Apple Music's Lower-Priced Voice Plan Being Discontinued

[Aoligei]

I would imagine they will both have to move over to a full subscription at some point.

If Apple force Voice plan holder to full subscription, then they should keep the price point. It is not our fault that voice plan gets discontinued. If not, I will cancel my voice plan.

Or I just creat Apple ID under China and buy Chinese Apple gift card, it is apparently ¥100 which is less than 20 USD for annually plan.

 

[Sunset Cassette]

It is bad. If you want listen to songs from other language, you will need to switch Siri to that language and you will need to speak that language. Because Siri in English mode doesn’t translate understand anything other than English. If I say Siri Play 青花瓷 by Jay Chou, it will play some English songs.

I sometimes wants to listen K-pop or J-POP, I need to switch to Korea or Japanese. Then I have to make it to typing mode, using Google Translate, translate to Japanese or Korea. Then it will play.

Luckily I speak Mandarin and I can use Siri to find Chinese songs. Even with native language, sometime Siri will play different songs.

That's a shame, I think if Siri were more robust (generally speaking), it could be an alright subscription for someone on a budget. I'm in the same boat with having a variety of songs from multiple countries of origin, so this definitely wouldn't have worked out for me either.

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

If Apple force Voice plan holder to full subscription, then they should keep the price point. It is not our fault that voice plan gets discontinued. If not, I will cancel my voice plan.

Or I just creat Apple ID under China and buy Chinese Apple gift card, it is apparently ¥100 which is less than 20 USD for annually plan.

It is but they come and put suicide nets up outside your house

 

[Aoligei]

It is but they come and put suicide nets up outside your house

Why not? Apple itself created this, I am just taking advantage of this.

 

[SidricTheViking]

It still shows for me (Ireland)!
Maybe it was a glitch and they’ve fixed it?

 

[isomorphic]

What's worse than Siri misunderstanding you is when it understands you just fine, but decides to play something wildly different—probably intentionally because it saves Apple money.

"Hey, Siri, play Hotel California."
"Now playing Hotel California (Techno 3000 remix inspired by the Wachowskis, Acoustic Live version)."

 

[klasma]

They should make a version where Siri sings all the songs.

 

[Attirex]

Reason: Everyone forgot about it, including Apple product management, until yesterday.

 

[philstubbington]

It is bad. If you want listen to songs from other language, you will need to switch Siri to that language and you will need to speak that language. Because Siri in English mode doesn’t translate understand anything other than English. If I say Siri Play 青花瓷 by Jay Chou, it will play some English songs.

I sometimes wants to listen K-pop or J-POP, I need to switch to Korea or Japanese. Then I have to make it to typing mode, using Google Translate, translate to Japanese or Korea. Then it will play.

Luckily I speak Mandarin and I can use Siri to find Chinese songs. Even with native language, sometime Siri will play different songs.

That sounds like a painful experience!

 

[Kar98]

> It's unclear why the Voice Plan was discontinued

It's unclear why the Voice Plan was offered in first place.

 

[Asthmatic Kitty]

This is actually a bummer for me: I’m a Spotify subscriber but I thought £5/month for Apple Music Voice was a decent deal so I could yell at my HomePod directly and not have to interact with my phone to use airplay. Not such an issue now that iOS 17 allows you to start airplay directly by talking to the HomePod, I suppose, but people say Apple Music has better audio quality and I could also try out some of their playlists as well. Oh well.

 

[jayducharme]

Given how flaky Siri is, I would never use that plan. As it is, Siri struggles to play anything correctly from my Music library. I think she's getting dementia, gradually losing the meager skills she used to have. I ran into several instances of asking Siri to play a specific track, to which she'd respond, "Signing you up for the Apple Music Voice Plan", because she thought I asked her to play something that wasn't in my library.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

Shocking, truly.

 

[klasma]

It still shows for me (Ireland)!

Same here.

 

[Aoligei]

They should make a version where Siri sings all the songs.

If Siri is more human sounds than robotic, it probably sings better than me.

 

[Aoligei]

That sounds like a painful experience!

It is. I keep the plan simply because it is cheapest way to access Apple Music.

It isn’t a pleasant experience when you are driving and using Apple Music.

 

[philstubbington]

It is. I keep the plan simply because it is cheapest way to access Apple Music.

It isn’t a pleasant experience when you are driving and using Apple Music.

It’s not that great using it English to be honest! I dread to think what it would make if I tried it in Spanish - I’ve been learning for a few years, but my accent is terrible I know.

 

[Mitchla]

Well, I used it and I loved it. Five bucks is the right price point for me. I only listen to Apple Music in CarPlay, on HomePods, or on AirPods. I don't need to have an interface to find things in. Just ask, and receive. Rarely have had any problems.

 

[ikunalz]

I do buy Apple hardware but always try and use non Apple software and services to discourage reliance on a single super mega evil corp.

Sme here. I like to be screwed by three or four super mega evil corps.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

So how long until Apple Music Classical gets axed?

 

[N0ughtsAndCr0sses]

 

[N0ughtsAndCr0sses]

Still exists. SS taken just now.

 

[darngooddesign]

"This is what I found on the web for hey Siri."

 

[antiprotest]

Yeah it was nonsensical and pathetic.

 

[kc9hzn]

Just a really awful service to offer unless you're exclusively using Apple Music through your HomePods or something.

That was probably the intention behind it. Since HomePods are pretty dependent on Apple Music, I guess the thought was to offer a way for someone who only wants smart speaker music streaming to use Apple Music. I think Apple probably expected the OG HomePod to do AirPods numbers (the price clearly isn’t a limiting factor based on how often I see AirPods Max on the subway, so it’s not unreasonable to think that Apple expected similar performance even at the higher price point), but then the OG HomePod was only a middling success, and the HomePod probably didn’t really sell until the Mini came out.

Additionally, someone who’s got HomePods is probably deep enough into the Apple ecosystem that they’d want to use Apple Music from with in the Music app, to download songs, use playlists, listen to Beats 1 or iTunes Radio stations and not just use it a la the Spotify free tier.