What you need to know about the Apple Music Voice Plan

Earlier in the year, alongside the rollout of the third-generation AirPods, Apple announced its plans to launch a new Apple Music product, called its Voice Plan.

The company called its new subscription tier for Apple Music as a service that was “built around the power of Siri,” offering users the chance to access all of the songs they know and love but in a new way. 

The Apple Music Voice Plan allows subscribers – who pay $4.99 per month – access to the service’s catalog of more than 90 million songs as well as tens of thousands of playlists, hundreds of brand new mood and activity playlists, personalized mixes, and genre stations, alongside Apple’s award-winning Apple Music Radio via Siri on their iPhone. Why? It allows Apple to offer a cheaper subscription product than its current entry-level $9.99 plan and better compete with Spotify, fulfilling a small but very genuine need for a service that helped users access music on their HomePod devices and AirPods without the full user experience.

Speaking of the new service, Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats, said: “Apple Music and Siri are natural partners and already work seamlessly together. With Siri actively used on hundreds of millions of devices worldwide, we are thrilled to add this new plan that delivers an effortless music experience just by using your voice and makes Apple Music accessible to even more people around the world.”

Users who have iOS 15.2 installed on their devices can subscribe to the new Voice Plan by heading to Siri – the command “Hey Siri, start my Apple Music Voice trial” will automatically set users off on a free trial, and have them subscribed to the $4.99 service thereafter.  Once they have subscribed to the Apple Music Voice Plan, users can then request music be played across all of their Siri-enabled devices, including HomePod mini, AirPods, iPhone, or any other Apple device, and when using CarPlay.

The service, naturally, has some major caveats: you can’t access the premium Apple Music user interface on your iPhone or Mac and can’t choose songs by typing or pressing – instead, every command has to be made via Siri. However, with intelligent playlists and the ability to pause and skip from your AirPods or the in-app controls on your iPhone or iPad, it’s a service that will be useful to a small section of the population, especially casual music listeners who don’t need the ‘full fat’ experience. 

Are you going to give the Apple Music Voice Plan a go? Let us know and check back soon for more!