Apple Quietly Kills Off Apple Music Voice Plan

It was a little over two years ago that Apple debuted a new $4.99 Apple Music Voice Plan to go alongside its colorful HomePod mini speakers. Now, it appears to have quietly killed off the more affordable plan.

While we’re never quite sure how much uptake the plan got, it seems like a safe bet that it wasn’t as popular as Apple had hoped. The plan was designed to provide access to Apple Music solely by voice. This was ideally done from a HomePod mini but was also possible from most other Apple devices with Siri support.

The Apple Music Voice plan offered up the entire Apple Music catalog, but it lacked important features such as Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, Lossless Audio, lyrics, personal music libraries, and social sharing, plus it didn’t work on third-party devices like the Amazon Echo.

Subscribers to the Apple Music Voice Plan also ended up with a dumbed-down experience in the Apple Music app with no ability to manually browse the Apple Music catalog or create personal playlists. Even the “For You” section was conspicuously absent. Instead, users were directed to make all their requests for specific songs by voice or choose from a new set of 250+ mood and activity playlists.

The Apple Music Voice Plan was only an individual plan. There were no family options available. Anybody in your home could use it on a family HomePod, but they’d need to purchase their own Voice Plan if they wanted to access it from a personal device like an iPhone.

Availability was also limited to only a handful of counties. In addition to the US, customers could only sign up for Apple Voice in Australia, Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan, and the UK. By contrast, the standard Apple Music plan is available in over 150 countries.

Needless to say, the Apple Music Voice Plan was a strange idea from the get-go. It might have made more sense if Apple bundled it with the HomePod mini; it could have been Apple’s way of matching up the ad-supported plans from rivals like Spotify. Apple has made it clear that an ad-supported tier is out of the question, but the voice plan with a HomePod mini purchase could make an excellent way of drawing more users into full paid Apple Music subscriptions.

The first hints of the plan’s demise were found in iOS 17.1 by the folks at 9to5Mac, but the final confirmation came earlier today when Brazilian site MacMagazine noticed the disappearance of the Apple Music Voice Plan subscription page from Apple’s website. Apple has also scrubbed all mentions of the service from its website.

While it’s unclear why Apple is canceling the plan, it’s most likely a combination of poor uptake and the increased costs of running the service. Last year, Apple Music increased by $1 per month, first with the student plan going to $5.99/month, followed by the individual and family plans increasing by $1 and $2 to $10.99/month and $16.99/month, respectively. At the time, Apple cited higher licensing costs for music, and it’s hard to imagine that the Apple Music Voice Plan was exempt from these. The timing suggests that Apple may have had a fixed-term pricing arrangement with the music labels that’s now coming to an end.

Since Apple hasn’t officially announced the elimination of the Apple Music Voice Plan, it’s also unclear how those still subscribed to it will be affected.

Update: Apple has now published a support article, “What happened to Apple Music Voice Plan?” that clears things up.

“Beginning in November, Apple will discontinue the Apple Music Voice plan. We are focused on delivering the best, most robust music experience possible for our customers, with features like immersive Spatial Audio, Apple Music Sing with real-time lyrics, intuitive browse and discovery features, and so much more. All ?Apple Music plans already work seamlessly with Siri, and we will continue to optimize this experience.”

Current subscribers to the plan will be able to finish out their subscription, but it will not renew after that. Those on a free trial will be able to continue onto a paid plan for a single month. In either case, subscribers will “receive a notification prior to the end of your final billing cycle with more information.”