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Apple Music Gaining New 'Voice Plan' for $4.99/Month
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I can see this maybe bringing in new customers for cheap, then getting them to go up a tier since they want the app. I'm happy with my family plan.
A joke.
Compilations that play 3 times in a row the same songs, try to play old bands like Genesis or Pink Floyd or Queen, the first 3 or four songs are the same song, just coming from a different album or a remaster. Playing songs in a language that is not the Siri language (example Siri set to English trying to play an Italian song) is impossible, you can be lucky if you twist the words so much that you have to laugh at yourself while doing so.
Ask Siri to play this song again and seven out of ten you get “ok, now playing Again, by xxxxx).
This plan makes them look ridiculous
Compilations that play 3 times in a row the same songs, try to play old bands like Genesis or Pink Floyd or Queen, the first 3 or four songs are the same song, just coming from a different album or a remaster. Playing songs in a language that is not the Siri language (example Siri set to English trying to play an Italian song) is impossible, you can be lucky if you twist the words so much that you have to laugh at yourself while doing so.
Ask Siri to play this song again and seven out of ten you get “ok, now playing Again, by xxxxx).
This plan makes them look ridiculous
Apples and horseshoes. Satellite radio audio quality is absolutely atrocious with crazy limited bandwidth. And you have no control over what you are listening to outside the century-old concept of stations. I'm not saying you're an idiot for enjoying Sirius — if it works for you it works for you — but these aren't remotely comparable things.
I don’t understand people’s confusion over this. A couple of years ago, my family thought it would be a good idea to get my dad an Amazon echo, so that he could listen to music (he was using YouTube on the TV for that). What happened when he was setting it up? There’s a cheap access to 2 million songs on Amazon music that he could subscribe to at £3.99 a month.
I kept saying that I was paying for Apple Music, so he should cancel Amazon music & I’d set up Apple Music on it for him. “I like Alexa” he said, but he didn’t really know what I meant & he just wanted to keep listening to music by telling Alexa to play what he wanted.
What Apple is doing here is the same thing. I eventually did cancel my dad’s Amazon music subscription & set up Apple Music on it for him.
I kept saying that I was paying for Apple Music, so he should cancel Amazon music & I’d set up Apple Music on it for him. “I like Alexa” he said, but he didn’t really know what I meant & he just wanted to keep listening to music by telling Alexa to play what he wanted.
What Apple is doing here is the same thing. I eventually did cancel my dad’s Amazon music subscription & set up Apple Music on it for him.
This along with the new $20 cloth... i.... i don't even know what to say anymore.
Literally nothing. It’s not an add-on, it’s a smaller plan than the standard with fewer features for people who are happy to only use Siri to access Apple Music.
Basically if all someone wants to do is play music over their HomePod, this is the plan for them.
Woah! I don’t like where this is going re: Apple.
So I get it if they merge this differentiation (voice plan) with subscribing to Apple Music. That would be fine. I can understand if they created this new thing for subscriptions to Apple Music where Siri can also control music played through Apple Music.
But to create a separate subscription plan for a feature called Voice Plan?
And also, will Siri not work with my own music in terms of finding my music, playing it, and so forth?
I don’t like how Apple looks to be nickle and diming these things by carving out (i.e., differentiations) things in this way. This is the 2nd thing in recent memory that I don’t like regarding Apple’s direction. The most recent one is the whole CSAM thing; what an f-up that is. (I hope the CSAM thing goes nowhere.)
So I get it if they merge this differentiation (voice plan) with subscribing to Apple Music. That would be fine. I can understand if they created this new thing for subscriptions to Apple Music where Siri can also control music played through Apple Music.
But to create a separate subscription plan for a feature called Voice Plan?
And also, will Siri not work with my own music in terms of finding my music, playing it, and so forth?
I don’t like how Apple looks to be nickle and diming these things by carving out (i.e., differentiations) things in this way. This is the 2nd thing in recent memory that I don’t like regarding Apple’s direction. The most recent one is the whole CSAM thing; what an f-up that is. (I hope the CSAM thing goes nowhere.)
Should have been free! And yes, Siri is really not as powerful as the other voice assistants out there.
Yeah, I thought of that was what they mean when I first read “Voice Plan”. But after reading it, what a f-up name. Sorry, that feature to be sold separately is stupid. They should just include it with subscription to Apple Music.
Yeah, my household never got used to using Siri. About the only time we use it is when we goof around. Other than that, nope. We even rarely use voice dictation, but we do once in a while when we can’t input by hand but Siri often gets the message wrong and we just don’t bother sending the message until we are actually able to interact by hand.
What a joke. Goodness!
Ah I see. That begins to make a little more sense.
But…does that mean currently you can’t play your own music over HomePod using Siri voice? I don’t have a HomePod so I don’t know.
This Voice Plan is just a watered-down Apple Music at half price.
You can already use Siri to control your Apple Music OR you can search with the Music App. With Voice you basically ONLY control via voice but do get to FF or RW a track or Like a track via a pop-up app screen.
currently I use Spotify on Mac (free) and Pandora on iPhone or Apple TV (free) and don’t really get much control. And I would have limited skips on Pandora.
With the plan I get the entire catalog from Apple Music. Can choose exactly what song I want. And skip unlimited tracks if I wanted. I’ve thought about getting a HomePod mini for thread support for Homekit devices. So this could get me to try Apple Music at a decent price point. I can still use Pandora on the HomePod Mini natively or even use Spotify via AirPlay basing it off my iPhone.
Also you can use Apple Music on other streaming smart speakers BUT you CANNOT use Voice plan on Non-Apple devices. You can use Voice on ANY (Siri-enabled) Apple device.
I came to this forum to understand the purpose. I still don't. It's going to be frustrating to keep repeating yourself after Siri says "Sorry, I Don't understand", when using a UI would be far easier.
Is Apple going to introduce a service for Siri to do all that ( Siri ) functionality that was removed in iOS15?
Is Apple going to introduce a service for Siri to do all that ( Siri ) functionality that was removed in iOS15?
Paying $5 more dollars a month to use the painful UI over the painful Siri experience? Thats going to be a hard no for me.
I see. This is a very helpful explanation. Thank you!
With a voice-only UI, how does one navigate the catalog? I guess you don’t? I guess you must know what song or album you want and request it to play. No browsing then, I suppose. That’s a bit bizarre….
You cannot navigate the catalog. All this plan does is allow you to ask Siri to play music from the Apple Music catalog.
Examples - ”Hey Siri, play Michael Jackson.” “Hey Siri, play Shake it off by Taylor Swift.” “Hey Siri, play a hiking playlist.” It will do those and that’s it.
You cannot use the Music app to play any music or playlists.
I thought this was really stupid. HOWEVER, I am sure Apple is trying to get a more budget friendly Apple Music plan to the people that are just not convinced that they want to pay $9.99 a month. Yeah I think its stupid but maybe people that are strapped for cash might be more convinced to subscribe.
Like a few others have said, I can see Apple bundling a 3,6 or 12 month voice service with homepod, possibly for free or at an every greater discounted rate. As an example scenario, you might buy your parents a homepod mini for christmas that they can put in the kitchen or lounge. With this plan or bundling, they can start listening to the music they want straight out of the box - no need to pay $10/m for something they're unlikely going to be fully utilizing.
I don't get why people keep saying it's only for HomePod users. You can use Siri to ask your iPhone to play a certain song and then you can listen to the song with your headphones or even connect your iPhone to a speaker system either directly with an adapter or perhaps with bluetooth.