Apple’s new, lower-cost Apple Music Voice plan, which was first announced at the company’s hardware presentation this fall, is now available. The new service, which is primarily intended for use with HomePod speakers or AirPods, restricts users to using Siri to access Apple Music. The voice-only service is $4.99 per month, compared to $9.99 per month for a typical individual plan, due to its stripped-down nature.
The new music subscription is part of the larger iOS 15.2 update, which also includes app privacy reports, children’s Message safety warnings, a “Hide My Email” privacy tool, and more.
Some individuals may have been perplexed as to why someone would want a music subscription that can only be accessed by voice commands at first. Apple, however, was not the first corporation to use this approach.
With the launch of a free, ad-supported tier that only streamed over Amazon’s Echo devices in 2019, Amazon presented a more cheap option to access its Amazon Music service. To put it another way, it was an Amazon Music that could only be accessed through Alexa commands.
The Siri-only service from Apple is similar, but it isn’t limited to Apple’s smart speakers. Instead, customers will be able to request music using any Siri-enabled device, such as the HomePod, AirPods, iPhone, or other devices, as well as CarPlay, according to Apple.
The new voice-only tier isn’t just a stripped-down version of Apple Music with a small song library. Subscribers will get access to Apple Music’s 90 million song repertoire, tens of thousands of playlists, and hundreds of new mood and activity playlists, personalised mixes, and genre stations, much like conventional subscribers. Apple Music Radio is also included.
Users can ask Siri for a song, album, or artist, or, more often, a genre or type of playlist using voice commands like “play something chill,” “play the dinner party playlist,” or even “play more like this” to get access to this content.