparison and find out which one is best between Samsung Music, Mi Music, and Audiomack.
Samsung Music
Preloaded on most Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets, Samsung Music aims to provide a seamless music experience for Samsung device owners. It offers both a local music player for songs stored on your device as well as a music streaming catalog of over 30 million songs.
Key features:
• Stream over 30 million songs with ads, or go ad-free with a Samsung Music Pass subscription
• Support for lossless audio formats like FLAC and ALAC for high fidelity sound
• Customizable equalizer and audio effects from AKG
• Sync and upload music from your computer via Windows and Mac apps
• Listen across all your devices, whether Android, iOS or on your PC/Mac
As a default app for Galaxy users, Samsung Music focuses heavily on deep integration with the Samsung ecosystem. For example, it supports seamless music transfer via Quick Share between Samsung devices. The app also has exclusive integrations with select Samsung wearables to allow offline music playback. As part of the Galaxy experience, Samsung Music tries to offer convenience and quality for users invested in the Samsung hardware ecosystem.
Xiaomi Music (Mi Music)
Preloaded on Xiaomi phones running MIUI software, Xiaomi Music (also called Mi Music) offers robust music streaming tightly integrated with the MIUI interface. As a homegrown app for Xiaomi’s Chinese user base, Mi Music has a competitive advantage in promoting Chinese indie music not well represented in Western streaming catalogs.
Key features:
• Over 5 million Chinese indie songs
• Songs organized by genre, era, mood and activity
• Streaming radio stations
• Support for FLAC high resolution audio
• Music video integration in the app
• Unique concert streaming and ticketing platform for Chinese artists
Mi Music aims to differentiate itself through Chinese music content and specialization in the cultural tastes of Chinese users. This can be seen in the app’s unique organization of music by mood, genre and activity rather than just artist or album. Mi Music also invests heavily in live concert streaming and tickets sales of trendy Chinese bands. As internet adoption grows rapidly in China, Mi Music’s localization gives it an edge in appealing to Chinese users.
Audiomack
Unlike Samsung and Xiaomi’s apps which come preloaded for their device users, Audiomack is a standalone streaming service focused on building its brand independently. With hip hop as its flagship genre, Audiomack positions itself as a youthful platform for unsigned artists and devoted music fans.
Key features:
• Leading streaming platform for hip hop & African music
• Popular with unsigned/indie artists
• Promotes rising stars through playlists and original content
• Share songs, albums, playlists via messaging and social
• Available across iOS, Android, and web
Audiomack’s biggest asset is its reputation among hip hop fans as a source for new talent and hot tracks. The app facilitates music discovery through its popular playlists, charts and recommendations showcasing rising artists. Audiomack also allows artists to upload their own music and share songs via messaging and social media. By facilitating community around unsigned artists, Audiomack has become ingrained in hip hop culture as a platform for early music discovery.
Comparison
Now that we’ve highlighted features of our three apps – Samsung Music, Mi Music, and Audiomack – here is a quick comparison across key criteria:
Music Catalog
With over 30 million licensed tracks, Samsung takes the lead here. Mi Music’s focus gives it an edge for Chinese indie music. Audiomack trails in raw numbers but shines for hip hop.
Audio Quality
For audio fidelity, Samsung and Mi Music offer lossless streaming with FLAC support. Audiomack streams at standard quality MP3 formats.
Discovery & Sharing
Audiomack is best for discovering rising talent and unsigned artists. Its community-focused sharing also gives it an edge. Samsung and Mi Music focus more on organization and search than social features.
Ecosystem Integration
With deep ties to Galaxy devices, only Samsung Music can match Apple Music’s ecosystem integration. Mi Music has robust but China-specific MIUI enhancements. Audiomack is more generalized across platforms.
Price & Availability
Pricing varies across free ad-supported tiers, paid subscriptions without ads, and lossless streaming upgrades. Mi Music and Audiomack are free with ads on Android devices. Samsung Music requires a paid pack for ad-free streaming. All three have premium tiers with additional features.
Which Music App is Best For You?
With an overview of features across our apps, which is best comes down to user preferences:
Samsung Music is great for Samsung device owners who want seamless integration, and lossless Tidal-powered streaming.
Mi Music gives the best experience for Chinese consumers focused on local content, indie music and concert livestreams.
Audiomack leads for hip hop fans looking to discover rising talent through playlists, original content and music sharing features.
For most markets outside China, Samsung Music and Audiomack offer the widest appeal depending on music taste. Mi Music is uniquely positioned to Chinese customers. Across all apps, the availability of free ad-supported tiers allows easy sampling before paying for premium subscriptions.
Conclusion
While category leaders like Spotify and Apple Music tend to dominate headlines, device makers like Samsung and Xiaomi offer compelling music apps catered to their ecosystems. With focused strengths like lossless streaming, Chinese content, or unsigned artist discovery, the “out-of-the-box” experience these preloaded apps provide can be tough to beat. For the right customer, default apps can trump the category leaders.
With diverging strengths across audio quality, music discovery and local content, Samsung Music, Mi Music and Audiomack each have solid footing in their target markets. For Xiaomi phone users in China, Mi Music clearly leads due to its local advantage. Among hip hop fans, Audiomack is a rising choice. And Samsung device owners get a seamless default music option with lossless streaming. There’s enough differentiation that each app carves out a niche in the streaming music landscape. I sincerely hope you find this “Samsung Music, Mi Music, and Audiomack Best Music Apps comparison” article helpful.