Streams and roundabouts: Apple Music just fixed one long-running issue, while Spotify added a different one

Apple changes playlists to give you more control over your library Spotify bans free listeners from hearing new music, for three days One's good, one's bad.

Guess which! A few years ago, a word was coined to refer to companies' attempts to make their products worse to increase profit margins — it's a profanity so I can't use it here, but some call it platform delay — and two fresh pieces of music streaming service news reinforce, and subvert, it.

Spotify and Apple Music are both making some moves, it seems.

One is making a slight improvement, and the other is doing something that, depending on where you live, is plain annoying.

You've read the headline, and even if you hadn't, you probably know it'd be Spotify making the contentious decision.

Let's start there, then.

Listeners on Spotify's free, ad-supported tier have posted to Reddit with a new problem: they can't listen to new music.

Not all new music, mind you: a pop-up appears when you try to listen to a new release saying that only Premium listeners can hear a track in its first three days of upload.

Apparently, this is only being tested in certain regions right now (Bangladesh and India are mentioned), but it's possible it may roll out to other places in the future.

TechRadar has reached out to Spotify for word on this and we'll update this missive with any response from the company on whether a more global rollout is planned.

Redditors commenting on the news — Premium and free subscribers alike — were critical, though none seemed very surprised.

It further emphasises Spotify's desire to push its free subscribers to start paying, if they want to listen to new music.

Apple Music making changes too At the other end of the spectrum is Apple Music. iOS27 has an added an option which would be nondescript most days of the week, but which helps as a useful juxtaposition to Spotify's downgrade (and which, Redditors claim, fixes "one of Apple Music's biggest issues since forever").

Now, in the Settings menu, two new sliders exist, and are turned off by default.