Apple Silently Bids Farewell To Its $5/Month Siri-Only Music Voice Plan

Apple Inc. AAPL has discontinued its $5 monthly Voice Plan for Apple Music, designed to enable Siri voice command access to its catalog. 

What Happened: Apple introduced the Voice Plan in October 2021, allowing users to access Apple Music’s catalog through Siri voice commands. However, as of Wednesday, the option has been removed from Apple Music’s subscription page, reported AppleInsider.

The company created a support page to address the discontinuation of the Apple Music Voice Plan. It explained that existing subscribers will retain access until their current subscriptions expire, at which point they’ll need to transition to a different Apple Music plan.

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Apple has justified this move by highlighting its commitment to providing the best music experience for its customers, with features such as Spatial Audio, real-time lyrics, browsing and discovery enhancements, and more. 

Notably, all Apple Music plans already support Siri integration, and Apple plans to continue optimizing this experience.

The Apple Music Voice Plan allows users to listen to songs, playlists, albums, and other content on Apple Music using voice commands. 

However, it didn’t support premium features like Spatial Audio, Lossless quality, offline song downloads, or lyrics display, the report noted.  

Why It's Important: Earlier this year, it was reported that Spotify had the most number of subscribers in the U.S., followed closely by Apple Music and Amazon Music. 

As of February 2023, Spotify had an impressive 44.4 million paid subscribers in the U.S., Apple Music boasted 32.6 million paid subscribers, and Amazon Music, a built-in perk for Amazon Prime subscribers, secured third place with 29.3 million paid subscribers in the country. 

Image: Shutterstock/ Wachiwit

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