Why You Shouldn't Buy The Apple Music Voice Plan

By the second quarter of 2021, Apple Music had around a 15% share of the global music streaming market, which worked out to around 78 million subscribers, according to Midia Research. Since its launch, the platform has received a number of improvements, including – most significantly – the addition of spatial audio and lossless audio at no additional cost for regular plans last June. This put a spanner in the works of competitors like Amazon Music HD and Tidal, which had been charging users extra for the privilege. Spotify had been planning to launch Spotify HiFi as a new tier by the end of 2021, but that seems to have been put on the backburner following Apple's free lossless and spatial audio announcements.

In October 2021, Apple added a new entry-level tier called the Apple Music Voice Plan. At just $4.99 per month, it is the cheapest way to listen to Apple's catalog of more than 90 million songs, thousands of playlists, and Apple Music Radio. If you've been sitting on the fence about getting an Apple Music subscription, the Apple Music Voice Plan might just be enough to convince you to sign on. 

The inexpensive tier is offered through the Apple Music app, but with it, you lose many of the features Apple built into the regular tiers of the Apple Music service that you would otherwise access through the app. Instead, subscribers use Siri as the primary interface for playing music.

While the Apple Music Voice Plan is the cheapest way into Apple's ad-free catalog, it does come with many caveats, the most obvious of which is, well, Siri. Originally a leader in natural voice recognition, Siri's halo has slipped in recent years. If you're a fan of a band that has an unusual name or songs with names that cannot be easily pronounced, you might find the voice-only interface a little frustrating, to say the least, as Siri may fail to understand the requests.

Although you can use the Apple Music app to search Apple's catalog, you cannot simply tap on a song as you would on a regular Apple Music subscription; you will still need to ask Siri to play the artist or the track. The only option left is to use the "Type to Siri" functionality to select the track or artist. As you can imagine, this isn't something you'll want to do every time Siri has difficulty recognizing a name.

Even if Siri doesn't have any issues understanding you, the voice-based interface is a major limitation when it comes to other aspects of using the service. While it's possible to ask Siri to play a song or an existing playlist curated by Apple Music, subscribers on this plan aren't able to make their own playlists. As well, users are unable to add music to their own libraries, which greatly limits one's ability to save and quickly listen to favorite albums and tracks.

Another big problem with the Apple Music Voice Plan is that it's limited to Apple devices. If you've been using Apple Music on your Android device, for example, you won't be able to try the Apple Music Voice Plan as it is not compatible with other assistants. The plan also limits audio quality to 256kbps AAC, meaning you won't be able to enjoy lossless audio or even spatial audio with Dolby Atmos. The Apple Music app will also restrict your ability to view song lyrics, which is a popular feature. There is also no ability to download songs, and, as a result, no offline music playback.

The most immediately obvious audience for the Apple Music Voice Plan seems, at first blush, to be students due to its low price tag. However, Apple offers a discounted Apple Music Student plan for $4.99, which is the same price as the voice plan. In light of that and all of the features scrubbed from the Siri option, it's a bit unclear who Apple is targeting with this cheap subscription tier. With so many clear downsides, it really is a struggle to recommend the Apple Music Voice Plan to anybody.