
Apple announces Apple One subscription bundle for Music, TV Plus, and more - CharlesW
https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/15/21433205/apple-one-subscription-bundle-price-music-tv-plus-arcade-icloud
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cwhiz
The "Premier" offering is extremely compelling to me. I already spend
$10/month for iCloud 2TB and $15/month for Apple Music family. For $5/month
more I can get TV+, Arcade, News+, and Fitness+. That's a pretty great value
for people who are invested in the Apple ecosystem.

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slg
I wouldn't want to be Peleton, Mirror, or one of those similar companies after
hearing about Fitness+. Is it worth the extra $1000+ up front and $30+ monthly
for the Peleton and Mirror trainers to mention your name?

~~~
klmadfejno
Honestly, if you're paying $1,000/month for something you're probably just not
in the market for something that costs $30/month. I think Peloton will be
fine.

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lucasmullens
It's $1000 up front for the bike, not $1000 a month.

~~~
sushid
Where are you guys getting these numbers? The bike is closer to $2000 and the
monthly fee if you're using their tread or bike is $40 whereas the standalone
app is $13.

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kalleboo
I was hoping for a bump to the 2 TB iCloud storage limit, our family is close
to passing it...

The idea of iCloud Photo Library having all your photos ever is great, with
kids and 4K video on all the new phones, 2 TB is just not enough

~~~
dzhiurgis
I see it as graveyard for all my videos. It takes 3 minutes to download 30
second video as it's capped at something like 32 mbps. No streaming. macOs app
crashes just about every time I use it and lacks tons of features from iOS.
Probably worst decision I've ever made. Google Photos works 10x better.

~~~
syspec
If that is the worse decision you have ever made, you have lived a great life

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klmadfejno
For a while I would get news links in the side menu of my iphone that, when
clicked, would tell me I couldn't read it without Apple News+. I wasn't sure
how that differed from the oft-hated candy crush ads in windows. Idk if this
is still a thing.

That aside, this looks like a decent offering. I wonder how profitable it
actually is. Apple TV and Arcade have, by my understanding, not done great. I
don't have a sense for Apple Music personally but I don't know anyone locally
who uses it over Spotify.

~~~
fossuser
I've tried to switch to Apple Music a few times because the integration would
be nice (and I think Spotify's attack on the federated podcast ecosystem is
harmful and something I don't want to support).

I haven't been able to make the switch for a couple of reasons:

\- Spotify Discovery weekly playlists are a differentiator and nothing on
Apple Music comes close.

\- Apple's UI was terrible, maybe this has gotten better - but it was really
bad. Spotify isn't great here either and often changes things for no reason.
I'm not sure why it's so hard to just be able to add songs to a library and
then make playlists? Spotify's current UI has this now, but didn't have it for
a long time.

\- There are apps that allow you to sync your Spotify lists to apple music to
make it easier to migrate over, but there would often be stuff missing.

\- iTunes was bad, but since that's gone now it might no longer be a problem.

~~~
baddox
It's funny how people can have such different experiences. I'm currently
trialing a switch from Apple Music to Spotify, and the Spotify UI is
completely baffling. I cannot understand how they make it impossible to, just,
_browse the music in my library_. I just want to add songs to my library, then
browse my library by artist. This is, as far as I can tell, impossible with
Spotify.

But then again, music discovery is something I am absolutely not interested in
for my music player. Different strokes for different folks.

~~~
fossuser
I thought I didn't care about music discovery either, but for me that turned
out to just be because all the discovery I'd seen previously was bad. Spotify
Discovery weekly playlists are really good and getting a new one each week is
a really good model.

I generally agree with you on the UI, Spotify's is also bad. You can add songs
to 'liked songs' which is functionally the library (used to be called library,
before that was 'starred songs') and then sort by artist that way.

I have no idea what they're doing over there though changing that stuff every
couple of months. They have no idea how their UI should work, no design
consistency - it's generally bad.

Is the Apple stuff pretty good now?

~~~
EricE
Apple still has the radio station functionality (AI generated playlists on
demand, from a seed song you pick) and they also have curated playlists that
change on a routine basis as well. I far prefer Apples interface, and they are
slowly fixing the major issues with the Music app - it's not nearly as awful
as when it first launched and still way better than Spotify's UI for all
reasons already outlined.

~~~
fossuser
The seed song approach isn't very good.

I think the way Spotify discovery works is looking at songs you have favorited
and compares other human created playlists from users that have your favorite
songs, then taking songs from those playlists you haven't heard and putting
them in a list for you. I think they also do some modeling after that, but
it's secondary.

This works really well since there's a human selection element they're taking
advantage of and playlists tend to collect stuff that people who have the same
taste will probably like.

Radios based on seed songs I've found to be pretty unimpressive, similarly
curated playlists that don't know about your tastes are also uninteresting.

It's the combination that works.

The weekly distribution is also good because you get time to explore new stuff
each week (rather than just being overwhelmed) and you can further improve
things by liking/disliking new stuff.

Good to know the Apple UI improved though.

~~~
EricE
The radio playlists also take into account your ratings; I've found them to be
quite effective.

Also looking again at my Music app there is a Favorites Mix that isn't a radio
station but appears to be what you seem to be describing with Spotify
Discovery. I'd be shocked if both services didn't have similar functionality
at this point.

EDIT: Actually there is a whole "Made for You" section apparently I never paid
attention to before that is full of different automatically generated
discovery type playlists. Neat!

EDIT2: There are even more sections I hadn't noticed - yearly recaps, what my
friends are listening too (that one is scary; I have some friends with odd
tastes apparently) and more.

I think I need to spend less time in youtube and dedicate a bit more back to
music. Lots of good stuff I need to catch up on.

~~~
fossuser
Thanks! - Maybe it's time for me to try a migration again.

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pgrote
I don't know if Google can compete with them on this. I subscribe to Google
One (excellent live customer service), YouTube Premium, YouTube TV. All
services I think are good values. With apple coming out with this I am left
shaking my head.

* Used to subscribe to google play music, but grew confused by where they were headed and moved over to amazon music. Never tried stadia after the slow rollouts of games after it went live.

~~~
pavanky
It is worth it just for the amount of Youtube I watch. May be other people are
OK with the ads, but I am not. I bought the youtube premium subscription 4-5
years ago (even before it was a bundle) and am not disappointed.

I still have other subscriptions too (spotify, hbo, etc). I dont see them as
competing with each other.

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awa
Is there a reason to use spotify instead of youtube music?

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elldoubleyew
I ask myself this a lot as someone who pays for both Spotify and Youtube
Premium (which includes Youtube Music).

Youtube music has all of the music ever posted on youtube which is nice
because it means you can generally find almost anything there (even obscure
stuff not on Spotify). Unfortunately this can also make it harder to find what
you are looking for, youtube music is full of low quality user submitted
covers/remixes of songs that I don't want to hear but sometimes it plays
anyways. Sometimes youtube music will have versions of songs that were really
meant to accompany a music video and not the standalone song itself which is
annoying to say the least.

The app is also far less capable as a standalone music app. Never has any
lyrics, this weird concept of switching between video and audio, hard to view
all fo the work of a particular artist/group on one page, no continuity
between mobile and desktop a la Spotify. The hand curated playlists are also
updated less than the ones on Spotify. Interestingly the machine generated
recommendations from Spotify have also always been much better than that of
Youtube Music, which is strange given how good Youtubes video recommendation
algorithm has gotten in recent years.

On top of all of this I have been using Spotify since 2013; I have a massive
amount of music in my library there that I have no way of porting over to
Youtube Music.

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natrik
>Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, and iCloud storage (50GB) for
$14.95 a month

>The Family plan includes the same apps, but with 200GB of iCloud storage.
It’s $19.95 a month

Seems like a deal worth looking into considering I'm paying $10 a month for
Spotify alone. Not sure how the Apple TV lineup compares to Netflix though,
but the iCloud storage is a pretty nice add-on as well.

~~~
rstupek
Apple TV+ doesn't have even a fraction of the shows available on Netflix. Most
of their original content is, imo, quite good but there's not nearly enough of
it yet

~~~
christoph
Unless they start adding a fair amount of quality content, some of which is
must watch, on a more regular basis, I really can’t see continuing my 1 year
trial at this point in time. There’s just nowhere near enough content to
justify the cost, especially when I already have subs to Netflix, Amazon and
Disney. Against each of those services, their offering is truly paltry for a
similar price. Especially when you factor in everything you get with Amazon as
well (free ebook a month, unlimited photo storage and of course free next day
delivery).

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jonplackett
The harder Apple tries to kill Spotify. The harder I will hold onto Spotify -
signed up outside of the AppStore like everyone should.

I already spend £7 on 2TB iCloud, and £15 on Spotify family. So it would
_kinda_ make sense to swap. But I won't

Partly principle, but I also think they're really stingy with iCloud storage
amounts. Only 200GB for the medium tier? And I have to spend £30 a month for
2TB?

~~~
gen220
I'm also a spotify subscriber, but considering switching to apple music.

To put it bluntly, which one would you bet on being accessible in 10 years? As
much as I love what they do, I don't know if Spotify has proven that they're
financially sustainable (for themselves, or for artists).

Comparatively, Apple has a handful cash cows, and can afford to lose money on
the isolated vertical of "music".

~~~
loxs
Problem for me is I can't listen to Apple Music on my TV or on my work
computer (Linux). And their radio/random play is orders of magnitude worse
than Spotify's

~~~
jonplackett
The Apple Music app was a joke when I did their free trial a year or whenever
it was ago. All those stupid bubbles to choose genres...

I try to stick with the products that are a company's life blood - music is
hobby at best for apple.

Google have the best search because it's where all their money comes from.
Apple make the best phones for the same reason. Netflix have the best content
(and _by far_ the best tech) And Spotify have the best music app (except where
apple have made it impossible for them. eg watch)

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netcraft
Can anyone speak to how good the arcade is? My children play tons of different
games on the ipad/iphone and most of them are junk, pay to win and still tons
of ads. But im just not a sure about a subscription for games im not sure is
going to keep their interest over time.

~~~
ridiculous_fish
IMO it's shockingly good. Because there's no ads or IAP, the games optimize
for fun or story, and not addictiveness. It has a large and varied catalog,
but a high quality bar. I have never tried an Apple Arcade game and thought it
was junk. Instead I've found some real gems: Assemble with Care, Card of
Darkness, others

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nottorp
Did they end up adding anything that would be interesting for a "gamer"? I
checked the launch lineup and they were mostly casual stuff.

Anything more complex now?

~~~
ridiculous_fish
Yeah, it's casual, more for the Nintendo Switch crowd than Xbox. If you're
into AAA games, then Apple Arcade doesn't have much to offer.

~~~
nottorp
Oh it's worse. I'm an old PC gamer. Even the current AAA titles feel dumbed
down :)

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mikestew
If one uses Apple's services, this will be a welcome relief from getting
pinged six times a month with "We just charged your credit card for
$APPLE_SERVICE_1...", "We just charged your credit card for
$APPLE_SERVICE_2...", ad nauseum. Quit nickel-and-diming me and just charge me
once.

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tosh
product page: [https://www.apple.com/apple-one/](https://www.apple.com/apple-
one/)

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Tiktaalik
Probably a good move. Some of these services by themselves are compelling but
don't quite justify yet another $5 a month.

I recently myself cut out Apple Arcade. The games were obviously well beyond
the norm in quality, but it was difficult to justify in a pandemic when I'm at
home all day and not experiencing those commuting scenarios where short games
slot in.

As part of a bundle tho, Arcade increases the value.

~~~
mikestew
Those are exactly my thoughts on Arcade. Arcade served a purpose for me for a
while, and it's a quality offering IMO, but I was just yesterday setting a
reminder for me to cancel it. Even at a paltry $5/month we just don't use it
enough. But in a bundle...

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RandallBrown
With all subscriptions in the App Store canceling them retains access until
the end of your billing cycle. (Weekly subscription goes to the end of the
week, monthly the end of the month, etc.)

No need to set a reminder. With free trials I'll cancel them as soon as I sign
up to make sure I can't forget.

~~~
EricE
Yeah, but not with Apple TV+ or whatever it is. If you cancel the free trial
it terminates immediately.

I did discover today that you can now change it to monthly automatic renewal
instead of annual. But still pretty sleazy they don't let you schedule the
trial to just expire without having to remember to cancel to avoid a charge at
all.

~~~
gnicholas
Huh that's interesting, since with app subscription purchases, it's the
opposite (you get to continue using the free trial until it expires, even if
you cancel right after signing up.

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sairamkunala
Interesting to see they have cheaper pricing in India - $5/month for a family
subscription - [https://www.apple.com/in/apple-
one/](https://www.apple.com/in/apple-one/)

Usually, the hardware usually costs 30-40% more in India than the advertised
price in the US.

~~~
newscracker
Some regions have had lower pricing even before this. Apple Arcade alone has
always been about $1.3 per month in India, for example.

The higher hardware pricing is mainly because Apple doesn’t give up much on
its margins and because the import tariffs are high. The latter should go away
for some products that are being made locally there though.

~~~
tinus_hn
I don’t know how it works in India but in many countries the price displayed
includes VAT which it does not in the US. This can easily be a 20% difference.

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dan1234
I’d use Apple Music if only there was an easy way to get my play stats. I’ve
been using lastfm for over a decade, using it to build recommendations and
track my changing tastes.

Arcade and News aren’t really reasons to buy for me. I’d probably use them if
they were there, but I wouldn’t miss them and wouldn’t pay for them.

~~~
EricE
? It's not as obvious with the Music app but it's still there in the Music app
on the Mac. Just go up to the View menu and pick View as Songs and all the
columns that were in iTunes are there.

You can also still make Smart Playlists and with Smart Playlists you can slice
and dice away to your hearts content. You need an app if you are iOS only:
[https://www.cultofmac.com/636256/miximum-apple-music-
smart-p...](https://www.cultofmac.com/636256/miximum-apple-music-smart-
playlists/)

Speaking of apps, as others point out there are third party apps that can give
you even more insights.

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lacker
It's interesting to see Apple moving more towards an "Amazon Prime" model.
Subscription services make a lot of money, but it's annoying to manage a lot
of them, so perhaps it makes sense to trend toward "one large bundle per tech
company".

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Wowfunhappy
Anyone else find it odd that Apple News+ is locked to the most expensive
bundle?

Reports are that Apple isn't happy with its performance, so I'd think Apple
would want it in a lower tier bundle to entice people.

~~~
ianai
Maybe they’re hoping it’ll make it look more premium. Or they’re just
including everything at that tier.

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samschooler
Primary source Apple newsroom announcement:
[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-one-makes-
enjoy...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-one-makes-enjoying-
apple-subscription-services-easier-than-ever/)

Marketing page: [https://www.apple.com/apple-
one/](https://www.apple.com/apple-one/)

------
newscracker
Apple usually keeps things simple, but in this case, I want iCloud, Fitness+
and Apple Music. I don’t care much about Arcade or Apple News+ or Apple TV+
(with its tiny catalog that’ll be free for a year with new devices anyway).

~~~
EricE
I'm top tier with iCloud storage and I sub to Apple music. It's $20 more with
Premier that has everything since too am only really additionally interested
in Fitness+

Since you can share all of the above with family sharing and I need a bit more
that 200GB but not 2TB, I may split this with my family and I'll actually come
out ahead.

It all depends on how you slice it. at first I thought the Premiere was nuts,
but even without family sharing for $20 more a year its still cheaper than all
three individually. And I end up with everything (which gets them momentum in
the other services they need).

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yuters
I'd really like to know if the iTunes Match subscription is bundled with this.

~~~
baddox
Isn't Apple Music a superset of iTunes Match? I believe Apple Music also
includes the ability to match or upload 100,000 of your own songs.

~~~
yuters
I hope this is not the case, because it would mean that I'm currently being
charged twice for the same service.

~~~
EricE
You are. I dropped match last year and nothing changed.

It's a little annoying they don't remind folks that if you have Apple Music,
you really don't need match any more.

~~~
wrboyce
I explicitly asked Apple about this years ago and they said I needed to keep
iTunes Match. Was my CSR mistaken? I assumed it was for my tracks that are not
available on Apple Music.

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ogre_codes
This feels like a no-brainer for anyone who uses Apple Music (particularly the
family deal). Apple TV+ has turned out to be pretty solid, getting TV+,
additional cloud storage, and Arcade for $5 more seems simple.

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wiredfool
Has anyone else noticed that Apple Music and Itunes Store searches don't work
over Wireguard/PiHole?

I'm not sure if it's the setup, pihole, or that I'm coming from a cloud ip
address.

~~~
mikestew
No wireguard at our house, but there is pi-hole and we're working fine for
those two apps across devices (ATV, phone, mac, etc). Pi-hole has Steve
Black's list and a few others, nothing fancy. But without more details, I'd
just be guessing.

