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This is just an option for people that want to use it exclusively with their HomePods, but has no need to it on their phone or any other devices.

For everyone else, you can continue using your existing plan. That's all.
But wouldn't the HomePods need to work, in order to use this with them?

Because I have 2 mini's, and neither of them work all that well.
 
This for me is the biggest deal in the announcement, we have first gen Alexas in the house and subscribe to Amazons Alexa only music plan.

We’ve been tempted to replace them with HomePods but the monthly price of Apple Music £9:99 a month compared to Amazons Alexa only plan £3:99 a month was the deal breaker!

So I don’t get all the negativity, I can now replace 4 alexas with 4 mini HomePods and get a Siri music plan £4:99 a month to replace the Amazon version and I get to use it on my phone etc too.

Apple literally just took my money!! 😂
 
Now this is curage!

Since Siri misses half my request, mostly due to me not being a native english speaker, this is more like a random song please feature. I have sometimes asked for songs and sure enough get a song with the same name but different genre and artist that I was expecting.

I once asked for something like ”play this and that“ and got back “Guardians of the galaxy motion picture soundtrack is not available in your region”

why even reply at all Siri?
 
Uuuh no thanks. The entire point of these music services is that I can listen to what *I* want, not what the service thinks I want.

Sure it’s nice every one in a while to let Apple Music take the wheel and just play music based on my tastes, but it’s generally terrible at understanding what I like even after using it for months and encouraging it by liking and disliking tracks as they’re recommended to me.

i would never pay for a plan that only feed me music from curated playlists made by people with taste that is completely different from mine and music based on what I listen to, which is random because I don’t get to ask Siri to play me a specific song (unless I’m mistaken the little comparison table says you can’t play specific songs)

Also Siri is absolutely useless with Apple Music if your language is not set to English. I’m Italian and I can’t get Siri to play ANYTHING because it will not understand English no matter how you pronounce it. Until Apple makes Siri able to understand multiple languages at once this will be unusable for non speaking countries (or people who like music that’s not in English)
Seriously fire up Siri now and ask them to play you an Italian, Korean, whatever song and see how well that works for you.
 
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This could sell even more HomePods if Apple could just figure out how to set up a HomePod without using another Apple device. It still hasn't figured out how to set up an Apple Watch without using another Apple device.
 
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This for me is the biggest deal in the announcement, we have first gen Alexas in the house and subscribe to Amazons Alexa only music plan.

We’ve been tempted to replace them with HomePods but the monthly price of Apple Music £9:99 a month compared to Amazons Alexa only plan £3:99 a month was the deal breaker!

So I don’t get all the negativity, I can now replace 4 alexas with 4 mini HomePods and get a Siri music plan £4:99 a month to replace the Amazon version and I get to use it on my phone etc too.

Apple literally just took my money!! 😂
But Amazon gives you better quality with lossless audio at least on the newer echoes. Apple just gives you compressed audio and wants more money.
 
It’s pretty good actually. For those that have their own curated collection of music, but also have home pods, it’s pretty handy to ask it to play anything you want when in the kitchen, or with the kids, or otherwise needing a quick music fix. And it’s Apple Music at half the price.
I only every use Apple Music with my voice for the home pod or the car. So I’m now saving a fiver a month.
My actual music is not affected.
 
Uuuh no thanks. The entire point of these music services is that I can listen to what *I* want, not what the service thinks I want.

Sure it’s nice every one in a while to let Apple Music take the wheel and just play music based on my tastes, but it’s generally terrible at understanding what I like even after using it for months and encouraging it by liking and disliking tracks as they’re recommended to me.

i would never pay for a plan that only feed me music from curated playlists made by people with taste that is completely different from mine and music based on what I listen to, which is random because I don’t get to ask Siri to play me a specific song (unless I’m mistaken the little comparison table says you can’t play specific songs)

Also Siri is absolutely useless with Apple Music if your language is not set to English. I’m Italian and I can’t get Siri to play ANYTHING because it will not understand English no matter how you pronounce it. Until Apple makes Siri able to understand multiple languages at once this will be unusable for non speaking countries (or people who like music that’s not in English)
Seriously fire up Siri now and ask them to play you an Italian, Korean, whatever song and see how well that works for you.
You can ask for songs, playlists Albums etc, what you don’t get with this plan are music videos and lyrics
 
It will be interesting to see how well this tier sells. I don't know anyone who would use Apple Music exclusively with HomePods and not with their phones & tablets, but I'm sure Apple did their research into this.
 
It will be interesting to see how well this tier sells. I don't know anyone who would use Apple Music exclusively with HomePods and not with their phones & tablets, but I'm sure Apple did their research into this.
Somehow it makes it sound like you still can use the app for this...according to their website.

BUT. perhaps everyone should drop down for a bit and see if Apple thinks to lower the prices on all subscriptions—ok, never mind that wont really happen they dont mind their pricing
 
On the one hand, it's an attractive price.

On the other hand, it's not so attractive that I'm prepared to overcome my refusal to talk to my devices.
 
With the lower entry price, more people may sign up and then later on upgrade to the higher tier.
 
But… why?
Without the UI, you probably won't listen to as much. That is, you are far more likely to listen to only specific songs, rather than play with the UI to listen to wider range of music.

I personally welcome this lower priced tier, but it would've been nicer if Apple One was expanded with greater mix of services and price range.
 
If there’s a way through Siri to curate my own playlists, I’m in.

This would have been great for my grandfather, as he couldn’t really see or use apps once he was in his 90s. I’m sure it’s great for anyone with impaired vision, dexterity, movement, etc. They can use the parts of Apple Music that work for them without having to pay for the stuff they don’t use.

Lots of folks on these boards are very limited in their worldview and naive about just who Apple’s customers are. Their market includes the folks in this forum, sure, but it’s a LOT broader than this tiny slice of insanity.
 
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