Apple Music is one of the best music streaming services out there, offering a playlist of over 100 million songs, in total high quality lossless audio with no additional cost, and a large number of albums and songs Dolby Atmos audio, which if you haven’t heard, is music on another level. And when it’s playing nearby second to SpotifyWith a great UI and music availability (and international subscriptions), the Cupertino music player is still great and packed with great features, the latest shows, and more, making it a tough choice if you’re thinking of rushing it. .
But the main thing for many is the amount of money. While there are limited-time “free” options and free trials that you can redeem to check out Apple Music, if you’re going to use it long-term, you might want to. they will complete payment. Let’s take a closer look at the range of Apple Music.
The Apple Music app
Before we dive into the different pricing options that Apple Music has to offer, note that each subscription plan offers access to the same list of ad-free features, online listening, Apple Music 1 radio stations, and exclusive releases.
Sign in, and you can download over 100 million songs (all here presented in lossless audio without add-on) without ads while also getting Dolby Atmos Music (which is the best of the new Sonos speakersand AApple’s new HomePodby the way), a list of special games, like karaoke Apple Music Play format, and live radio that you can listen to on all your devices.
The main difference between the plans comes in the form of Family membership (more on this in a bit), which allows you to create six accounts for a subscription that is paid as one monthly fee – regardless of how many people you add.
Apple Music Individual – $11
To reiterate, Apple Music doesn’t have a free plan, so if you’re looking for a more basic way to get your foot in the door — or if you don’t qualify for the following discounts — you’ll need one. $11-per-month Individual subscription.
Keen to lock people in, Apple is also offering customers the option to pay for a full year for $109 – a $23 discount – which isn’t bad. However, you should always compare with other subscriptions (we talk more about this below with our Spotify comparison). Note that users will not always see the annual plan download option until they subscribe to Apple Music on a monthly plan and return to their subscription.
Apple Music Student Subscription – $6
Bus like Spotify, Apple Music offers all students (with a valid student email from an educational institution) a half-off Apple Music membership. This brings the monthly subscription fee down to $6. This offer is only available to college students at this time.
Apple Music Family subscription – $17
Looking to enroll up to six people in your household in an Apple Music plan? Subscribe to the Apple Music Family plan for $17 a month. This amounts to $5 per month for two members, $15 for three, $25 for four, $35 for five, and $45 for six members.
Apple Music Voice – $5
The Voice plan offers another interesting way to subscribe to Apple Music: It’s cheaper at $5 a month, but it’s only for audio, and we mean it. only. You can start and control it with Siri, so it only works on Siri-enabled devices (especially Apple devices). Voice can play all the songs you listen to on Apple Music, but you can’t watch music videos or listen to music on the service. It also doesn’t support Apple’s advanced features, such as spatial audio (which makes the latest AirPods less efficient) or lossless audio.
This makes the system ideal for casual users who listen to a lot of music via HomePods, AirPods, or CarPlay. It also includes access to Apple Music playlists and offers customization based on your preferences over time.
Apple One
You also have a choice app for Apple One, which bundles all Apple services into one discounted payment. This includes not only Apple Music but Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, iCloud+, and more. The Apple One plan starts at $17 per month and comes with 50GB of iCloud storage, while the Apple One Family plan starts at $23 per month and adds up to five members with 200GB of iCloud storage. You can also sign up for the Premier plan which adds Apple Fitness+ and Apple News+ to the mix as well as 3TB of iCloud storage. These options can be valuable if you use other Apple services including Apple Music.
Apple Music and Verizon
If you’re a Verizon Unlimited customer, we have good news: You’re eligible for a free Apple Music subscription.
If you’re on a 5G Get Unlimited Data plan, you get Apple Music included for free as long as you have the plan.
You can also get a six-month personal membership at no cost. Currently, in order to qualify for the free six months, you must register to be eligible Verizon Unlimited Plan. After six months, Apple Music will cost $11 per month for each line. As with a direct subscription from Apple, you will have access to the Apple Music library, download music for offline playback, and stream your favorite music over 5G, 4G LTE, or Wi-Fi.
Apple Music with discounted Apple Gift Cards
If you look at the payment options for Apple Music subscriptions, you will see that you can use Apple Gift Cards, to pay for Apple Music. and everything else Apple. This opens up a new way to save on your subscription by paying with Apple Gift Cards. The key is finding them, though.
You can look for special offers, such as Best Buy’s offer to buy Apple Gift Cards. Sometimes, there will be a a special promotion that will include free Apple Music for four months and a gift card.
Apple Music is free for new customers
If you’re a new Apple Music subscriber, you should try to find promotions that give you free months when you sign up as a new user, make purchases, and more. These practices may vary over time, but some of the top modern examples. includes:
- Best Buy is offering cash up to four months, which new or returning subscribers (get three months) are eligible when they start Apple Music. All you need to get this bonus is a Best Buy account.
- Apple continues to offer free subscriptions from time to time for new buyers such as Macs or iPhones, as they did with Apple TV+ when it first launched.
- Purchase of new Apple headphones (AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, or Beats) or HomePod or HomePod mini qualifies for new subscribers. for six months of free Apple Music. Older generations, such as first-generation AirPods and other Beats models, are not suitable.
How Apple Music compares to the competition
Spotify doesn’t just take the lead over Apple Music reach all over the world, but in the United States, it is retaking the lead of Apple Music with its 188 million Premium subscribers worldwide, compared to Apple’s 98 million. However, Apple is no slouch, offering 100 million songs, 30,000 playlists, and top-rated public radio stations along with other special features, which give America’s attention.
Music and podcast selection
Spotify dominates Apple when it comes to its music discovery tools, but its library is smaller (although this gap is narrowing). Many eclectic music lovers appreciate Apple Music extensive catalog. While Apple has its own streaming and radio stations, Spotify tends to have more popular podcasts and has been pushing its playlist content to compete with Apple radio. Both services also allow any streamed music to be downloaded offline for later listening.
Some consider Apple’s music to be more profound and personal than that of Spotify and other big flavors like Amazon Music or YouTube Music, which, if we’re being honest, both take more pages from Spotify’s design playbook. The eApple Music 2021 update has added hundreds of crowd-sourced playlists for moods and events, making it easy to find playlists for everything from dinner parties to art sessions to snowboarding. Apple also added the ability to Siri when you tell the assistant, “Play this way.”
Free version
Of the two competitors, Spotify is the only one with a free version available, which allows users to play the music they want (limited on mobile but not on desktop) in exchange for ads. This makes it an easy choice if you don’t want to pay anything for your music service. If you do, the Apple Music Voice option is the cheapest option. Amazon Music Free, Deezer, and YouTube Music also offer free, ad-supported options.
To be clear
If sound quality and quality are important to you, Apple is at the head of the pack compared to Spotify, whose long-rumored hi-res tier still doesn’t show (though June 2023 report from Bloomberg say this year). That said, Apple Music is no longer one of the few lossless games in town, with many other services, including Tidal, Amazon Music Unlimited, Qobuz, and Deezer offering lossless audio, which starts at CD quality (16-bit at 44.1kHz) and goes up. from there depending on the job. If this is your game changer, here’s how it compares:
- Apple Music: AAC, ALAC format up to 24-bit/192kHz, and Dolby Atmos Music
- We were HiFi: AAC, ALAC, FLAC, MQA formats at 16-bit/44.1kHz (HiFi) and 24-bit/96kHz (HiFi Plus), as well as 360 Reality Audio and Dolby Atmos Music.
- Deezer Premium: FLAC format up to 16-bit/44.1kHz
- Qobuz: AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, WAV, WMA Lossless Formats up to 24-bit/192kHz
Editor’s Note