Apple has introduced a lower-priced Apple Music subscription plan, announced at its Unleashed event in October 2021.
At only $5 per month, the new tier, dubbed "Apple Music Voice Plan", is half the price of an individual Apple Music subscription. You still get access to the music service's entire catalog of over 90 million songs, but there are some limitations.
Here's everything you need to know about the Apple Music Voice Plan, including whether it's worth a shot.
What Is Apple Music Voice Plan?
Apple Music’s Voice Plan gives you access to all the Apple Music catalog, but only through voice control. That means you must use a Siri-enabled device, such as a HomePod Mini, AirPods, or an iPhone, to listen to music. Third-party hardware integrations, such as Apple Music for Echo or Samsung Smart TVs, are not supported.
You can ask Siri to play anything in the Apple Music library, including full albums, individual songs, and Apple's playlists, if you have a Voice Plan subscription. There is no restriction on the number of skips or the number of songs available to you.
The Voice Plan seems like Apple's competition for Spotify, Pandora and Amazon, who have offered a similar service for years. Amazon's single-device plan is available to subscribers who own an Echo, but you can only access the music catalog from one Echo or Fire TV device. Apple's Voice Plan trumps Amazon's service in that regard, seeing as it is available on all Siri-enabled devices.
Apple claims that the new Voice Plan can be used to access Apple Music across all Apple devices, but it's clear that it's been designed with the HomePod in mind, similar to Amazon's free music streaming for Echo.
It may not make sense to ask Siri to play music when using a phone, tablet, or computer when you have a screen. Still, the Voice Plan may be appealing to those who listen to Apple Music primarily through their AirPods and don't mind speaking all of their commands.
The Apple Music Voice Plan costs $4.99 per month in the United States, but you can sign up for a free 7-day trial of the Apple Music Voice Plan with your Apple ID.
How the Apple Music Voice Plan Works
You can't use the Apple Music app to manually control your listening experience with an Apple Music Voice Plan, as you can with other subscription tiers. You cannot search for an artist or a track, or scroll through your library to select a song.
This is because the Apple Music app has a completely different user interface for Voice Plan subscribers. It has been pared down to only show music recommendations and your recent listening history. There is also a section dedicated to teaching you how to interact with Apple Music using Siri voice commands.
The Voice Plan also doesn't allow you to make your own playlists, manage your playback queue, download songs to your library, scroll the lyrics on your iPhone or iPad, or stream from third-party speakers (such as Google Nest Hub, which does support the full Apple Music plan). It also doesn't support some of Apple Music's higher-quality audio formats, such as lossless and spatial audio, and you cannot download music to play offline.
Subscribers can easily switch to Apple Music's individual plan for $9.99 per month, or family plan with up to six accounts for $14.99 per month, at any time to gain access to Apple Music's premium offerings (which include Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio, Lyrics, Music Videos, and more).
When Will the Voice Plan Be Available?
The Apple Music Voice Plan will be available in fall 2021, according to Apple. At launch, it’ll only be available for Apple users in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, and Taiwan.
Should You Get Apple Music’s Voice Plan?
Here's the million-dollar (or rather, five-dollar) question. The Voice Plan simply grants you access to the Apple Music catalog at a lower cost than the Individual or Family plans. So if you need access to Apple Music but don’t want to spend ten bucks on the Individual plan, go for it.
The Voice Plan is designed for casual listeners who don't want to fiddle with the Apple Music app or spend hours curating playlists. Plus, the plan removes a lot of the friction from getting started with streaming music, allowing for a simple set-up for someone who isn't very tech-savvy; simply get a HomePod Mini and ask that it play music. You can literally start your Apple Music Voice trial by saying, "Hey Siri, start my Apple Music Voice trial."
But, from the sound of it, the Voice Plan may not offer the most seamless experience. First, you have to speak commands every time you want to listen to some music. Also, it can be inconvenient to ask Siri to play albums or tracks with long or unconventional titles; imagine having to rattle off "Siri, play I Like It When You Sleep for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It" or "Devendra Banhart".
This is noteworthy since Siri is currently not the best at picking up differences in inflections and accents, and that’s to be considered now that the Plan is available for such a linguistically diverse audience.
This, however, raises the possibility that Apple is lowering the price barrier and encouraging more people to use Siri in order to collect more voice data to train and improve its voice assistant.
Our verdict? Go for a full Apple Music plan if you can. It's a lot more robust, there are fewer strings attached, and you can get free trial periods in a myriad of ways.