Hey guys! Been real busy lately, but not so much that I would pass up an offer like this. If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know I love Apple and their innovative products (So do their competitors in the tech industry, apparently).

I've been a subscriber to other streaming services, and have been listening to even more music and podcasts. Since I'm a student, I did some research on discounts available for people like me and settled on two possibilities: Spotify Premium for Students, and an Apple Music student subscription.

But Is It Serviceable?

I'm a huge Joe Rogan fan and love his podcast. Both offer support for up to four years of a student discount, and require you to re-verify annually. Once you leave school, your sub reverts to the normal full price at the end of the period. So be sure and check the details at each site.

Each service has its pros and cons, but I wanted more JRE without ads, so I tried with Spotify first. For $4.99 per month, they offer Spotify Premium, along with Hulu (with ads unfortunately) and Showtime as well. Aside from the ads on Hulu, it seemed like a pretty good deal for 5 bucks a month.

When I tried to join, that's when the problems began. No matter how many times I tried, it refused to accept my .edu campus email address and other information. Again and again, I was declined with no specific explanation as to why. Tiring of that, I decided to give Apple Music a try.

I'd read reviews, and was surprised to learn that they were rated well above Spotify when it came to audio quality due to their Apple Lossless music format. Knowing that Apple specializes in ease-of use, I hoped to have a better experience than I did on Spotify, so here goes!

Created an account, signed in following the steps, I'm approved and next thing you know I'm "In Like Flynn!"

Quality Over Quantity

I was immediately blown away by the sound quality compared to Spotify and almost anyone else outside of Tidal. Of course I made sure to select "Apple Lossless" in settings beforehand, and was happily surprised by the results. But there was yet another benefit attached to the service.

For $5.99 a month (just a buck more than Spotify), they also bundle in Apple TV+ (with NO ads!). I can not only listen to my favorite tunes (from a massive vault of over 100 million songs), but I can now stream: For All Mankind, The Morning Show, Pachinko, Calls, (which was scary af once you realized the premise), Foundation, Ted Lasso and Severance, I was hooked.

I'm so glad I signed up, as this is a limited-time offer and I wanted to get in while I could. Thank goodness I found out about this in time, as they're always adding new Apple Original content to the service. Now I have high-quality tunes, and award-winning video content to fill those moment in-between posts on Hive. :)