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App Imp

Music streaming apps.

Performance runs in 10 of the 11 apps here — nobody on this shelf has fixed it.

11 apps · 5,622 reviews held · 2,471 negative · 2026-08-24 snapshot

69/100 opportunity

5 of 6 factors · not advice
Nobody's fixed it10 of 11 apps91
How far above typical24.2% vs 16.9% typical35
How angryno deep report yet—
People in the market62,076,832 ratings100
Room to enterleader holds 67% of ratings33
Willingness to pay9 of 10 checked charge · $4.99 entry90

Mostly solved: billing. 9 of 10 apps run below the store’s typical rate on it — while 10 of 11 still carry performance complaints.

How this is scored

Weighted mean of the sub-scores, weights re-normalized over whatever is computable (nobody's fixed it 25 · how far above typical 20 · how angry 15 · people in the market 15 · room to enter 15 · willingness to pay 10). Fixed anchors map each count to 0–100: breadth and willingness-to-pay are straight shares; the gap’s heat tops out at 4times the store’s typical rate; anger scores star3 as 0 and star1.5 as 100; reach runs 104 to 107ratings on a log scale; room to enter is one minus the leader’s share of shelf ratings. A factor that cannot be counted is dropped and named — never imputed. The site’s one composite (#115, owner decision 2026-08-15); cited industry benchmarks are never blended in.

5 gaps.

01

Performance — unfixed in 10 of 11 apps

elevated · 24.2% of this shelf’s 2,471 negative reviews, against 16.9% typical store-wide.

What they said · 598 reviews
“Glitchy — App doesn’t play music at times”Music : Cloud Music Streaming · 2star · Aug 19, 2026
“Stop asking me to review and rate — Every time I open the app it wants me to rate it, even if I’ve already done it. One star for being annoying af. I like the app otherwise even though it’s a little glitchy.”TIDAL Music: HiFi Sound · 1star · Aug 18, 2026
“Can’t even use this app — I’ve used pandora for 15+ years and although it has its quirks sometimes, I mostly have no issues. Until recently when I got signed out of my account. It won’t let me sign in with the account I’ve been using for years AND if I try to register with a different email, it just says there was some error and to try again later. It’s been almost a week.”Pandora: Music & Podcasts · 1star · Aug 17, 2026
How it compares
this shelf
24.2%
598 of 2,471
store-wide
16.9%
typical
breadth
91%
10 of 11 apps
02

Ads — unfixed in 10 of 11 apps

elevated · 15.4% of this shelf’s 2,471 negative reviews, against 10.7% typical store-wide.

What they said · 381 reviews
“Never updating again… — You keep getting more and more greedy… where the heck did the uninterrupted listening banners go? That was alright though, cuz we could still search a song, and get a decent uninterrupted session… then you shortened it, and that was annoying. Now, you only get that one song, and ads are riddling the app… on top of that, you’re destroying my stations! Stop trying to make the”Pandora: Music & Podcasts · 1star · Aug 19, 2026
“They increased ads on free tier — Look, I have over 11,000 songs on over 1000 CDs, all on my iPhone. I’m not going to get another subscription in my life. It’s free tier for me. But Pandora is now LOADED with ads; easily twice as many as there were a year ago! Some ads are okay, and I’m willing to have them for a no-subscription experience. But this is too much. Just too much!”Pandora: Music & Podcasts · 2star · Aug 19, 2026
“Garbage — Constantly will just not let me listen to songs. You pay for premium and ads still show on the home page. Terrible.”Demus: Easy Music Streaming · 1star · Aug 18, 2026
How it compares
this shelf
15.4%
381 of 2,471
store-wide
10.7%
typical
breadth
91%
10 of 11 apps
03

Limits & caps — unfixed in 10 of 11 apps

elevated · 3.5% of this shelf’s 2,471 negative reviews, against 2.8% typical store-wide.

What they said · 86 reviews
“Recommendations — There’s TOO MANY Commercials! I Can’t Afford to buy a Subscription, I’m on a very limited income! 😢”Pandora: Music & Podcasts · 3star · Aug 19, 2026
“Tidal is Anti-Tesla — Firstly I have all the music platforms. Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Premium, Prime Music, etc. and Tidal is proving to be by far the worst of them all. If I want hi-fi lossless music, Apple Music is better. If I want better navigability in the app… pick one they’re all better. And if I actually want to have a SHUFFLE button in my cars playlists? Tidal definitely can’t do th”TIDAL Music: HiFi Sound · 1star · Aug 17, 2026
“Horrible App — I can’t even listen to music without getting ads between pretty much every song, and I continuously get intrusive ads asking me to upgrade. Not to mention not being able to limit things like alcohol ads. Greedy and money grabbing; Pandora has really gone downhill since I started using it in 2014. I’d highly recommend anything else.”Pandora: Music & Podcasts · 1star · Aug 17, 2026
How it compares
this shelf
3.5%
86 of 2,471
store-wide
2.8%
typical
breadth
91%
10 of 11 apps
04

UX — unfixed in 8 of 11 apps

2.5% of this shelf’s 2,471 negative reviews, against 2.9% typical store-wide.

What they said · 61 reviews
“Archaic Quality — If you’re into LPs and you want to bring the bother and lack of convince to your digital listing Tidal is for you. Add albums from an artist and expect the artist show up under “Artist” - nope not on tidal, navigation on of the app on the screen, not on the song playing? - nope not on Tidal. Expect to be able to shuffle songs from albums from an artists without making a playlist”TIDAL Music: HiFi Sound · 2star · Aug 14, 2026
“User interface and preferences are GABAGE — I do not know how I have had YouTube premium for years and the music app 1. Doesn’t play music I have already liked on the premium app 2. Doesn’t play music like it 3. Has no library for LIKED music, or it is not easily accessible.”YouTube Music · 1star · Aug 11, 2026
“Fix the interface — Worst interface ever.”YouTube Music · 1star · Aug 11, 2026
How it compares
this shelf
2.5%
61 of 2,471
store-wide
2.9%
typical
breadth
73%
8 of 11 apps
05

Sync & data — unfixed in 9 of 11 apps

1.7% of this shelf’s 2,471 negative reviews, against 2.2% typical store-wide.

What they said · 43 reviews
“Podcast player is broken — The Podcasts no longer download and stay in the App on my phone for later use. The downloads disappear when you close the App, so it’s 99% worthless.”Spotify: Music and Podcasts · 1star · Aug 10, 2026
“No Longer Works on Apple Watch 3 — App was great and frequently used on my Apple Watch 3 but now, without any warning, they updated it to require WatchOS 11.0 and it disappeared from my watch and can’t be reinstalled.”Pandora: Music & Podcasts · 1star · Aug 9, 2026
“You would have 4-stars if you stopped messing with availability — I don’t use your radio stations, don’t go on here for podcasts, I go on Pandora because the assumption with downloading my playlist is that EVERYTHING will be available offline Why can you not just leave my playlists alone??? I shouldn’t have songs disappear or be unavailable for playback because of restrictions on your end, especi”Pandora: Music & Podcasts · 2star · Aug 4, 2026
How it compares
this shelf
1.7%
43 of 2,471
store-wide
2.2%
typical
breadth
82%
9 of 11 apps

Is there a market for a new music streaming app?

11 apps compete on this shelf, holding 5,622 App Store reviews — and the widest unfixed complaint, performance, runs in 10 of 11 of them at 24.2% of negative reviews against 16.9% typical. Those are counts, not a verdict — the page shows what is unfixed, not whether to build.

What do users complain about most in music streaming apps?

1. Performance — in 10 of 11 apps, 24.2% of negative reviews; 2. Ads — in 10 of 11 apps, 15.4% of negative reviews; 3. Limits & caps — in 10 of 11 apps, 3.5% of negative reviews; 4. UX — in 8 of 11 apps, 2.5% of negative reviews; 5. Sync & data — in 9 of 11 apps, 1.7% of negative reviews.

How many music streaming app reviews did App Imp count?

5,622 US App Store reviews across 11 apps, 2,471 of them negative — counted on the 2026-08-24 snapshot, never estimated.

Searched on the App Store.

Apple’s own suggestions for music streaming apps terms, in their order.

easy music streamingfree music streaming app for iphonefree music streaming appsmusic streamingoffline music streamingsimple music streamingwhat hi-fi sound and visionmusic simple music streaming

Searched, but no app on this shelf says it in its name.

Who’s in it

All 11 apps counted on this shelf · 2026-08-24.

App
Spotify: Music and Podcasts41,695,95016%22%4%2%
Pandora: Music & Podcasts11,282,59315%30%3%1%
Amazon Music: Songs & Podcasts3,328,76435%9%9%3%
Audiomack - Play Music Offline1,998,96714%53%4%—
SoundCloud: The Music You Love1,972,92215%26%3%1%
YouTube Music1,514,83127%8%1%4%
TIDAL Music: HiFi Sound245,86127%1%1%3%
LiveOne Music29,20224%12%4%2%
Music : Cloud Music Streaming7,6326%15%3%—
Demus: Easy Music Streaming10634%11%1%1%
Musivo: Music & Video Player4————

Each cell: that app’s share of its own negative reviews. Bold from 1.15 times the store’s typical rate for that complaint, and only where an app holds 20+ negative reviews. Click a column to sort.

What they charge, and what it costs them

Prices from Apple’s public pages; the share counts payment-mechanics language only.

AppMoney complaints
LiveOne Music$3.99–$39.99 · 5 tiers4% of 225
YouTube Music$15.99–$34.99 · 5 tiers3.4% of 558
Amazon Music: Songs & Podcasts$13.99–$24.99 · 2 tiers2.5% of 396
Spotify: Music and Podcastsfree2.4% of 333
Pandora: Music & Podcasts$3.99–$12.99 · 3 tiers2.4% of 205
SoundCloud: The Music You Love$5.99–$129 · 5 tiers2.4% of 170
Audiomack - Play Music Offline$0.99–$24.99 · 7 tiers0% of 135
TIDAL Music: HiFi Sound$15.49–$26.99 · 2 tiers0% of 288
Music : Cloud Music Streaming$4.99–$19.99 · 3 tiers0% of 33
Demus: Easy Music Streaming$0.99–$19.99 · 5 tiers0% of 128

Browse the apps behind these counts

Every app we count, with the complaint it runs furthest above the store’s typical rate.

Open the app library
How this is counted

Every number is arithmetic over the reviews we hold, re-counted weekly — nothing modelled, nothing scored. Themes come from a frozen pattern classifier rather than a model reading reviews, so the same review always lands in the same bucket. A shelf rate is pooled across every app here; the store rate is the same count across 12,122 apps. A complaint is only called a gap when at least half the shelf carries it and at least 20 reviews are behind it — a problem concentrated in one app is that app’s bug. This shelf has no full report yet, so the per-app notes and the anger axis are absent rather than estimated.